Author: Editorial
Publication: The Free Press Journal
Date: April 10, 2006
URL: http://www.samachar.com/features/100406-editorial.html
Back in the 70s when Mrs Gandhi was putting
artificial clamps on economic growth in the name of `garibi hatao' and implementing
her own peculiar brand of socialism, it had become second nature for her followers
to dub anyone talking economic sense as an agent of capitalists. Dhirubhai
Ambani had yet to make his first million.
Invariably, it were the Tatas and the Birlas
who were caricatured on the stump by Congressmen and Commies as if they were
carnivores feasting on the cheap labour of toiling Indians. Of course, the
crazy imagery was meant only to fool the great unwashed masses into keeping
the corrupt rulers in power indefinitely.
Therefore it was poetic justice when in the
early 90s under the intense pressure of the IMF-World Bank combine the same
party was obliged to abandon its socialistic straitjacket and embrace the
cause of economic liberalisation, nay, pragmatism.
Manmohan Singh as an economic bureaucrat had
rather enthusiastically tightened the screws on corporate India in the name
of socialism, impeding its growth potential. He had been a senior economic
bureaucrat in successive governments in New Delhi. And done everything to
raise the socialistic content in state policy at the behest of his political
masters.
Now in his new avatar as Finance Minister
in the Narasimha Rao Government he was made to dismantle a good part of the
very license-quota regime he had himself helped put in place. While keen observers
noticed the sharp U-turn he had taken in first enforcing strict production
and distribution controls and then removing them in the post-90s phase, he
himself seemed blissfully unaware of the inherent irony in his professional
career.
Only weeks before he became the Finance Minister
of India, and in that capacity felt obliged to embrace the path of reforms
and liberalisation, he had argued forcefully in favour of socialism at a South:
South seminar.
Amazingly, he did not protest when they sought
to make him out as if he was the real father of reforms. He wasn't. He was
merely following the dictates of his latest masters who this time were in
Washington and not in New Delhi. Economic bankruptcy had stared India in the
face in the early 90s. The Fund-Bank agreed to rescue provided India opened
up its economy.
In other words, Singh can be relied upon to
do the bidding of his masters, whoever they might be. Therefore it was not
surprising at all that be it Goa or Jharkhand, Bihar or Quattrocchi, the gentleman
Prime Minister did not bat an eyelid, dutifully doing the bidding of those
who had catapulted him into the prime ministerial `gaddi'.
Since even his worst critics concede that
financially he stood to gain nothing from monkeying around with the constitutional
law and norms in pushing the partisan interests of the Congress leadership
in all the above cases, it is clear that he has a strong `jee-huzoor' trait
in his mental make-up which makes him obey blindly his masters of the day.
Thus everything Sonia Gandhi wants him to do, he does without a murmur of
protest.
After all, as Finance Secretary under Charan
Singh he had slapped high duties on soaps and toothpaste and such like items
of daily use only because the late BLD leader wanted him to attack what he
had perceived to be the urban constituency of the BJP. Singh willingly enforced
the late PM's diktat because questioning his superiors is not part of his
character.
The latest reshuffle of the Cabinet further
underlines a complete lack of vertebrae in the prime ministerial body. He
was well aware that Home Minister Shivraj Patil and Law Minister Hansraj Bhardwaj
had caused him much embarrassment, but he could not, would not, move them
out of their current ministries for fear of annoying their real boss in 10
Janpath.
As Home Minister, the blame for Jharkhand,
Goa, Bihar, et al must be laid at the doorstep of that colourless and clueless
Patil. As for Bhardwaj, it is public knowledge that he went to great lengths
to ensure that Rs 21 crores of the Bofors loot was finally delivered to that
Italian fugitive from the Indian law.
Dropping Bhardwaj from the Cabinet was never
on the agenda of the helpless PM. But the spineless PM could not even replace
the crude Bhardwaj as Law Minister with an able and well-regarded Kapil Sibal.
L. K. Advani has a point when he insists that Manmohan Singh is the weakest
PM the country has had.
This can only tarnish the image of the country
and hold it back from attaining its full economic, social and political potential.
