WILL THE OUTCOME OF ELECTIONS HELP US
TO MOVE FORWARD?
In the
current elections we are faced with two options. Option no one is whole sale Neo Liberal
economy or directionless opportunist politics.
In the first option we have two political parties, the Congress and the
Bharatiya Janata Party. In the second
option we have all and sundry parties at regional level, which at one time come
under third alternative, another time federal front or united front. We do not know where these parties
stand. While standing alone they are no
different from the Congress and the BJP.
BJD in
Odisha, while it has parted company with BJP supports neo liberal policies as
much as the Congress and the BJP. Their
support to POSCO, exploitation of mineral wealth, and displacement of the
adivasies they are more efficient than these two national parties.
Chandra Babu
Naidu of TDP called himself as CEO of the liberal agenda. He had totally forgotten the rural masses and
paid not even lip service to the interests of the farmers. He was shown the door by the voters and he is
out of power for last ten years.
Nitish Kumar
has become a new face of efficient champion of growth model of
development. He was credited to have
shown growth more than the national average rate of growth.
Samajwadi
party of Mulayam Singh is Samajwadi only in name. His party rides on politics of caste and
minority. There is nothing that can be
said about his achievement either for the weaker section and minorities or for
the growth.
Trina Mool
Congress (TMC), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), DMK and AIDMK fall under the same
categories as other regional parties.
All these
small and sundry parties are known for their opportunism. There are deep
contradictions between them. SP and BSP are opposed to each other as they are
in UP; DMK and AIDMK are opposed to each other; TMC cannot stand CPI, CPM and
the left oriented parties. Neither as
individual parties nor as an in alliance do they exhibit any strength to come
to power at the centre. Except for
Samajwadi party all of these parties at one time or the other, have been in
alliance with BJP. SP has given outside
support to the UPA government. But one
does not miss noticing their open hostility to the Congress Party.
All these
parties recently opposed UPA for opening a path for FDI in retail. But that does not characterize them as
opposing ‘Neo Liberal Policies’. There
seems to be one character they all share and that is being opportunist
parties. They have always aligned with
the winning coalition. Ram Vilas Paswan
has shown this very well. He was in NDA
coalition government under the leadership of Vajpayee. In 2002 he came out of the coalition under
protest because of the killing of Muslims when Modi was ruling in Gujarat. But he has no problems in joining NDA even
though they have projected the same Modi as their prime ministerial candidate.
What is
apparent in the political drama that is being unfolded before us is that there
is one very strong trend represented by two opposing parties, BJP and INC, i.e.
strong support for Neo liberal Ideology.
The only difference between them is that one follows out right communal,
Hindu nationalist agenda and the other follows pseudo secularism. The regional parties reflect the micro image
of these two national parties. But they
have a luxury of opposing both these parties and when needed align with any one
of these. This summarises the political
drama of our country.
The dream of
the common people on the road is different. It is sad to say that all the
political parties are playing on the dreams of aam admi. The people want to see that there is over all
development taking place, development that ensures people right to employment,
food security, education, health care, right to land and housing. Nobody wants to live in or see poverty
around. All believe that this could be achieved by good governance which can be
guaranteed by efficient and corruption free politics. There is nothing new in this dream of the
common people. But it is a far cry! Whether it is the opposition parties or the
ruling political dispensation, not body has done a mighty little to ensure this
to the common citizens.
How does one
explain this? It is not very difficult
to find answer to this. Throughout the history
of India since independence, specifically from the second generation politics
of our nation, the political system has existed and functioned for the interests
of the capitalist class. Growth has been
the mantra of development. It is
believed that once growth is attained the benefits of growth will percolate to
the people at the bottom. By growth we
should realise that it is not growth in common wealth over which all have
right. Growth is the growth of the
capital of the capitalists. In other
words development is equated with the growth of capital of the capitalists. Since independence what has percolated to the
people at the bottom is absolutely nothing. Now under the neo liberal ideology
the government has been shedding its responsibility for social welfare. We have seen massive drive towards
privatization. Privatization was taken
so seriously that NDA had instituted a ministry for disinvestment, (another
name for privatization). Education is being privatized, health is privatized in
such a way that even in government hospitals the poor have to pay bribe to get
health care. The government is asked to
be responsible only for governance. What
does governance means? It means being a
facilitator for the growth of investment, creating mechanism for smooth
functioning of capitalism by insuring industrial peace.
