Ficci held its annual session the weekend after Diwali. This was well thought out. For, it is the tradition for the Prime Minister to address the session; and industry is so despondent that the Prime Minister would have had to try to cheer it up if he was not to be branded as heartless. The message was very clear: the Prime Minister had better come bearing some presents. K K Modi, the outgoing (but not retiring, if you see what I mean) President, even indicated the required gifts, when he painted a gory picture of Indian industry being bled to death by foreign competition and selling its crown jewels to foreigners at a pittance.
But it is only in fairy tales that little girls get the presents they ask for. For, instead of bring one enormous present, he came with a sackful of little gifts. It was a perfect Christmas scene but for the missing red dress and white beard. But then the Prime Minister cannot be all things to all kids.
A number of the presents were what businessmen had been asking for. Mr Vajpayee promised buyback, as had the finance minister a day before; it has been promised so often by now that it can only be promised again. So also the amendment of Sections 370 and 372 of the Companies Act, which prohibit intercompany loans and purchase of shares under the same management. These are much sought-for and unobjectionable changes. But so were most of those embodied in the Companies Act Amendment Bill prepared by the previous government. The BJP government should have ad-opted that Bill and enacted it with dispatch, even if it was prepared by a government of a different colour. Even now, this government would save much labour and time if it brought forward that Bill, instead of promising or enacting amendments in little bits.
The Prime Minister borrowed a number of presents from the finance minister. He promised improved procedures for dematerialisation of shares. Just what he meant was not clear to the audience, or even perhaps to m Leh to Cape Comorin. To capture the public imagination, the Prime Minister should announce that there would be new highways, running straight as a ruler from north to south and east to west. Romans used to build roads like that; the Franks, their modern successors, still do so. But two straight roads would make a cross; that would not do. However, my swadeshi friend tells me that the cross had its origin in India. The Greeks came to India, and were enthralled by the letter Om. But by the time they got home, they had forgotten its complicated shape, so they turned it into a cross -- which the Romans later used to hang people. So the roads should make an Om -- the KK highway passing through Monghyr, Jambusar and Waltair, and the SS highway through Sagar, Darjeeling and Tawang. If both are made convoluted enough, the whole of India will be covered by marching concrete ribbons.