Mr PM, this isn't you
The Hindu
The New Indian Express
Times of India
February 19, 2011 8:39:30 PM
Ashok Malik
Manmohan Singh blames everybody except himself and the Congress for everything that has gone wrong — from inflation to mega corruption.
Political scientists often talk of the ‘expectations revolution’, the urge in societies for public goods and responsive administration. In politics — as opposed to perhaps policy — there is another sort of expectations phenomenon. Public figures and elected leaders who raise hopes in one or the other area find themselves disproportionately criticised when they fall short of expectations. That hard message is a key takeaway from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s interaction with television editors earlier this week.
Mr Singh’s question and answer session was telecast live and watched keenly by relevant audiences. To a degree, he was being heard by his constituency: The urban middle classes, the policy elite and the intelligentsia. Irrespective of party preferences, this is a broad section that has a significant quantum of affection and respect for Mr Singh. It has seen him as a good man in politics, honest and straightforward, not an intriguer. Making one of his rare media appearances, he drew attention if for nothing else for the fact that he was the picture of sobriety. He did not raise his voice, spoke softly and, really, was a model for the sort of television debates that educated India would want to see if haranguing anchors and screaming politicians would permit.
Yet, in the end even Mr Singh’s partisans did feel a little disappointed, if not downright let down. The notion of trust that governed the relationship between the Prime Minister and middle India has been severely damaged in the past year. The media interaction did not reverse that process; it may actually have accentuated it.
In fundamental ways Mr Singh has changed. This was a man who gave his Government “six on 10” in a report card in 2005, one year after he became Prime Minister. Then, he was considered modest. He had public sympathy because he was running a very difficult alliance with regional parties and being blackmailed by the Left Front. This week, he insisted he (and presumably his Government) got things right “seven times out of 10”. Whatever else that grade may be, it is not India’s sense of how the UPA regime is doing. Though not quite hubris, the humility of 2005 has given way to an assessment that is, well, less-than-honest.
Mr Singh admitted mistakes had been made, but did so grudgingly. On specific questions — the delay in the Commonwealth Games investigation and the loss of revenue in the 2G Spectrum scandal — he was evasive. Everything seemed somebody else’s fault. The spectrum scandal was blamed on the then Telecom Minister (A Raja) and the then Finance Minister (Mr P Chidambaram). Agriculture/food inflation was blamed on marketing reforms not being undertaken by State Governments. Imperfect Cabinet formation was blamed on coalition compulsions.
There seems to be a trend here. The telecom scandal and corruption generally have been blamed on coalition politics and the DMK. A few weeks ago, Mr Rahul Gandhi blamed food inflation on coalition politics and presumably the NCP (which runs the Agriculture Ministry). Some in the Congress have chosen to blame delay in new land acquisition legislation on coalition politics and specifically the Trinamool Congress. Is the Congress responsible for anything at all?
Such excuses would have been explicable and valid in the first term of the UPA. The Congress had only 145 seats and was precariously placed. It needed to make a lot of compromises. In 2009, the Congress won 206 seats in the Lok Sabha election, just 66 seats short of an absolute majority. If you add the Trinamool Congress’s 19 seats, this creates a cushion of 225 seats. After all, Ms Mamata Banerjee’s party has no outrageous demands and no political or economic interests outside West Bengal. No ruling party has been so secure in any election since 1991. How then can Mr Singh point fingers everywhere other than in his (and his party’s) direction?
For all his protestations, the Prime Minister did not play with a straight bat. For instance, he said the goods and services tax regime has been in suspended animation because the BJP refuses to back it. The BJP is not supporting it, he suggested, because the Congress-led Government is going after Amit Shah, former Home Minister of Gujarat, in a criminal case that seeks to paint him as the mastermind of an extortion racket that used gangsters (such as Sohrabuddin Sheikh) and chosen police officers to threaten and coerce businessmen.
Many — and not all of them members of the BJP — feel the Central Bureau of Investigation’s case against Amit Shah is largely concocted and politically motivated. Nevertheless, a legal process is on. If the BJP made a blunt demand, and asked the Union Government to withdraw charges against Amit Shah in return for its support on GST, then it is a serious matter. Was such a transaction proposed and, one would imagine, rejected by the Prime Minister and the Congress? If so, when did this conversation take place, who were the participants? How different is Mr Singh’s vague allusion from the shoot-and-scoot tactics that a Congress spokesperson accused Opposition parties of only the other day?
The GST regime will do much to break inter-State trade barriers, rid India of artificial economic silos and make it a genuine national market. It is needed for a modern economy. However, the opposition to it is not coming from only the BJP, or only for political reasons. Different States are looking at the GST idea from their individual perspective, and not necessarily that of party affiliation. Even within the BJP there is a divide. States that have consumption-based economies will be immediate gainers should GST be introduced. States that have production or input-based economies will not and are bargaining for more and more compensation. Provisions in the draft GST law have also been opposed by Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Odisha, none of them ruled by the BJP. Amit Shah is irrelevant to all this.
Finally, though he may not have intended it that way, the Prime Minister’s juxtaposition of the under-pricing of spectrum with the subsidy on food rations for people living below the poverty line was extremely unfortunate. The principles that underpin the Right to Food cannot be extended to the Right to Spectrum. Meant as an abstract example of perceptions of correct pricing of resources, that comparison ended up sounding callous and insensitive. It spoke for what is the Manmohan Singh Government’s number one failing today: Disconnect from India.
