Reform politics first

The Economist reported how the Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, surrounded by friends and colleagues, cut a lonely figure at a recent meeting to assess the economic reforms he initiated over two decades ago and also to celebrate his work, seen as the main reason behind India's high growth trajectory.

I can see the eagerness of publications like The Economist to push for more reforms in India so as to open up the economy to foreign interests. As well orchestrated tools of the West to further business interests, they are quite right in putting forward the argument that India needs to open up more to sustain the momentum of high growth.

Given the economic climate in the West, many European and American companies are now making a beeline to grab a share of the market in the East. India is a favourite destination of foreign companies given its huge internal market, ever expanding upward mobile middle class, a relatively young population enjoying the benefits of liberalisation and having a higher consumption level, long sustained commitment to democratic pluralism and India's longstanding relationship with the West.

Despite such a long list of benefits accruing to the businesses from the developed countries in India, there is a sustained outcry about the bottlenecks of investing in the country. One need not lose sight of the fact that India is a case of economic dualism where the filthy rich live side by side with the people in abject poverty.

In such a situation, politicians often work out policy bottlenecks not out of patriotism or as checks and balances backed by any high idealism of doing good to the society, but more often to play to their political gallery, consisting of more poor people than the rich, to demonstrate their commitment, even if it is symbolic, to the dispossessed and the downtrodden. This is true cutting across all political lines.

Politicians in India are having their heydays because of the country's track record on democracy and the resilience of the Indians deserves the most credit for it. Since the lopsided prescriptions of global institutions like the World Bank and the IMF or the mandates spelt out by the credit rating agencies have no democratic endorsements, politicians are often wary of accepting them in the apprehension of losing their positions of privilege in the impoverished and opaque Indian society.

I do not have an iota of paranoia about liberalisation or the West. On the contrary, I value many of the liberal and democratic principles of the western society. My classmates at the St. Xavier's College in Kolkata, know how the first phase of economic liberalisation of 1991 was welcomed in our lunchtime discussions at Arun Da's canteen. However, in my subsequent life as a journalist, I have witnessed the not so happy side of economic liberalisation, not only in India but also elsewhere. More than anything else, economic liberalisation has increased disparity, weakened social cohesion and made lives more insecure than ever before.

The Economist probably refers to the fact that the culture of acknowledging the importance of high growth is not deep-seated among the Indian middle class, when it states: ".....India's middle class has no clue how high economic growth was first brought about, and instead is deeply, and increasingly, suspicious of capitalism and liberalisation. The result, as another speaker eloquently pointed out, is that there is no political constituency for reform."

It is important that the politicians reform themselves first to carve out a populous constituency for economic reforms. No reform is without pain, which is worth bearing only if the privileged in the society, and this includes politicians, can demonstrate that they are also sharing a part of it. The ordinary people can't be expected to bear the brunt of reforms when the politicians are seen to be making hay.

Political reform is a necessary pre-requisite for the next phase of economic reforms in India. Since politics is overarching in Indian society and the politicians are among the most privileged, reforming the political system would have its impact on other elements of the society. More often than not, political patronage or the lack of it make and unmake personalities in India.

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Tirthankar.Bandyopadhyay.Blog@gmail.com