Mohan Guruswamy
April 25, 2007

Published in HardNews

Dr. Manmohan Singh has prophesized that Rahul Gandhi is the future of Uttar Pradesh. But it seems much more likely that Mayawati is UP's immediate future and fate. Which of course means that India's largest state and among its most backward ones at that, will remain condemned for a few more years to kleptocratic rule and to the narcissist excesses of personality cult? It would also mean that India's chances of catching up with China in the next few decades would have been delivered a stunning blow. UP is almost 15% of India and dominates its polity and India cannot go forward leaving UP behind.

But UP's politicians seem determined to put narrow and immediate interests ahead of greater national goals. Having said this, it must also be said that our national leadership in general and our Prime Minister more specifically have also failed in articulating national goals. It is even more unfortunate that Dr.Manmohan Singh's abilities of articulation seem reserved for scoring cheap shots at the opposition and not for enlisting them in the great task of taking India ahead. It's now too late for the Prime Minister. His time is fast closing whichever way one looks at it. For a start he is over 75. It is almost certain that many of the Congress party's political allies, particularly the left, would not care to go to the people in 2009 to defend his legacy. On the other hand they would like to take the credit for dumping him and his policies. I would be willing to bet my last rupee that the left will abandon the UPA well before the next Lok Sabha elections are due, in a bid to keep the cake and eat it too. Even more certain is that once out of office the Congress party will turn on him like it did on Narasimha Rao. Dr. Manmohan Singh will do well to study Dr. Abraham Masslow's celebrated study on primate behavior and his observations on how baboons deal with their fallen leaders.

It is not without some irony that Dr.Manmohan Singh has of late begun to see much merit in the late Narasimha Rao. That may also be because Dr.Manmohan Singh knows something that most people don't. That is that the economic reforms of 1991 were actually authored by the late PV Narasimha Rao and that the author of the South-South Commission Report, Dr.Manmohan Singh, then still had views that India's left comrades would have appreciated more. The fact is that the GO that lead to the scrapping of the Industrial Licensing Policy and the disbanding of the infamous Directorate General of Technical Development (DGTD) emanated from 7 Race Course Road and not from North Block. The then PM had to work hard to get his team aboard. In fact only Mr. P Chidambaram, then Commerce Minister, did not need any persuasion. The then Finance Minister, who was the Prime Ministers second choice for the job, required a got bit of cajoling to come aboard. In fact the PM had to tell him that he was going ahead with the reform and the Finance Minister will then have to decide whether to stay on or not. But once adulation was forthcoming Manmohan Singh displayed great alacrity to take credit. As John Kennedy said success has many fathers while failure is an orphan. This too Dr. Singh will learn soon.

The UP campaign did not throw up any issues. It has so far been as if the ship of state has a steady tailwind behind it and only calm waters lie ahead. The only thing that stirred the talking heads on the airwaves was Rahul Gandhi's comment about the services to India rendered by his father, grandmother and great-grandfather. But was this such a big matter for the entire spectrum from Kuldip Nayyar and Lal Kishen Advani to take umbrage? Now who can deny Jawaharlal Nehru a leading role in the freedom movement and in forging the new Indian nationhood? Now who but the most churlish would deny Indira Gandhi full and well deserved credit for taking India to victory in 1971? And to say that had Rajiv Gandhi been Prime Minister the demolition of the Babri Masjid, however much an ocular distortion it may have been, would not have happened is fair comment. Whatever else may have been Rajiv Gandhi's failings, inertness was not one of them. There was a youthful exuberance in all things he did and he loved challenges. He would not have sat around being taken in by all and sundry while plans were afoot to topple the dilapidated Masjid. Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi would have typically decided that the structure was under the care of the Archeological Society of India and that his government was therefore duty bound to protect it. Besides by such time cronies like Arun Nehru who advised him to unlock the Babri Masjid for prayer by the rambakhts were long gone. So what was the big fuss all about? Rahul Gandhi was not distorting history. He may at best be guilty of selectively choosing from it for his advantage.

If lineages are what matter and as we see all around us they do, then young Rahul Gandhi indeed has a lineage he ought to be proud about. India's politics are increasingly family businesses. Except for the ideologically driven parties, all of which are increasingly obscurantist, most other significant political parties are family dominated enterprises whose main purpose is to "enjoy" political power. Take any one of them. Karunanidhi's DMK, Mulayam Singh's Samajwadi Party, Lalu Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal, Jayalalitha's ADMK, Badal's Shiromani Akali Dal or Thackeray's Shiv Sena, all of them are family led factions bearing little resemblance to the political parties our founding fathers contemplated while giving the nation its political system. Obviously lineages are important in our politics now and let's face it Rahul Gandhi has the best there is.

But that will still not make him UP's future. To be that he has to craft out a new vision for India based on a new political style and message. He must begin to address the real problems that beset our economy and our government. The greatest challenge India's economy faces is its Agriculture. Very simply put it has too many people in it doing too little. Today agriculture accounts for less than a quarter of the GDP while it is the source of sustenance for over 60% of the people. In a prosperous India, less people will depend on agriculture and more of its GDP will come from industry and not services. To sustain current rates of GDP growth and to be able to catch-up with China in the next three decades, India's agriculture needs to grow at about 4%. It is currently growing at 1.6%. For agriculture to grow at higher rates a lot more of our agricultural lands need to be irrigated. Public spending on irrigation has dropped precipitously since the advent of reforms. This trend must be reversed immediately.

The second significant challenge our agricultural sector faces is the fragmentation of farm holdings. Today over 60% of our farms are smaller than one hectare. They also tend to fragment even more with every passing generation. This is not conducive to agricultural growth and productivity. Nor do they provide any worthwhile incomes. To only way to reverse this is to get people off the land with alternate employment. This can only come from construction and industry. The World Bank has studies that establish that a kilometer of new roads does more for per capita income than anything else. God knows UP needs lots of new roads and canals. The land of the Ganges is still mostly without irrigation. Rahul Gandhi will do well to shape his new politics around water and farmer. He doesn't have to talk about his lineage. We know it's better than those of the others.

The problem is that Rahul Gandhi too thinks that politics is a marketing game. Which is what Mulayam Singh with his Amitabh Bachhan campaign thinks it is? Politics in India need to be structured around policies. Policies which not only determine what we will become but also how we manage ourselves. Rajiv Gandhi had a vision of restructuring India by decentralizing public administration. He was dead centre on his assessment. We spend over Rs.190, 000 crores each year on public administration. Of this the Central and State governments account for almost 90% with local government only getting about 10%. It is apparent that government in India is mostly people telling us to do this and that, and not do this or that, than doing anything. Quite clearly our government is too remote from the people. Thus if a teacher does not show up in the village school the redress for it lies in the state capital. Ditto for a doctor in the primary health centre. India needs to find a way to put people back in charge of their lives and not be left to the mercies of the huge army of bureaucrats. JP's slogan "Power to the People" was about this. Rajiv Gandhi did well to be inspired by this. His son will do well if he picks up the fallen standard and learn from our recent history. Only then will not only UP get a better future but also India.

But there is something in our past that young Rahul Gandhi must also learn from. He will do well to emulate young Akbar who got rid of Bairam Khan's regency while still in his early teens. Not only did he send his mentor on the Hajj, he also made sure that he didn't get that far.