-- malikashok@gmail.com
The PioneerAshok Malik
Manmohan Singh blames everybody except himself and the Congress for everything that has gone wrong — from inflation to mega corruption.
Political scientists often talk of the ‘expectations revolution’, the urge in societies for public goods and responsive administration. In politics — as opposed to perhaps policy — there is another sort of expectations phenomenon. Public figures and elected leaders who raise hopes in one or the other area find themselves disproportionately criticised when they fall short of expectations. That hard message is a key takeaway from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s interaction with television editors earlier this week.
Mr Singh’s question and answer session was telecast live and watched keenly by relevant audiences. To a degree, he was being heard by his constituency: The urban middle classes, the policy elite and the intelligentsia. Irrespective of party preferences, this is a broad section that has a significant quantum of affection and respect for Mr Singh. It has seen him as a good man in politics, honest and straightforward, not an intriguer. Making one of his rare media appearances, he drew attention if for nothing else for the fact that he was the picture of sobriety. He did not raise his voice, spoke softly and, really, was a model for the sort of television debates that educated India would want to see if haranguing anchors and screaming politicians would permit.
Yet, in the end even Mr Singh’s partisans did feel a little disappointed, if not downright let down. The notion of trust that governed the relationship between the Prime Minister and middle India has been severely damaged in the past year. The media interaction did not reverse that process; it may actually have accentuated it.
In fundamental ways Mr Singh has changed. This was a man who gave his Government “six on 10” in a report card in 2005, one year after he became Prime Minister. Then, he was considered modest. He had public sympathy because he was running a very difficult alliance with regional parties and being blackmailed by the Left Front. This week, he insisted he (and presumably his Government) got things right “seven times out of 10”. Whatever else that grade may be, it is not India’s sense of how the UPA regime is doing. Though not quite hubris, the humility of 2005 has given way to an assessment that is, well, less-than-honest.
Mr Singh admitted mistakes had been made, but did so grudgingly. On specific questions — the delay in the Commonwealth Games investigation and the loss of revenue in the 2G Spectrum scandal — he was evasive. Everything seemed somebody else’s fault. The spectrum scandal was blamed on the then Telecom Minister (A Raja) and the then Finance Minister (Mr P Chidambaram). Agriculture/food inflation was blamed on marketing reforms not being undertaken by State Governments. Imperfect Cabinet formation was blamed on coalition compulsions.
There seems to be a trend here. The telecom scandal and corruption generally have been blamed on coalition politics and the DMK. A few weeks ago, Mr Rahul Gandhi blamed food inflation on coalition politics and presumably the NCP (which runs the Agriculture Ministry). Some in the Congress have chosen to blame delay in new land acquisition legislation on coalition politics and specifically the Trinamool Congress. Is the Congress responsible for anything at all?
Such excuses would have been explicable and valid in the first term of the UPA. The Congress had only 145 seats and was precariously placed. It needed to make a lot of compromises. In 2009, the Congress won 206 seats in the Lok Sabha election, just 66 seats short of an absolute majority. If you add the Trinamool Congress’s 19 seats, this creates a cushion of 225 seats. After all, Ms Mamata Banerjee’s party has no outrageous demands and no political or economic interests outside West Bengal. No ruling party has been so secure in any election since 1991. How then can Mr Singh point fingers everywhere other than in his (and his party’s) direction?
For all his protestations, the Prime Minister did not play with a straight bat. For instance, he said the goods and services tax regime has been in suspended animation because the BJP refuses to back it. The BJP is not supporting it, he suggested, because the Congress-led Government is going after Amit Shah, former Home Minister of Gujarat, in a criminal case that seeks to paint him as the mastermind of an extortion racket that used gangsters (such as Sohrabuddin Sheikh) and chosen police officers to threaten and coerce businessmen.
Many — and not all of them members of the BJP — feel the Central Bureau of Investigation’s case against Amit Shah is largely concocted and politically motivated. Nevertheless, a legal process is on. If the BJP made a blunt demand, and asked the Union Government to withdraw charges against Amit Shah in return for its support on GST, then it is a serious matter. Was such a transaction proposed and, one would imagine, rejected by the Prime Minister and the Congress? If so, when did this conversation take place, who were the participants? How different is Mr Singh’s vague allusion from the shoot-and-scoot tactics that a Congress spokesperson accused Opposition parties of only the other day?
The GST regime will do much to break inter-State trade barriers, rid India of artificial economic silos and make it a genuine national market. It is needed for a modern economy. However, the opposition to it is not coming from only the BJP, or only for political reasons. Different States are looking at the GST idea from their individual perspective, and not necessarily that of party affiliation. Even within the BJP there is a divide. States that have consumption-based economies will be immediate gainers should GST be introduced. States that have production or input-based economies will not and are bargaining for more and more compensation. Provisions in the draft GST law have also been opposed by Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Odisha, none of them ruled by the BJP. Amit Shah is irrelevant to all this.
Finally, though he may not have intended it that way, the Prime Minister’s juxtaposition of the under-pricing of spectrum with the subsidy on food rations for people living below the poverty line was extremely unfortunate. The principles that underpin the Right to Food cannot be extended to the Right to Spectrum. Meant as an abstract example of perceptions of correct pricing of resources, that comparison ended up sounding callous and insensitive. It spoke for what is the Manmohan Singh Government’s number one failing today: Disconnect from India.
-- malikashok@gmail.com
The Hindu
The New Indian Express
Times of India
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