R:
Let us also not think that such indicators will make any difference
to the average Hobo Diok Litikai Assamese who will go on >electing
the Congress again and again.
*** Unfortunately, as things are, it really does NOT matter WHO is
elected to rule in a given year. The problem is more fundamental,
more deep rooted. It is systemic.
Look at this:
http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20070409&fname=HCol+Rafiq+Dossani+%28F%29&sid=1
Finally, I am sure you will agree that it is quite immaterial WHO
goes past India. That competition is only for that tiny segment of
the population that has arrived and are now seeking parity with the
rest of the world's significant powers. It is a trophy issue. For
those millions ( see
http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20070409&fname=BStates&sid=1
) that are left out of that 'growing service sector' and struggling
merely to stay alive.
c
At 3:00 PM -0400 4/2/07, Barua, Rajen wrote:
Summary of the report:
>Now the real kicker is that all this is happening when China is
institutionalizing a system of succession and inner party democracy
to enable it to continue on its current growth trajectory of around
10%. Thus a totalitarian system better suited for thugs is getting
gentrified, while a system of democratic governance is being taken
over by thugs. It is said that Rugby is a game for hooligans played
by gentlemen, while soccer is a game for gentlemen played by
hooligans. The same thing can be said for the systems in China and
India.
(Very intelligent assessment of things)
Chandan says:
>Question however is, NOW what?
The answer is NOW NOTHING!
I think it simply means that the above is another big indicator
that China will get ahead and India will fall behind in a very
short time in a big way which may (or may not) eventually break up
India politically.
The other similar indicator was in the report which I recently
posted on India's progress and lack of infrastructure vis-a-vis
Bangalore.
Another indicator may be the recently posted article on India's
water resources.
These indicators predict dooms for India no doubt.
However, let us not think that Indians will be smart united enough
to think and react and take actions based on these indicators
quickly.
Indian middle class is now too busy enjoying the material benefits
of Capitalism to worry about such long term indicators. Probably we
need such critical analysis for many many moons to come so that
people will see the light, absorb the reality and act.
Let us also not think that such indicators will make any difference
to the average Hobo Diok Litikai Assamese who will go on electing
the Congress again and again.
Hobo Diok
Rajen
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Behalf Of Chan Mahanta
Sent: Monday, April 02, 2007 9:02 AM
To: barua25; [email protected]
Subject: Re: [Assam] Fw: More on UP Elections
Insightful article. Thanks for sharing, Rajen. Not that we did not
know of it all along, but good to see there are others who see it
too.
Question however is, NOW what?
c
At 6:30 AM -0500 4/2/07, barua25 wrote:
----- Original Message -----
From: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>Centre for Policy Alternatives
Sent: Monday, April 02, 2007 2:29 AM
Subject: More on UP Elections
Difficult Days Ahead.
Predicting the defeat of the Congress Party in the recent Punjab
and Uttaranchal elections was easy enough if one analyzed the
performance of these governments during their term in office. (See
Hardnews of September 2006 to read about the dismal performance of
the Amarinder Singh government) It is only the so-called
professional psephologists and glib television pundits who
invariably get these wrong. Let us also not forget that the India
Today, which has now become India's most popular reading in barber
saloons and dentist waiting rooms, had only last year deemed the
Amarinder Singh government as India's best performing one and had
got the President of India to award him a prize. At that time this
columnist had decried the practice of the President and high
constitutional authorities being the chief guests at such
superficial beauty parades. Ordinary people are better judges of
performance and have always exhibited a great ability to discern
good government from hyped up governance, as they did in the case
of Chandrababu Naidu and SM Krishna in the recent past.
But the Prime Minister seems to be busy being a chief guest at
political beauty parades and like functions organized by the
faithful, not realizing that the faithful are faithful to the
office and not to the person. One should take the adulation of the
CII and FICCI with more than a pinch of salt, for the adulation
comes with a price tag. Witness how the State is acquiring land
from the peasants using the most unrealistic valuations to give
them away to so-called developers of SEZ's, but actually in most
instances these are just gigantic real estate plays. Many decades
ago a leading industrialist, Lala Charatram, candidly confessed:
"We support the Prime Minister. We support whoever is the Prime
Minister." But Dr. Manmohan Singh would have got a truer measure of
his popularity with India's multitudes by the attendances to his
meetings in his home state of Punjab. At more than one meeting
policemen vastly outnumbered the public. I have enough Congressmen
testifying to this.
Then consider this, if he accepted the offer of Amarinder Singh to
contest the Lok Sabha elections from Amritsar, we would have had a
true world record of his being the first Prime Minister to be
defeated by a professional humorist. But then he was defeated in
South Delhi by one just a little better than that. Right now Dr.
Manmohan Singh is better off being the paying guest of the late
Hiteshwar Saikia's widow in Gauhati and returned to the Rajya Sabha
by the long suffering people of Assam. The point here is that we
have a Prime Minister without a political constituency and hence
out of touch with the reality of India. Unfortunately for him and
for us, ours is a system of government by elected politicians, and
India is paying the price of having a non-political person as its
leader. More on this later.
