No country for old men stuck in a rut

Sharad Yadav says he will consume poison, rather than pass the Women’s Reservation Bill. The reaction of most people will be, “He’s welcome.”  People like him are living in a time warp, so much so that they have forgotten the cardinal rule of politics: gauge the mood of the people,  and respond to it.

Another person like this Yadav is that other Yadav, Mulayam Singh, who shocked the country and even his own party men with an election manifesto that was even more backward than Mayawati’s. (The Samajwadi chief wanted to ban the use of computers and the teaching of English, the two skills that have given India a competitive edge and have generated the most employment.)

Mulayam Singh has at least had the sense to lick his wounds in silence unlike the stalwarts of the BJP who also spectacularly misread the mood of the people. These venerable old men who have proved once again that experience and grey hair don’t necessarily add up to wisdom, now want the party to return to hardcore Hindutva. LK Advani’s brand of Hindutva may have rescued the BJP from political wilderness but it needed the moderate face of Atal Behari Vajpayee to win elections. Nothing makes that clearer than the electoral results in Gujarat: the hand-picked candidates of Mr Hindutva himself, Narendra Modi fared pretty poorly at the polls.

The mood of the country is for growth, growth that includes the majority (the poor) and the minority (women, religious minorities). This is especially so for Young India.

Post elections, this mood has embraced even those who were cynical earlier about the direction the country would take under a fractured polity. The near-perfect mandate given to the Congress party has given justifiable hope that India will have political stability and sustained economic growth and why not? If the GDP could grow at 6.7 per cent in 2008 to 2009, the year of the global financial meltdown and the year in which the UPA government was often at the mercy of its coalition partners, how well can it do now when both parameters have changed?

The prime minister has got off to a flying start with the formation of his council of ministers. It’s got good guys there, many with proven credentials, others with promise, but in the end none of this counts. The only thing that will matter is performance.

This is where Dr Manmohan Singh will have to change, and change dramatically and demonstrably. We know him as brilliant and gentle; he will now have to be brilliant and tough.

The last government had appointed several high powered committees to look at different areas of national life. There was the Investment Commission, headed by Ratan Tata. The Knowledge Commission chaired by Sam Pitroda and including people like Nandan Nilekani and a Delhi urban commission led by Charles Correa. We don’t know what they actually did, because their recommendations weren’t made public but we can safely assume that they came up with excellent ideas. That process needs to continue and even be enlarged. 

To make sure that the recommendations of these commissions get incorporated into policy is the PM’s first job. To see that policies are implemented quickly is his second, third, fourth and fifth job. A couple of months ago, this column had given figures of unutilised funds in various arms of the government. Those figures were staggering and tragic. When so many areas ranging from poverty alleviation to national security to health to sports are seemingly starved of funds, it’s a criminal waste to find that each year 20 to 70 per cent of the allotted money remains unused because the concerned ministers and bureaucrats are, well, not concerned. Or plain lazy, or inefficient. The PM will have to play the role of the strict headmaster of quarterly reviews and threats of demotion to make sure that no one takes his position for granted.