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| July 03, 2000 | ||
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| Babu
Culture Part engaging, part boring manual from a new convert to reform By P. Chidambaram PLAIN SPEAKING In his stints as a minister in Congress and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) governments, or when he first became chief minister in 1995, Naidu did not reveal any passion for economic or political reforms. For example, in 1994 as the TDP's general secretary, he campaigned vigorously for reintroducing prohibition and the Rs 2 per kg rice scheme. It was only after 1996 -- when Andhra Pradesh faced bankruptcy -- that Naidu seems to have started on a learning process, and in the middle of 1997, egged on by the World Bank, he outlined a reform programme for rescuing his state. Among the first casualties in the post-1996 reform period were prohibition and the Rs 2 per kg rice scheme! Plain Speaking is the story of Naidu's efforts in reforming governance in Andhra Pradesh. The book can be best described as Naidu's account of the learning process that he went through. In some respects it is a self-serving account and there are embellishments -- all of which can be easily forgiven in a convert to the cause of reform. The book is divided into four parts and 15 chapters, but since it is not a story with a beginning and an end, the reader can start anywhere and go back and forward. There is a good deal of repetition, presumbly because Naidu believes that some ideas bear repetition. At the end there emerge three recurring ideas, which capture the essential Naidu and for which he will be both praised and criticised. First, Naidu believes in the efficacy of government, not small or downsized government, but all-pervasive government. Second, he believes in planning, very detailed planning, including setting goals for each village. Third, he believes in alternative structures to representative democracy: "I believe people's direct participation in governance is different from representative democracy." Among the most engaging accounts are how Naidu's government computerised the notoriously corrupt department of registration, how Naidu implemented his three-point agenda with Bill Gates and how he takes his passion for it seriously by providing a variety of it-enabled services. There have been some brilliant innovations, like the statutorily empowered Water User's Associations and the scheme for performance-oriented transfers of teachers and forest officials. Making schools accountable to parent teacher associations was also a significant reform. Some parts of the book are pedestrian and utterly boring. I suspect that on at least three subjects -- power, environment and family planning -- Naidu has simply lifted policy notes or pages from his government's many white papers. The officialese is too obvious to be missed. Naidu has dodged some hard issues such as downsizing government, privatising state-owned enterprises and how he will finance his ambitious Vision 2020. Nevertheless, the book should be made mandatory reading for aspiring chief ministers, particularly of the neo-literate kind. They will benefit from Naidu's candour. Examples:
The World of Malgudi G.D. Birla Kidnapped Innocence The Nutrition Challenge for Women Authorial Intention Revisited Assassination and Peace Inventing Boundaries |
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Nara
Chandrababu Naidu is a politician completely unaffected by dogma or
ideology. He claims, repeatedly, that he took an MA in economics and was
working on his PhD, but there is no evidence that during that period he
acquired or embraced any economic philosophy. The nearest clue is that
Naidu's chosen subject for his thesis was the economic policies of N.G.
Ranga.