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Rajan’s Mann ki Baat
February 23, 2015, By Indrajit Hazra in Red Herring | Economy, Edit Page, India
| ET
Perhaps he had been watching Chaplin’s The Great Dictator, that classic
take-down of Hitler which lost out to Hitchcock’s psycho-thriller, Rebecca, in
the 1940 Best Motion Picture Oscar stakes. Perhaps he’d just got his head out
of political scientist Francis Fukuyama’s The Origins of Political Order, which
he used extensively to air his own views on the present Indian political
economy.
Whatever it was – and whatever he may have smoked before getting behind that
lectern to deliver his speech, ‘Democracy, Inclusion, and Prosperity’ at the DD
Kosambi Ideas Festival last Friday in Goa — RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan brought
back the ‘H’ word into polite conversation about current Indian politics. And
by the ‘H’ word I don’t mean ‘hirsute’ or ‘Hamdard (ka tonic Cinkara)’.
Speaking on the linkages between political freedom and economic prosperity,
Rajan elucidated on “strong governments” and how they may not always “move in
the right direction”. “Hitler provided Germany with extremely effective
administration – the trains ran on time, as did the trains during our own
Emergency in 1975-77. His was a strong government, but Hitler took Germany
efficiently and determinedly on a path to ruin,” said the gov, adding, “It is
not sufficient that the trains run on time, they have to go in the right
direction at the desired time.”
Now, Rajan is as much of an EPW-munching, Old Monk-drinking Left liberal as his
former University of Chicago colleague Barack Obama is a communist. So when
Rajan puts in a word of caution about strong governments, especially at a time
when ‘strong government’ is seen as being all the perfumes of Arabia that will
sweeten that old paralytic hand of policy to action, there’s no need to
confiscate his passport or brand him as a hippie in a sharp suit. One should
listen to him without damning him as a Noam Chomsky.
Last fortnight, a human rights activist working on behalf of victims of the
2002 communal riots in Gujarat was initially denied bail by a Gujarat court for
her alleged involvement in an embezzlement case. In a separate incident, the
external affairs ministry refused to reissue the same human rights activist’s
lawyer a passport with full validity because of a pending case involving
‘unlawful assembly’ against him. Earlier, an enviromental rights activist was
barred from travelling abroad since her planned criticism of Indian authorities
in front of foreigners was seen as “having potential for mischief” against
India’s economic interests and a bid to “embarrass India”.
It may just be the law of the land claiming roadkill as it thunders down the
road. Or it could be the government using the law to catch obstructive deer in
its headlights in its bid to reach Destination Xanadu. On Friday, Rajan told us
to be wary of the latter – for the sake of achhe din — even if we have trained
ourselves over the last nine months to not distinguish the two for the sake of
keeping our eyes on the road and hands upon the wheel.
Despite what many self-styled desi members of the French Resistance may be
shouting from their Casablanca-themed rooftops, the Gestapo aren’t quite
terrorising the Indo-Gangetic plains. But what Rajan’s ‘extra-curricular’
utterance has done is make it okay to air cautionary tales. “By ensuring that
all citizens have inalienable rights and protections, the rule of law
constrains the majority’s behaviour towards the minorities. And by maintaining
a predictable economic environment against populist democratic instincts, the
rule of law ensures that businesses can invest securely for the future.” Rajan
is reminding us of the virtues of checks and balances when we have come to see
them only as vices.
To mix one’s mythological metaphors, after the Sodom and Gomorrah of ‘coalition
compulsions’ and other euphemisms, the arrival of an axe-wielding, crony
capitalist-slaying Parashuram can be overpoweringly attractive. But a liberal
democracy allows not one avatar, but a proverbial ten. This is liberal
democracy’s in-built defence mechanism against excess, whether ‘mandated’ by an
overwhelming majority in a state or at the Centre. “We must choose a happy
medium between giving the administration unchecked power and creating complete
paralysis,” said the man who knows his Sen from his Bhagwati, a New Deal from a
Great Leap Forward.
One can’t be sure whether Rajan’s sage advice will travel beyond the audience
he addressed on Friday. But he has, by example, ensured that airing criticisms
of, and differences of opinion with, a strong government needn’t amount to
sedition or being tagged as the village obstructionist. The same way being a
vegetarian, like Hitler, does not amount to being a fascist.
