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Reviews
Annam
Bahu Kurvita
Times of
India, Delhi, June 05, 1998
The BJP Budget:
Swadeshi Talk, Videshi Thought
by Sidhdharth Varadarajan
[This article is not a review of this book, but is
based largely on the analysis and quotations from the
book.]
The secret is finally out. For all the BJP’s claims of being
a party with a difference, a party rooted in Indian thought,
the Vajpayee government’s first budget is as steeped in
Anglo-American economic theory as the budgets of its
Congress and UF predecessors. Critics have panned the budget
for being “directionless”. It main weakness, however, stems
from the BJP’s unwillingness to make a break with the
direction the Indian economy has taken since 1947, and
especially since 1991.
As the Economic Survey for 1997-1998 has documented, the
economy of today is in a virtual recession. Industrial
growth has declined to 4.2 percent and agricultural output
is actually falling. Farmers wracked by indebtedness are
committing suicide in various parts of the country. Poverty
and unemployment continue to stalk the population and the
spectre of inflation is making a reappearance. Health,
education and sanitation remain outside the reach of most
Indians.
Ramrajaya
How different the situation is from Valmiki’s description of
Ramrajya: “There is happiness and cheer all around …All are
well-nourished …All are without disease …No parent witnesses
the death of a child …Fire causes no disasters. No living
being ever drowns in water …Fevers hold no fears. Nobody has
to worry about hunger.” Instead of tinkering with tariffs
and taxes in order to please powerful lobbies how wonderful
it would have been if an avowedly nationalist party in the
50th year of India’s freedom had turned to ancient Indian
wisdom on economic matters in order to establish some
approximation to Ramrajya. Unfortunately, the BJP has not
proved up to the task.
Anglo-American political economy – which considers economic
hardship and crises to be mere troughs in a never-ending
cycle – believes in leaving mattes to the market. The state
should cut expenditure to a minimum and citizens must fend
for themselves. Indian wisdom, on the other hand, holds the
state responsible for the well-being of the people.
‘Pradhanam kshatirye karma prajanam paripalanam’, says the
Yajnyavalkyasmrit – looking after his subjects is the
primary responsibility of the king – and the same doctrine
is amplified in virtually every Indian treatise on kingship
and polity from the Vedic times down through Kautilya,
Tiruvalluvar and Abul Fazal to the insurgents of 1857.
Perhaps the most lucid elaborations of rajadharma are those
contained in the Mahabharata. Bhishma asks Yuddhishthira in
the Shantiparva: “Have you ensured that the cultivators are
not reduced to deserting the country because of the
exactions imposed by you? … Always arrange for the welfare
and livelihood of those who have no resources, those who
have no one to look after them, those who are afflicted by
old age, and those who have lost their husbands.” For kings
who ignored their obligations, Bhishma was pretty blunt
about what steps the praja were entitled to take. There is a
celebrated passage in the Anushasanparva which, if repeated
today, would certainly render the sage a prime accused
before a TADA court.
This is not to suggest that the kings in the past actually
adhered to the exacting standards of rajadharma. Not is it
anyone’s case that our ancients left behind formulae with
which all problems of contemporary society can be solved.
But who can deny the universality of, say, the Taittreya
Upanishad’s exhortation to all would-be rulers: annam bahu
kurvita. Tadvratam. ‘Endeavour so that there be great
abundance of food. That is the inviolable discipline of
mankind’.
The rise of European political and economic theories in
India after 1885 and the consolidation of various political
tendencies based on them – Congress, Socialist, Hindutva –
pushed indigenous political and economic wisdom to the
background. There is nothing surprising about this. Over the
years, powerful economic interests have emerged which have
no enthusiasm for a rajadharma where the king “becomes the
eyes of those who cannot see, the legs of those who cannot
walk” (Padmapurana).
Abundance of Food
If ‘swadeshi’ means looking after the interests of large
swadeshi monopolies by the imposition of import duties, the
waver of penalties for corporate and excise tax evasion, and
the proposed sale of public assets to them at low prices,
then Union finance minister Yashwant Sinha has done his
‘patriotic’ best. Domestic industry is thrilled and
investment banks have already begun toting up the precise
amount each industrial house is likely to gain. Prominent
among the gainers: Reliance, Bombay Dyeing, Bajaj etc., and
also ITC, which has saved several hundred crore through the
‘samadhan’ tax scheme, a virtual VDIS through the backdoor.
The logic of Mr. Sinha’s budget is that a bonanza to big
industry will lead to growth and prosperity for all.
Consequently, he has not made any particular effort directly
to improve the life of the common man. Food security and
public investment in rural infrastructure – which should be
the cornerstones of any government’s economic agenda – get
short shrift. The so-called “50 per cent hike in educational
outlays” has also turned out to be an eyewash, with most of
the increments due to increased salaries at higher education
level. The teachers’ pay hike is long overdue and it is good
that the budget has provided for it. But it is inexplicable
that no grand effort has been made to provide primary,
secondary or adult education to more. Or health care.
Praja Excluded
Although the outlay for agriculture has been increased by 58
percent, allocations are far too low to reverse the decades
of neglect the sector has been subject to. In the Sabhaparva,
Narda asks, “Have you ensure that in every part of the lands
large irrigation tanks have been constructed, that these are
brimming with water, and that agriculture is not left at the
mercy of the gods of rain alone?” Though Mr. Sinha
acknowledges that only 37 percent of our cultivable land is
under assured irrigation, he has not taken adequate measures
to bring about a change. Without a massive increase in
public investment, credit alone will not encourage farmers
to invest in watershed development.
The BJP should realise that when hundreds of millions of
Indians are excluded from meaningful participation in it,
the Indian economy is bound to be affected. Some 30 million
consumers do not make for much of an economic base. Unless
the praja is brought into the picture, the country will
lurch from crisis to crisis. No imported theory, whether
Keynesianism or Thatcherism, liberalisation or
protectionism, will be of much use. Before there can be
truly swadeshi policies, there must be swadeshi thought.
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