Now the challenge of Uttar Pradesh is on hand. The only question
for the Congress Party is whether it will get more than two dozen
seats or less. We seem to be getting some early indications of how
the cookie is going to crumble with the SPG advising that Rahul
Gandhi curtail his public meetings and the MoS in the Home
Ministry, Sriprakash Jaiswal, advising Rahul Gandhi to follow the
advice of the SPG. I suspect that it is not security but attendance
that is the problem. It's not always true that people in UP vote
entirely according to their caste. Caste is important, but promise
and hope are just as important. In the recent past when political
parties held out the promise of a major change in terms of
performance to meet the aspirations of people for better
government, the people of UP have responded overwhelmingly in
support. Rajiv Gandhi, VP Singh and the BJP held out credible
promise of change and the people rewarded them. It is another
matter that they failed to meet the aspirations of the people even
partially. The result is that people are being left with no option
but to turn to the parties of thugs led by Mulayam Singh and
Mayawati. The Congress is yet to realize that Rahul Gandhi and
retinue of his page three princelings do not still hold out any
hope of rescuing India's biggest state from prolonged
mal-governance. For that you need to have a program based upon a
true appreciation of the problems besetting India and a promise of
solutions. Wearing a prayer cap in Deoband is not a program. It is
a stunt.
The problems that beset UP are well known. Not the least among
these is that with Rs.10, 817 (per capita GDP in 2003-4), it has
the second lowest per capita income in India. This is about a third
of the national average. If one were to separate the incomes of
western UP from this, you would be left with a vast hinterland that
is no better off than Bihar (Rs. 5780). If this huge region were a
separate country it would rank right at the bottom between Burundi
($90) and Malawi ($160) in the worlds poverty rankings. One quarter
of UP lives below the official poverty line. This official poverty
line is actually a starvation line, as it is based on an income to
provide a daily food intake norm of 2400 calories. The methodology
used to arrive at a conclusion as to whether people are starving
are not is utterly dubious and self serving and is mostly meant to
show the system in better light. Even so the suggestion that almost
one quarter of the socio-political heartland of India starves
everyday is a horrendous thought and the fact this is now proving
to be a stubborn challenge is a matter of great concern. The
Planning Commission just a few days ago put out a positive picture
about the reduction of the incidence of poverty (starvation) in
India, but if one just got off the tarmac roads for a kilometer or
two the reality will be apparent. The people who live here know
better and all the paid advertisements that UP is now Uttam Pradesh
do not cut much slack here.
This is not just the situation in UP. It is the reality in most
rural areas of India. The State in India is in full retreat. It has
largely failed in meeting even the minimum aspirations of the
people. Most rural clusters do not have the minimum health
facilities, just as they do not have schools. Consequently the
infant mortality rate is among the highest in the world and even
today almost 27% of the 15-24 age cohort is illiterate. The State
has withdrawn from establishing new irrigation works to take water
to the parched lands and has largely left it to the peasants to dig
deeper into the earth by digging deeper into their meager resources
for water for the fields. In the last twenty years the State has
not created any worthwhile irrigation and all the additional
millions of irrigated acreage have been by private tubewells. We
all know that this is ruinous to the economy and ecology, but the
Government of India still watches idly. Even the new plan being
contemplated by Montek Singh Ahluwalia shows no inclination to
tackle this situation in any realistic manner. He of course thinks
it is more important to get Wal-Mart into India as it will take
care of the agriculture supply chain? That's what you get when you
have bureaucrats drawing up the national vision.
When he first took over office, Dr.Manmohan Singh said that
bureaucratic and administrative reform will be his government's
number one priority. At that time we lauded him for his vision and
commitment to reform. But his government has done little beyond
giving extensions and sinecures to favored babus. Despite Rajiv
Gandhi's known commitment to decentralization, the party headed by
his widow has apparently abandoned the commitment to take
government to the people and give them a say in managing their
daily lives. This power is not with the politician either. It has
passed into the hands of the vast bureaucracy that has taken charge
of India. It is small wonder then the biggest single item in public
spending is the burden of salaries and pensions paid to government
employees as the Central, State and Local levels. At last count
this figure stood close to Rs.195, 000 crores and is still
climbing. This should enable the reader to understand as to why the
Services sector is the fastest growing of India's three economic
sectors. For some perverse reason Public Administration expenditure
is considered a service and this sub sector is the fastest growing
one recording an 11.73% growth rate. So my friends don't think it
is IT that is propelling the growth of the Services sector.
In Dr. Manmohan Singh we thought we had a reformer. But what we got
instead was a man with a resume, he has had the best appointments
anyone can aspire to and a Cambridge degree to boot. Our mistake
was that we confused resume with record. He has now clearly lost
his chance to set things right. His term as Prime Minister is
drawing to a close. He is 75 years now and we can well consider him
a lame duck. He has no political constituency and not only has
shown a singular disinclination to take the bull by the horns, but
has also shown that he has no understanding about India's problems.
Nor is he performing the role of Bairam Khan and tutoring the
fledgling prince on the art of administration and the problems of
nation building. But to be fair to him the princeling has not shown
any of Akbar's enthusiasm and curiosity either. So he will wear the
prayer cap at Deoband and do other symbolic things which his
handlers will plan for him. Which means we will have to leave Uttam
Pradesh to Mulayam Singh or Mayawati? India seems heading for even
more difficult days ahead.
Now the real kicker is that all this is happening when China is
institutionalizing a system of succession and inner party democracy
to enable it to continue on its current growth trajectory of around
10%. Thus a totalitarian system better suited for thugs is getting
gentrified, while a system of democratic governance is being taken
over by thugs. It is said that Rugby is a game for hooligans played
by gentlemen, while soccer is a game for gentlemen played by
hooligans. The same thing can be said for the systems in China and
India.
Mohan Guruswamy
Email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
March 26, 2007
Centre for Policy Alternatives
94, Uday Park, New Delhi - 49
Ph: 91-11-41650997, Fax: 91-11-41650996
<http://www.cpasind.com>http://www.cpasind.com
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
.
Here's a new way to find what you're looking for -
<http://us.rd.yahoo.com/mail/in/yanswers/*http://in.answers.yahoo.com/>Yahoo!
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