[Reader-list] Election Forecast

[Rakesh Iyer]

Dear Shuddha and Anupam

You have raised certain important issues in your mail, and one has to look
at both of them.

*Anupam jee*

You stated that my projection or identification with Gujarat in the sense I
portrayed in my previous mails is wrong. I can accept that, but then as I
said, the dominant discourse in Gujarat (run by the mainstream local
Gujarati media in collusion with Modi, coupled with support of a certain
section of society there) has created that image which has portrayed Gujarat
in that light. And it's time Gujarat moves away from that image.

It becomes even more ironic for me when I compare Modi with the CM of my own
state, Shivraj Singh Chauhan. When one listens to their election speeches,
one sees a world of difference. I can accept their styles of speeches (I
liked Modi commenting that Congress must be congratulated for creating slums
which led to Slumdog Millionaire winning the Oscars), what I can't
understand is the attack of opponents by Modi (particularly Sonia and Rahul
Gandhi as well as Manmohan too in this election). When I see that, I begin
to remember the state in which I am living right now, Tamil Nadu. Here too,
we have the 'Kalaignar' and the 'Amma' having zero respect for each other
and fighting elections as if they were in a wrestling match.

I have heard Shivraj speak, and what seemed so good about it was the way he
first asked for apologies from people if his govt. had done anything wrong
in the previous 5 years. I wonder if Modi would have the courage to ask
apologies from Gujarati people like that. I still remember the haughty
nature of the BJP when they won Gujarat in 2002. What is there to be haughty
about? Do election victories make our rulers so haughty? Is it necessary?

At the same time, it's a failure of the Congress in Gujarat to forget the
issues to focus upon (those which you have stated like the pollution in
Ankleshwar and high crime rates against women in cities). Instead of
focussing to become a B-team of Hindutva (which they have become under
Vaghela), they would do better to focus on these issues and imaginatively
use them to send the BJP packing, or at least argue constructively on issues
related to people.

*Shuddha jee*

You have put important issues into focus. The problem with the Left is that
they only focus on equity. This when translated in economic paradigm, means
that there is more focus on distribution of resources rather than generating
resources in the first place. The result is that in West Bengal itself, the
focus was on distribution of land (and increase in agricultural production
was attributed to it in the 80's), but then the agricultural production
couldn't increase beyond a point simply because either the reforms were
partial, or because for economically beneficial agriculture to be taken up,
the size of the land can't go down beyond a point critically.

So the Left was actually asking all the people to remain poor, instead of a
particular section remaining poor.

 The BJP on the other hand, being a rightist party, believes that the focus
should mainly be on resource generation rather than distribution of
resources. For them, the revenues earned through resource generation or
usage of resources should be spent on things which only increase further
revenues. So, revenues should be spent on giving loans to rich farmers at 7%
(only farmers who have a guarantee can get loans after all), or for Golden
Quadrilateral scheme and so on. The result is that the poor are left out of
the entire machinery, while for the rich, nothing can be better off than
this, so India shines for the rich and not for the poor.

The Congress to a certain extent has realized that one has to focus on both,
growth and distribution of resources and revenue. This can be realized
through on one hand, introducing and continuing with schemes which can
increase the growth (like giving loans to farmers and Golden Quadrilateral
scheme), and also introduce measures to distribute the revenue obtained
through such growth (as both cash and kind/goods, like the NREGA and the BPL
schemes). Infact, even in exit polls, people have been telling journalists
that NREGA was an important reason why the poor voted for the Congress(like
the NDTV has accepted, so also sources related to Congress).

And this ultimately should be the criterion. Therefore, instead of
supporting the BJP or the Left policies, we have to look at the 'middle of
the road' policies. And we should take the Left's stand wherever the
distribution of resources can take place among the poor and they can be
benefited. And we should support the Right's stand wherever growth can take
place by and large without affecting the people (especially the poor and the
downtrodden).

This is where we should go different from the Gandhian perspective of the
economy. Because Gandhi believed that a person can be rich only by taking
away the resources of the poor. In other words the Reliance (and other rich)
is responsible for India's poverty! But that is not true. Hence, I am not
asking that the Reliance must be hated, as the Left wants me to. Neither
should I love Reliance, as the Right wants me to.

What I want is that Reliance pays taxes, and this can be used through
schemes like NREGA, backed by RTI to look at transparency of schemes, so
that the poor get the money through employment and their purchasing power
increases and their lives become better. I have no objections with Reliance
wanting to build more plants, and increasing their revenue, as it helps me
to get more taxes and more revenue as well.

Really, the Left needs to think on these lines and redefine themselves.
Their idea of encouraging industry in Bengal is not wrong , but they should
realize that policy making is one thing, and implementing it on ground is
another. They can't afford another Singur or Nandigram fiasco again. Of
course, they have to change themselves in more ways as you stated, for which
I would write something later.

Regards

Rakesh