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RIGHT
ANGLE
Now for the Home Front
By
Swapan
Dasgupta
The Government
is neglecting the task of selling reforms politically
 The
victory of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the NDA in 1998 and 1999 didn't merely
reflect the Indian electorate's yearning for stability, it also epitomised
a desire for change. As he concluded his US visit with the announcement
that India was now on course with history, Vajpayee signalled the fruition
of a major foreign policy shift that began with the nuclear tests of May
1998. It can now rightfully be said that India counts for far more in
the world today than it did two years ago. More important, this newly
acquired relevance has successfully combined national security, economics
and the clout of the Indian diaspora. Under Vajpayee, India has junked
much of its archaic Nehruvian baggage and pursued an alternative course
diligently and with some finesse.
In breaking
out of the pariah status the hyperactive non-proliferation lobbies sought
to confer on India after Pokhran-II, the Government played the economic
diplomacy card aggressively. The wave of deregulation that followed the
N-tests was primarily aimed at informing the West that the enticements
of Lakshmi count more than commitments to doctrinaire unipolarity. Consequently,
foreign direct investment and institutional investment were made attractive
and the country rushed through its WTO obligations even before schedule.
The pace and priorities of economic reforms were almost exclusively-the
promotion of information technology is the great exception-dictated by
the exigencies of international relations.
As demonstrated
by the success of Vajpayee's US visit, the move is beginning to pay returns.
At the same time, there has been an unintended political cost of this-almost
obsessive-preoccupation with foreign policy. There is anger over the onrush
of cheap imports that threatens to bankrupt small-scale entrepreneurs
who had prospered in a protected environment. There is restiveness in
the backward Hindi heartland and eastern India over the growing disparity
between regions. At the same time, the more successful states are resentful
of having to subsidise their more slothful counterparts. To cap it all,
despite the supportive resolutions at the Nagpur national council, the
BJP is emotionally divided in its support for the Vajpayee Government
and the economic nationalism of the swadeshi activists.
Sushma Swaraj's
assertion in Nagpur that the Government must first convince the party
of the wisdom of its economic policy before the party can convince the
people, touches the core of the problem. Apart from being dictated by
foreign policy, the reforms have by and large been followed by a top-down
command approach. There has been almost no attempt to sell them politically.
Even the enormous populist potential of disinvestment hasn't been exploited
by a party committed to dismantling socialism. Given his health problems
and discomfiture with economics, Vajpayee has been non-communicative about
the political rationale behind reforms. He has made many right moves but
without explaining why. The larger goal behind the painful process of
structural adjustment has been left unaddressed.
Nor have
his ministers undertaken the task. Amid a growing, and slightly distasteful,
personality cult around Vajpayee, they have confined themselves to narrow
departmental functions for fear that a larger political role will be misconstrued
as evidence of overweening ambition. It's this fundamental insecurity,
masked in a cloak of sycophancy, that is preventing the Government from
grasping its underlying vulnerability.
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