March 30, 1998
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Words,
Words, Words The BJP-led alliance's National Agenda for Governance confuses rather than clarifies
Its authors will no doubt defend NAG by stressing that managing a 13-party combination is about harmonising contradictions, taking a broader view and eschewing contentious subjects. All this is true; but so is the fact that power is about governance, not learning how to keep the flock together. If NAG's resolute confusion is a precursor of the new government at work, India has little to look forward to. The exigencies of coalitional politics made possible only two options for NAG: a muddling, overarching document or a specific, time-bound agenda for key, non-controversial sectors. To India's misfortune, the BJP and its friends chose the easier option. Ambivalently done is not quite well begun. Lip-Service to Morality
It is nobody's case that alcohol should flow freely in Haryana -- indeed, anywhere -- only to fill coffers. The important lesson from the state's "dry" spell is that change cannot take place by simply promulgating laws. Prohibition itself -- whether in the United States of the '20s or the Maharashtra of the '50s or, indeed, contemporary Gujarat -- only facilitates a gangster culture fuelled by illicit liquor. Thus the very cleansing of society, which prohibition claims to promote, is effectively reversed. In any democracy a government gets a mandate to rule, to benefit society by enlightening it. Election to office does not imply a licence to ban, to censor and, essentially, treat the citizen like a truant schoolchild. Unfortunately, Indian politicians are prone to overusing the negative powers of the state, often to simply distract attention from their inability to govern purposefully. If governments in this country truly want to benefit those they rule over, they must look beyond the temptation to say "no". Perhaps education may help where prohibition didn't. |
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For a party so focused in its treatment of issues while in the opposition,
the BJP's National Agenda for Governance (NAG) is a disappointment. The eight-page
document was meant to be a categoric statement of intent on behalf of the BJP and its
allies. Instead -- in the best traditions of the Congress-type politics which the ruling
coalition so despises -- it only strives to mean all things to all people. Why, even NAG's
"berozgari hatao" call sounds suspiciously similar to -- and suspiciously as
specious as -- Indira Gandhi's "garibi hatao" slogan. NAG's commitment to
swadeshi too is mysteriously worded. Rather than take recourse to homilies like
"India shall be built by Indians", it would have done well to spell out the
parameters of economic protectionism. In the section on national security comes the
breathtaking promise to "re-evaluate the nuclear policy and exercise the option to
induct nuclear weapons". The second clause only makes the first one entirely
redundant. It is such exasperating absence of logic which comes in the way of commending
NAG's desire to set up a commission to review the Constitution. If the basic law of the
land is to be amended, it is incumbent to explain, at least broadly, the lacunae which
need to be filled. 
There is a certain irony in the fact that Haryana will revoke its prohibition
policy on April 1, All Fool's Day. The two-year experiment in misplaced morality has only
helped Chief Minister Bansi Lal's Government reduce itself to a joke. Despite creating a
whole ministry to enforce the ban on sale and consumption of alcohol, Haryana paid only
lip-service to prohibition. Bootleggers and corrupt officials -- prohibition created the
most petty inspector raj imaginable -- made a mockery of the much-vaunted claims of social
uplift. As was the experience of Andhra Pradesh a couple of years ago, prohibition caused
a revenue loss which left Haryana's economy bleeding. So disappointing has been Haryana's
bout of enforced abstinence, that the ruling alliance suffered a humiliating defeat in the
recent Lok Sabha elections. 