As long as
we follow Neo Liberal path of development neither the health of our politics will
improve nor the health of our nation.
Our nation
is situated at the fringe of the global capitalist system. Our efforts to develop into a growth oriented
economy are taking place in the context of the global economy. This necessarily gives rise to unequal
development both in the context of international economy and also within our
nation state.
The growth
story of India is fired mainly by foreign investors. To attract foreign investments the government
has to create favourable conditions for foreign capital to function in India. Creating conditions that would facilitate
foreign investment means our government would curtail democratic rights of the
workers to organize and fight for job securities, just wages and better working
conditions. There is large scale out
sourcing of jobs, employment of contractors who employ people without job
security and even without fair wages. The
glorified soft ware professionals do not have any organization, no benefits
like bonus, or even security of job.
On the other
hand there had been large scale corruption emanating from the corporate. The 2G scam is fundamentally driven by the
corporate who wanted to buy spectrum at easy terms. Coal gate too was primarily for the benefit
of the steel and power industries who wanted to buy cheap coal without any
concern for environment. The attempt to
double the price of gas was solely done for the benefit of Mukesh Ambani’s
Reliance Company. It has been argued
that since this price rise of gas is on hold it will lead to retard the flow of
foreign capital to India.
When there
is an attempt to deal with corruption it sends shivers in the spine of the foreign
capital. When the Supreme Court
cancelled the 2G licences there was a hue and cry as it would drive foreign
capital away from India.
India signed
the great Civil Nuclear Treaty with United States of America. Manmohan Singh had personally attached a
great importance to it even at the risk to his Government. Because of this treaty the Congress lost the
valuable left allies once and for all.
But with all the drama that surrounded this treaty Manmohan Singh did
not see any investment coming to Indian from America. The single reason for total failure of the
nuclear treaty is Nuclear Liability Act.
When a major liability of disaster is fixed on the suppliers of nuclear
equipment the foreign investment shies away.
Like in Bhopal gas tragedy the investors in the nuclear plants want to
wash their hands from the consequences to people after nuclear disaster.
Foreign
investment has become very crucial for Indian Economy not only for growth. It
is also linked up to management of current account deficit or balance of
payment. We need to import goods from
foreign countries and we also export goods to foreign countries. If our import is higher than export then we
have negative balance of payment or higher current account deficit. Government
tries to meet the gap in CAD by using the flow of foreign capital. A safe level of CAD is considered to be at
2.5% of GDP. But this level shoots up to
above 5% of GDP. To correct this
imbalance there should be more export and less import. But our imports shoot above our export. Hence the foreign trade is unsuccessful in
managing our CAD at the permissible level.
Therefore we look to the foreign investments. But this money that comes to India through
foreign investments belongs to the investors.
In times of difficulties this foreign capital flies away from our
country. Foreign investment or flow of
foreign capital is so whimsical that every turn of event or even at rumours it
tends to fly away from the country.
The impact
of being integrated in the global capital puts our economy under pressure from
international capital. We begin to move
away from our real economy and take shelter in the very uncertain and risky
capital flow in to our country. Whether
it is matter of growth, employment or stability of our economy the whimsical
flow of capital in and out does not help.
We need to rely on the domestic wealth to organize our house. In 1971 Indira Gandhi understood the value of
building strong domestic economy. She
declared that her goal was to move away from import dependence to domestic
production. Whether it was in the case
of arms or any other commodity our country can become strong by moving from
import dependence to self reliance. If
we fail to make this move away from import dependence and foreign investment we
will continue to remain under pressure of foreign capital and will put the fate
of our population at risk.
To make this
shift we require a political will. But
when our political dispensation is stuck in the slush of neo liberal ideology
there will not be any move towards that.
The regional parties make a lot of noise but their noise is too
opportunistic.
The coming
elections do not offer us any hope in this direction. Almost all the parties have no clue about the
path our nation should take. They cry
foul by repeating the curse of licence raj or inefficient and loss making
public sector. They should try to set
this system right. Instead they run
after neo liberal ideology. Our economic advisers are drawn from the United States of America, such as Goldman Sachs,
Morgan Stanley. We are worried about how
Moody’s credit rating agency will evaluate our economy. They not only offer advice to us and rate our
credit worthiness; they also dictate to us what kind of government we should
have.
