Backpage

THE near unanimity amongst pollsters and election analysts predicting a clear win for the BJP-led NDA is disconcerting, and not only because the election process is far from complete. Vote share to seat conversion models are far less robust when applied to multi-cornered contexts. Nevertheless, while it may be somewhat premature for the Modi-BJP camp to bring out the laddoos, there is greater consensus about the likelihood of a Congress-led UPA returning dramatically diminished numbers. It will be instructive to learn from the Congress analysts the reasons behind their performance. Hopefully, we will not be subjected to the usual litany about corporate conspiracy and divisive agendas or platitudes about the need to introspect.

A recent paper, ‘Growth in the Time of UPA: Myths and Reality’ by Ghatak, Ghosh and Kotwal (EPW, 19 April 2014) challenges the prevailing view that the diminished electoral prospect of the incumbent UPA government is the result of neglecting growth to launch populist welfare schemes. But this seeming consensus hides very divergent analyses. Those on the right argue that the Congress ‘squandered resources on populist schemes like NREGA and NFSA, reversed liberalization and starved growth enabling sectors like infrastructure.’ The left argues that the government succumbed to crony capitalist influence, and promoted destructive rent seeking (land, minerals, spectrum) rather than inclusive growth.

Both views are partial and misleading. Comparison of the ten years under UPA I and II with the six years under NDA suggests that the UPA period has been characterized by faster growth, higher savings and investment, growing foreign trade and capital inflows, and increased infrastructural spending in partnership with private capital. This might surprise many, since the BJP, and more so Narendra Modi, is believed to be pro-reform while the UPA is castigated for remaining trapped in a Nehruvian world view, distrusting of private capital and initiatives and more wedded to regulation and redistribution. Equally, we need to understand why so many people believe that the UPA, particularly in the latter part of its term, was an economic disaster.

In part, public perception is governed by recent memory, not performance record over a long period. It is likely that the combination of rising prices, particularly of essentials, and declining employment opportunities in the recent past is what has fuelled public anger, credible charges of corruption in high places only sealing the mood. Ghatak et al. argue that the political troubles of the UPA arise ‘not from policies that hurt growth but from an inability to tackle the consequences of accelerated economic growth – increased conflicts over land, rent seeking and corruption in the infrastructure and natural resource sectors, inability of public education to keep up with increased demand and rising aspirations, and poor delivery of welfare schemes.’

The distinguishing feature of the UPA was the shift of promises, hitherto confined to the Directive Principles of State Policy to the realm of Fundamental Rights. New rights, justiciable in courts and backed by legislation were created in the arena of education, food and employment. The legislations were translated into new schemes and awarded increased budgetary allocations. The underlying belief was that rather than depend upon handouts or largesse from the government of the day, citizens needed to be armed with justiciable rights and that this would result in both a shift in public policy and an enhancement of general welfare. To ensure that these shifts would be difficult to reverse, the UPA legislated a Right to Information Act, under which interested parties could access the needed information, verify official claims and, via enhanced participation of active citizens, demand improved performance.

Unfortunately, even as the UPA regime introduced these changes, it did little to ensure that these different right-based schemes would function well. It was almost as if having made the announcement of a new right and passed the budgetary allocation, little else needed to be done. Nothing else explains why despite over five years of a Right to Education Act, the quality of learning in government schools shows little improvement, thereby encouraging migration to private schools. Or why the offtake of guaranteed employment under NREGA remains so low despite severe joblessness.

It is this lack of seriousness, even about its flagship schemes, that erodes faith in the UPA. Continually escalating promises without addressing delivery inevitably leads to shattered aspirations and heightened public anger. One wonders whether the Congress-UPA leadership realizes its complicity in creating space for a Narendra Modi. Equally, whether the challenger will learn from this and rather than continue to sell pipe dreams, tell us how his regime will manage the difficult trade-offs. Restive electorates are rarely forgiving.

Harsh Sethi