<b>Mihir S Sharma</b>: The problem with Page One

India's press is buying the UPA's promises of reform far too easily

One of the great advantages of working at a newspaper is that you can go to work and spread out the day’s papers before you, and sometimes discern patterns thereby that those in less privileged professions who read (and pay) for just one or two of them cannot. I present for your approval the following Page One, above-the-fold, headlines and stories for October 3:

The Hindustan Times: ‘Diesel price may rise further by Rs 5’. The story claims “The government may again raise diesel prices by Rs 4-5 a litre over the next six months, demonstrating its intent to walk the talk on fiscal discipline and nurse the government’s delicate balance sheet back into health, despite political risks. Sources told HT the government to slash the subsidy outgo on diesel to Rs 8-9 litre by the end of March 2013, from the current Rs 14.”

The Times of India: ‘Govt plans to sell surplus land to ease fiscal crunch’. The text says “The Centre is ready with an ambitious plan to sell surplus government land to generate cash to ease financial pressures... A Cabinet note prepared by the finance ministry within days of the Kelkar panel submitting its recommendations says...” and so on.

Business Standard: ‘FM’s balm for developers to cure home buyers’ headache’. The story goes: “After a revival plan was announced for the insurance sector on Monday, housing is next on Finance Minister P Chidambaram’s agenda. To begin with, the finance ministry is identifying partially completed projects which can resume work after securing a fresh line of credit from banks.” As a sidebar to the story, there’s another, titled ‘60-day govt agenda to kick off market reforms’, which argues that “the countdown has begun for 60 days of an action-packed political and economic government agenda, likely to be flagged with Finance Minister P Chidambaram’s first visit in this term to Mumbai between October 10 and 15.”

Mint: ‘UPA to roll out fiscal reform plan’. The story’s text says that “The government is poised to announce a five-year fiscal consolidation plan that will lay down clear milestones for steadily narrowing the gap between spending and revenue. The plan comes against the backdrop of a series of policy initiatives taken by the Congress-led government in the last fortnight to shore up global investor sentiment.”

Economic Times: ‘Buoyant market spurs govt to sell UTI stakes in pvt cos’. The story claims that “the government has started talks to sell its shares in Axis Bank, ITC and Larsen & Toubro, an opportunistic move aided by the more than 9 per cent increase in stock indices during the past two months.”

And The Financial Express: ‘Vodafone may get relief from Shome panel’. According to this story, “though it may be another 10 days before the finance ministry makes public the draft Parthasarathi Shome panel report on Vodafone-type overseas transactions of Indian assets, sources say the panel has said that even if retrospective taxation of offshore asset transactions was to be allowed, such taxes could only be levied on the seller and not on the buyer. In other words, the tax, if applicable, can only be levied on Hutch and not on Vodafone.”
Are you beginning to see a pattern? Because there certainly is one. One take is to look at these stories and say: “Wow. The UPA’s policy paralysis is certainly a thing of the past, eh? Look at all the things they’re trying in order to get us out of the hole we’re in.” That is a pleasant, optimistic, and quite hopelessly naïve reading.

In fact, each of these reports is in essence a promise of future action. Each of them is, of course, sourced to the finance ministry – which I expect means a certain veshti-clad Highly Placed Source. Taken together, they reveal quite clearly that the government – and the finance ministry in particular – has launched a PR blitz on a scale that we haven’t seen in UPA-II’s lifetime. They suggest that the government will manage magnificently to control subsidies; launch a whirlwind of action that will please the stock market; fix troubled sectors; and win back those mysterious, nameless and pricey foreign investors who were turned off by the government’s attempt to get Vodafone to pay the tax it should have.

To those of us who have a sceptical turn of mind, all these promises run up against the UPA’s demonstrated record of incompetence and paralysis. We should take all of them with a truckload of salt: in essence, they represent little more than the trust that many of us in the media repose in P Chidambaram’s supposed ability.

In general, the Indian media is too dependent on leaked promises of future action from various ministries. But what we are seeing here is a suspension of disbelief which should give us pause.

It might, also, be useful to look at the outliers. The Indian Express, often attacked for being too close to the UPA (and “too” fond of reforms), did not run a similar story yesterday. Instead, they ran a downbeat interview with K V Kamath of ICICI Bank, who said “the signals are not clear and strong enough” yet.

The other exception is The Hindu, which nobody can accuse of being too friendly to reforms. However, the front page of that paper was dominated by a loving rendition of the scene at the launch of Arvind Kejriwal’s new party – a “news story” which included such editorialising nuggests as “looking at the enthusiastic crowds – mostly youth –who thronged the lawns of the Constitution Club, it appeared as though people had accepted the parting of ways between Mr. Hazare and IAC.” I am not sure this counts as much of an improvement. Indeed, if other newspapers report ministry leaks, a perusal of the first few pages of The Hindu suggests a dependence on other forms of PR – for NGOs, in particular. Besides the Kejriwal piece, the front page carried a piece on a march of the landless poor from Gwalior that unquestioningly repeats one participant’s claim that the Centre can set land policy ( land is a state subject constitutionally). And the only big stories on Page 3 were, first, a report on a “project to protect the unborn girl child” launched by an NGO called the Centre for Social Research; a news story that essentially quoted three NGOs to attack a new cheap medicine scheme launched by the government for being “market-based”; and a report that the awesome strength of the Water Privatisation-Commercialisation Resistance Committee is “all set to spill on to the streets” in protest against Delhi’s tentative and long-delayed attempts to get private distributors involved in water supply. By any objective standard, this is bias of its own kind.

One final point. You might worry that my examples are all chosen from a single day, and that’s perhaps unrepresentative. Very well. I’ll just list out the last few days’ headlines on Page One of the Economic Times, shall I? Draw your own conclusions: ‘After MFs, PC moves to bring Insurance Inc to life’; ‘RBI should march in step with govt: FM’; ‘Barfi for St? Get set for a blockbuster: Stocks and rupee are rising on global devpts and hopes of more market-friendly policy reforms in the days to come’; ‘Interest, penalty on retro tax may go’; ‘A reforms moment for agri’; ‘Cong joins reforms party in toto’; ‘After big reforms, now PMO is off with a bang’; ‘Reforms Juggernaut to come rolling into markets’; ‘Govt’s only answer to bandh: more reforms’.

I certainly think we should be a lot more cynical about what UPA-II can expect to achieve than our newspapers expect us to be. And we should expect more of our front pages.

mihir.sharma@bsmail.in