Commentary/Dilip Thakore
The end has begun for the 13-party government
It's the beginning of the end of the 13-party coalition government
in New Delhi. A tide of opinion is building up within the general
populace that the Deve Gowda led coalition government has served
its purpose of confirming the popular belief that coalition governments
don't work.
Now it's only a question of when rather than whether, the Gowda
government will collapse under the growing weight of its contradictions.
The pathetic inability of this unwieldy coalition, which is going
through the motions of ruling in New Delhi, to move either forward
or back is most tellingly demonstrated by its conscious failure
to implement any of the economic policies set out in its Common
Minimum Programme.
The well drafted CMP generated considerable enthusiasm when it
was made public six months ago at the time the Janata Dal led
coalition government under its surprise-choice 'humble farmer'
former Karnataka chief minister H D Deve Gowda was sworn into
office.
Six months later the CMP remains what it was then: a noble statement
of intent.
One of the first promises made in the CMP is that the new government
would give some impetus to the long standing proposal to privatise
the grossly inefficient, resource guzzling public sector enterprises
which straddle the economy like a giant albatross.
In particular, the CMP promised to set up a Disinvestment Commission
under the advice of which it would privatise public-sector enterprises
in "non-core, non-strategic areas". With great political
correctness the CMP declared the government's intent of deploying
the proceeds of such privatisation for primary education and health
care for the unwashed masses.
Six months later, not even public-sector bread manufacturing or
hotel companies have been sold to generate revenue for the discharge
of the basic educational and health-care functions of the government.
Each time a proposal is articulated to implement this commonly
agreed programme of the coalition government, Big Brother (communists)
begin to make threatening noises.
Likewise, the proposed Expenditure Commission which would recommend
ways and means to prune government expenditure to rein in the
federal government's ominous fiscal deficit, remains a dead letter.
Despite finance ministry claims that government expenditure is
under control the indications are that the axe is falling on plan
or capital expenditure rather than on non-plan or current expenditure
as the prime minister tours the nation promising additional subsidies
to farmers, small-scale industry and government servants.
With the result that the stated goal of reducing the federal government's
fiscal deficit to 5 per cent remains a fond hope.
Another declaration of intent within the CMP, which aroused considerable
enthusiasm, is the target set to attract $10 billion per year
into the Indian economy by way of foreign investment.
With Big Brother inside the government firmly set against the
inflow of multinational money and expertise into India, this target
remains a mirage even as already committed foreign investors are
being given the usual run around to get their projects off the
ground.
In particular, the Deve Gowda government has attained precious
little success in attracting foreign investment into the vital
infrastructure industries - coal, power, highways, urban construction,
oil exploration - despite the nation's infrastructure tottering
on the point of collapse.
On the contrary, the government's proposed infrastructure Development
Finance Corporation for which the government made a budgetary
allocation of Rs 50 billion has generated little enthusiasm.
Recently the World Bank declined to subscribe to the capital of
this yet another public sector company unless the federal government
reduces its fiscal deficit and accelerates its privatisation programme.
Meanwhile foreign investors in the scandal-ridden telecom industry
are crying foul, alleging that new conditions are being attached
after the award of contracts for the provision of basic and cellular
services. What a mess!
And presiding over this unholy mess created by a coalition government
perpetually speaking with contradictory voices is the unprepossessing
personal of Prime Minister Deve Gowda who has emerged as the Uriah
Heep of Indian politics.
Those who have read Charles Dickens' monumental novel David Copperfield
will remember Heep as the character who concealed his unbridled
ambition and unscrupulousness under the cloak of his self-proclaimed
humility.
Some men of modest accomplishments grow into the great office
into which they are thrust by the hand of providence. Deve Gowda's
predecessor Narasimha Rao was such an individual who despite being
indicted for a plethora of corruption charges is likely to be
sympathetically judged by historians. Deve Gowda is not such an
individual.
Despite having been plucked from parochial obscurity and pitchforked
into the most powerful office in the nation, he has remained a
small-time caste-obsessed, amoral petty politician given to casual
corruption.
One of his first initiatives upon attaining the office of prime
minister was to mastermind the expulsion of Ramakrishna Hegde,
the man who blooded Deve Gowda into Karnataka politics, from the
Janata Dal. And even though he has the whole nation to govern,
Deve Gowda has not abandoned his role as the chief puppeteer of
Karnataka politics, stooping even to dictate the choice of mayor
of Bangalore.
Conscious perhaps that he has a short lease on the office of prime
minister, Deve Gowda is working overtime to keep his electoral
base in Karnataka state politics in good repair.
Meanwhile, to lengthen his lease on the most powerful office in
the country, Deve Gowda is playing the same caste politics which
have won him handsome electoral dividends in Karnataka on the
national stage.
The ghost of Mandal is being resurrected with Deve Gowda promising
to extend caste-based employment reservations to private-sector
industry.
And even as the fiscal deficit is threatening to run out of control,
Deve Gowda has been promising larger fertiliser and food subsidies
for farmers and the poor.
Simultaneously, in keeping with the rural tradition of casual
corruption, this self-proclaimed humble farmer has no compunctions
about taking along whole entourages of friends, relations and
hangers-on when he embarks on his foreign tours at public expense.
Gowda often proclaims from public forums that as a humble farmer
he does not understand business and economics. But he is perhaps
the first prime minister of independent of India to have transformed
ignorance into a virtue.
It is this ignorance of democratic conventions and proprieties
which have been utilised as an excuse to censor television newscasts
and critical literature. And it is this same self-serving naiveté
which prompts travel bills without explaining the sources of his
extraordinarily large income.
All this at a time when the courts are cracking down on ministerial
corruption and the abuse of political office! It's symptomatic
of astonishing prime ministerial insensitivity.
Deve Gowda's moral insensitivity seems to be matched by his political
insensitivity. Though the Congress party upon whose support in
Parliament the coalition government is regrouping with the imminent
ouster of Narasimha Rao as the leader of the Congress parliamentary
party, it's business as usual for the prime minister.
The epitaph of the 13-party coalition government led by Deve Gowda
is clearly discernible on the proverbial wall. Trust this apotheosis
of a mediocrity to be unable to read it.
Dilip Thakore is the founder-editor of Business India and
Business World and former eidtor of Debonair.
|