EXPLODING ASPIRATIONS: UNLOCKING INDIA’S FUTURE
Rajiv Kumar
Academic Foundation, New Delhi
259 pages; Rs 895
The tagline of the recently concluded annual conference of industry body Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) was "Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas", which happens to be the slogan of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. Ficci's selection of such a tagline suggests one of the two things: either there is a dearth of new ideas or the leading industry body just wants to toe the ruling party's line.
The author of the present volume suggests the latter is the case. Being an insider himself not so long ago, he argues that Ficci and other industry bodies have become an "insiders' club and event managers at best rather than the representative voice of the wider business community". The chapter "Business Lobbies Must Shape up for Growth", one of the very few bright spots in a book with few new arguments, says since these bodies receive the bulk of their revenue from government sources, the chambers refrain from criticising government policies and have, therefore, abdicated the crucial responsibility of making credible policy interventions. The chapter lists a series of measures apex industry chambers need to take if they want to be "taken seriously by the government and civil society".
The present volume would have come out better if the author had followed a simple to-do list just as he prescribed for industry lobbies. The book is a collection of author's columns in various newspapers over a period of time. As stand-alone columns they would certainly have been well received. But such columns have a shelf life and they are written with a context in mind. If the articles are compiled as they appeared in different months and years without specifying the context, they run the risk of becoming irrelevant and incomprehensible.
Sample this. The chapter titled "Time for Hard and Right Decisions" begins thus: "By the time this column appears, the die may well have been cast with the RBI [Reserve Bank of India] having made up its mind on the monetary policy action to be announced on Monday 2nd May." Which monetary policy announcement is he referring to? It is tough to make out even after reading the whole chapter. One needs Google as a constant companion to make sense of most of what has been said in the chapter. There are at least three more chapters on the same theme, echoing more or less the same set of arguments on inflation and monetary policy as an instrument to tackle it.
Yet another chapter begins like this: "The first day of the winter session of the Parliament was again lost without any business being transacted." Given recent history of Parliament sessions being washed out, it was hard to figure out which one he is referring to. The same chapter talks about "the macabre shootout at Chattarpur farms on the outskirts of Delhi that resulted in the violent deaths of two brothers". Who these "famous" brothers were and how did they exemplify "the worst aspects of crony capitalism"? Once again, without help from Google, it is hard to locate a context or even hard information from what is written in the chapter.
Then there are chapters that have lost some relevance. The long discussion on growth estimates of 2013-14 is a case in point. And there are chapters that offer no new insight, the one on identity politics being a case in point.
The essay on the implications of the land acquisition law, however, is well researched and should be helpful for all those want the law to be amended to make it investment-friendly. The essays analysing food security legislation offer some useful insights. The introductory essay, too, makes an interesting read. It analyses why Manmohan Singh's second term faltered and suggests a list of measures to be initiated by the new government. "The foundations for this new inspirational journey will have to be firmly laid by the new government within its first term after making a quick start within the first year of coming into office," the author argues.
These few bright spots aside, the book is a disappointment from an author of Mr Kumar's calibre. Worse, it suffers from poor editing. The selection of essays for the present volume could have been much better. The title of the book is catchy and that, too, adds to disappointment, in the sense that after reading it one hardly gets a sense of how exploding aspirations can be tackled.
