Why a 'clandestine' road to liberalisation, questions Salman Khurshid

Successive governments have broadly been apologetic about economic liberalisation since 1991 and failed to convince people about its benefits but had Rajiv Gandhi been alive, things would have been different, corporate affairs minister Salman Khurshid said today.

Addressing a seminar in New Delhi, Khurshid said following the death of Gandhi, the country was missing a leader who could have properly explained to the 'aam admi' about the benefits of economic liberalisation.

"We had to take the clandestine road to liberalisation. We kept speaking of liberalisation with a human face which is good thing. Nothing wrong in it. We kept speaking about middle path...our emphasis was being apologetic for having to move from a controlled economy to a market economy," he said.

Khurshid said Gandhi had built around himself a nucleus of people "who are going to move us from one paradigm to another paradigm."

And many of them are now in the system like Sam Pitroda and Montek Singh Ahluwalia who have been able to provide inputs periodically whatever position they have held, he said.

"What we did not get because of having lost Rajiv Gandhi not having a person of his stature (was his) ability to influence people in this country," Khurshid said addressing the seminar on role and challenges for private initiative in school education.

"We could not find the idiom to explain to the 'aam admi' who were used to Mai Baap Raj, the license raj.... Please tell me that magic moment when any public figure in this country has stood up and said I will explain to you what liberalisation is and that we are today making a conscious choice," the minister said.

He said the present Congress-led government was often accused of coming under the US pressure but the latest Wikileaks release have proved that the allegations were wrong.

On private schools demanding change in some provisions of Right to Education Act, he said lobbying that serves a better purpose was never illegal in the country.

"When the incident of so called corruption and telephone tapping come out, I was very very transparently saying whenever anybody asked me a question that lobbying is not illegal in this country. Anybody who things lobbying is illegal in this country is being stupid. Everybody lobbies all the time," he said.

He indicated that government would always be sympathetic towards any genuine grievances. "It can be changed. It is not the last word."

The seminar was organised by Private Unaided Schools Association which demanded greater autonomy for the private schools and revision in certain provision of the Act.