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VIEWPOINT: FIFTH COLUMN
Petty
Politics
When will our politicians get over their ego problems
and start examining real issues?
By Tavleen Singh
What an interesting
lesson in why India remains a poor and backward country the prime minister
and the leader of the Opposition treated us to last week. I speak of the
spat between the two which grabbed headlines and turned into the most
meaningless and trivial political debate we have seen in a while. In fairness
to A.B. Vajpayee he probably did not anticipate that his little lecture
on parliamentary decorum would provoke Sonia Gandhi into full tu tu main
main mode. As the country's elder statesman he merely tried to point out
that using abusive language in the Lok Sabha and disrupting the entire
budget session was really not good for the country. At Rs 9.94 lakh per
hour of adjournment it is a shocking waste of taxpayers' money but Signora
chose to take his remarks personally and responded likewise. How dare
you sermonise, she said in high dudgeon, when you lot called my sweet
mummy-in-law a thief in this very House, when you "crucified"
my husband, when you call me and my poor, innocent children thieves. Who
are you to talk?
 Then
it was Vajpayee's turn to take things personally. "I fail to understand
how my speech provoked such an angry and personalised outburst from the
leader of the Opposition," he said in hurt tones. "Such episodes
lower the prestige of Parliament." They do indeed and they do much
worse. They make us the people realise that if this is the sort of issue
that excites the passions of our highest political leaders then we better
stop relying on them to do anything for the country. If India is to emerge
from poverty and despair, we will have to rely on the initiative of citizens
and civil society. Fortunately, more and more people are becoming aware
of this.
Even as Vajpayee and Sonia were indulging in
their schoolyard slanging match, an important citizens' initiative was
under way in Delhi, not too far from Parliament. Naturally, no major politician
bothered to grace the event and the press ignored it because it was too
preoccupied with covering the big fight.
Had they spared the time they might have discovered
that the two-day conference organised by the Centre for the Study of Developing
Societies (CSDS) and Manushi magazine was an important first step towards
getting ordinary Indians to understand the importance of economic liberalisation.
By a strange coincidence, the CII, which has been the most vocal supporter
of economic reforms, was also holding its annual meeting in Delhi around
the same time but appears not to have noticed the significance of the
other conference. If it had it might have understood that the main reason
why economic reforms have not been supported by ordinary Indians is that
they have till now affected only the lives of big businessmen and foreign
investors. Ordinary citizens continue to face the brunt of the inspector
raj.
Unfortunately, the battlelines have been clearly
drawn on economic reforms. On one side we have big business, foreign investors,
MNCs and a handful of hacks (your humble columnist included) who have
tried to make the point that governmental interference in the economy
is one of the main reasons why India remains poor. On the other side of
the divide we have the self-appointed representatives of "the poor":
leftist intellectuals and politicians, NGOs, trade unions and the swadeshi
gang. They argue that withdrawal of the state from the economic process
amounts to surrendering the country to big business and foreigners. And
because they supposedly speak for the poor their voice gets heard more.
In the process, the voice of the real poor-hawkers,
rickshawallahs, vendors, weavers, small farmers-has gone unheard. The
CSDS conference was the first attempt to make it heard. Attending were
not only luminaries like M.S. Swaminathan, Sharad Joshi and Anil Aggarwal
but also ordinary people. They may not understand the meaning of liberalisation
but understand well the meaning of government interference in their lives.
Rickshawallahs talked about the problems they
face trying to eke out a living in the face of constant harassment from
officialdom and the police. Small farmers spoke of the restrictions placed
on them by policy makers who have no understanding of their problems and
textile workers told their tales of woe. Businessmen representing textile
and sugar mills were also present and Vajpayee and Sonia could have learned
how to have a dialogue without fighting.
More important, though, was the attempt to articulate
why liberalisation is important not just for rich businessmen but for
the poorest of the poor. It is they who suffer most due to unthinking,
insensitive laws and policies. It is the plight of these people that our
two most important leaders should be worrying about, not their own pathetic
ego problems.
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