T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan: Electoral politics and economic reform

OKONOMOS

When China reforms itself, everyone studies its economics; when India reforms itself, the focus is on its politics. So scores of books have been written on the politics of India's economic reforms.

But few have been as good as this one*, for three reasons. First, it doesn't consist of contributions by the usual suspects. Second, and perhaps that is why, the essays are thoughtful; and, third, there is a serious attempt to engage in the debate in a non-ideological way.

The contributors are Achin Chakraborty, Prakash Sarangi, Sudha Pai, K C Suri, S K Das, Sudha Mahalingam, C Ramachandraih, Arun Kumar Patnaik, Surpiya RoyChowdhury, Darshini Mahadevia, Amaresh Bagchi and John Kurien.

Jois Mooij in an excellent introduction, sets the stage: why did the NDA lose the 2004 general election? After all, it lost only 3.4 per cent of the vote share against a loss of 2.4 per cent by the Congress-led coalition.

Not just that. "In terms of voting percentages the Congress-led coalition was only slightly smaller than in the BJP led one in 1999 and it is still smaller in 2004."

The introductory section unfortunately has a typically post-modernist essay by Achin Chakraborty, who argues (a bit too lugubriously I thought) that rhetoric is at least important as reality "" or something like that anyway.

His is the only irrelevance in the collection because it doesn't help the reader understand the subject at hand, namely, reform and politics. Post-modernism as an analytical tool should perhaps be avoided when talking of economic reform at least.

The collection is divided into two parts. One is about reforms and electoral democracy and the other is about reforms, governance and the State. There are three essays in the former section; and six in the latter. Each makes a clear and sharp point.

Thus, Sarangi discusses the impact of reform on political institutions such as political parties. He concludes that reform could well result in a blurring of ideological distinctions.

To the extent that this means that all major political parties will be essentially centrist, he is right. He is right for another reason as well: the CPM is becoming capitalist, too.

Pai and Suri discuss the processes by which reform can happen. The fact that reform initiatives have so far not been successful in several states is discussed at length.

Suri focuses on Andhra Pradesh and his essay is extremely informative, but it falls short of explaining properly whether Chandrababu Naidu lost because of the reforms he had attempted or because of other reasons, such as a refusal to share things with his colleagues.

S K Das and Sudha Mahalingam ask the same question, but separately: why did the bureaucracy implement reforms even when it had so much to lose? Das is an IAS officer and says that it was because nothing much really changed.

Mahalingam, who has analysed reforms in the power sector, also reaches the same conclusion.

Actually, that is not true. Where reform was deep, as in industrial licensing and telecoms, things did change. However, they are right in observing that there is a still a long way to go before the babus finally get off our backs.

The end of the paternalistic state is still some distance away.

C Ramachandraih and Arun Kumar Patnaik discuss transparency in reform and say that it might help if there were more of it and less stealth. Their essay on the state road transport corporation is one of the best I have read and provides an excellent example of discrimination against a public sector enterprise by a government.

Surpiya RoyChowdhury discusses the way in labour issues are handled in states trying to reform. Her argument is a powerful one, namely, that even though the Central government has done nothing to amend the labour laws, firms have found ways around them in such a way that the power of labour has hugely declined.

In part, she says, this is because the State has stopped championing labour and now champions capital instead.

Mahadevia's essay is about reforms and Hindutva and doesn't carry much weight. Amaresh Bagchi and John Kurien discuss reforms and regional inequalities and what these might mean in the coming years.

The main weakness of the book is that it nowhere seeks to define reform in a way that all contributors might talk of the same thing, rather than, in a post-modernist way, of what it means to them personally.

The efficiency of capital, because it is scarce, is usually one of the central objectives of economic reform. This prism might have sharpened the essays even more.

(The Politics of Economic Reforms in India, Edited by Jois Mooij, Sage, Pp 362; Rs 680)