Barun Roy: Look at Asia, heed its lessons

ASIA FILE

It may sound repetitious but is worth re-telling since politicians usually don't remember and never learn.

Before amnesia gets hold of the new government at the Centre and complacency puts it at rest, one must keep reminding its leaders of the one overriding lesson of the recent national elections: people want change in the condition of their lives and they want it now.

Fifty-seven years after independence, we are still only talking of the bare necessities of life "" square meals, water, electricity, roads, healthcare, education "" for the vast majority of our people. It's the lack of basic development that seems to have sunk the Vajpayee boat.

To millions who live below the poverty line, half-starved, underemployed and ill-cared, the India Shining campaign was a grave insult and a cruel joke. The heroics of Hindutva had little meaning for them and were only a crude attempt to drown the rumblings of empty stomachs.

There are two simple reasons why promise-mongering will no longer work as a political ploy. First, after 56 years of overuse, promises have lost their charm.

The divide between rural deprivation and urban prosperity is getting too stark for comfort and the awareness of the divide is sinking in among the ordinary people, thanks to Bollywood and TV and the constant parade of consumerism in "good life" ads.

Second, all around us the world is changing at a furious pace and unless we buckle up and do something now, we will never catch up with even our fellow Asians. We no longer have an eternity to build our nation. Promises won't make us a superpower even by 2050.

There are many examples in Asia to show that quick growth is the only effective way to tackle equity issues.

China is one such example, where growth has had a quantum leap, spread out fairly among the provinces, the basic necessities of life are available to the majority of the population, and the development of infrastructure has proceeded hand in glove with investments in job-creating industries.

Korea is another, where sheer hard work and pragmatism have turned a nation devastated by war into a manufacturing heavyweight that's able to take on even the Japanese.

Singapore has proved how a combination of right leadership and policies can transform even a barren territory into a mighty economic force that everybody has learnt to admire.

All the three nations had the same motivation: to make their people prosperous in the shortest possible time. All of them pursued policies that would lead them to this honest and simple goal.

They looked outside their boundaries to get the money and the technology they didn't have to build their industries and services and create jobs. They did everything to make those investments stay.

Nationalist pride didn't stand in the way. In China's case, not even ideological pride. Everything became secondary to the welfare of the people.

It was not seen as selling out to foreign interests but as the only viable way to create quick wealth for the nation "" wealth that will stay behind even if the foreigners were to leave. Foreigners can't take the factories and technologies with them.

Will the new leaders of India and their supporters show the same kind of pragmatism? We don't know. Manmohan Singh's election as prime minister raises a glimmer of hope. Much would now depend on how positive a role his leftist backers, cheering from outside, are prepared to play.

It would be a pity if the next five years were to become a mere survival game where the parties avoid taking crucial economic decisions lest they tread on sensitive toes, thus sending the government into hibernation.

The Asian example clearly shows that there's no escape from economic reforms, liberalisation, and the globalisation of markets. The debate about privatisation and divestment shouldn't cloud our thinking. These issues won't determine if our country stays poor or not.

If we wish to accelerate economic growth for the immediate benefit of the people, we can't do without large doses of foreign direct investment and must ensure for our own private sector an appropriate freedom of action. We can't shut our markets from the world or condone inefficiencies at home.

One hopes the Indian leftists understand this. Once again they have an opportunity to play a positive economic role and one expects they will seize it. Simply playing the protector of the poor "" clamouring for subsidies, opposing divestment, or calling a bandh to protest a factory closure "" only helps to keep the poor where they are, poor.

Negative politics will never give the leftists the wider national acceptance they seek. For, a fundamental change has occurred in societal attitudes. People are sick of remaining poor and are restless for the good life that waves at them from all around.