Britain's Parliament surprised everyone by covering itself in glory on Friday, preventing its government from bombing Syria. Watching the debate, I was reminded that that legislature retains something of the combative nature of its origins: Treasury and opposition benches face each other directly, and are separated by two red lines painted exactly as far apart as two drawn swords. Yet, in all its hoary history of confrontation, perhaps no more resonant phrase has been spoken in the House of Commons than this, from a bemused chancellor of the exchequer in 1978 who'd just been attacked by the famously bland Tory MP Geoffrey Howe: "It was like being savaged by a dead sheep." But even dead sheep have their day - 12 years later, it was Howe's resignation speech in the Commons that led to the downfall of his prime minister, Margaret Thatcher.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is, if anything, even more stiff a speaker. But, occasionally, one senses he is capable of something like a Howe-Thatcher moment. That moment didn't come in the Lok Sabha yesterday, in which he delivered a speech on economic issues that reasonably fairly, accurately and concisely laid out the causes of the rupee's decline. I don't share his optimism about the effects of recent government moves to correct the current-account deficit - but still, there were two things that startled me.
First was the general urgency of much of his phrasing. So far, this government has looked capable of nothing so much as handing over charge to the next administration. In this speech, however, he singled out fiscal contraction of "subsidies that do not reach the poor" as the most important and immediate step to take. That's welcome.
The second was his dismissal of reforms so far: "The easy reforms of the past have been done. We have the more difficult reforms to do." This is something that many of us have been saying for some time; but to hear a man normally happy to remind us of his reputation as a reformer point out that what was taken care of earlier was "low-hanging fruit" was remarkable. Yes, indeed, what comes now is tougher. But waiting for a political consensus is a terrible idea. For the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), political consensus, such as riots, is something that happens to other people. If your blood is up, prime minister, push forward anyway.
And it seemed his blood is up, just slightly - because he came closer to a Howe-Thatcher moment in the Rajya Sabha, where he tore into the way disruptions have replaced debate in Parliament. In which other democracy, he asked, was such uncollegial behaviour so common? In response, the Leader of the Opposition, Arun Jaitley, happily proved the PM's point by snapping, yet again, about the trust vote in 2009. The BJP: Utterly Bitterly Delicious.
The best speakers are those who prevent you, through their ability, from examining the content of their speeches objectively. By that standard, outgoing Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor D Subbarao is an excellent speaker. He was the other policymaker to mount a defence this week; on Thursday he spoke elegantly and persuasively about the central bank's role in the past few years. Naturally, his speech escaped the widespread criticism that attaches itself to most policymakers, for the excellent reason that he is was speaking (a) in a suit and (b) out of Parliament.
Nobody who noted all the passive verbs in Manmohan Singh's speech could imagine he properly acknowledged his government's failures. But Singh did not exhibit any of the brazenness with which Subbarao argued that the RBI was successful in controlling inflation because wholesale price inflation had come down. This, as he continues in his policies - and even in that very speech a few breaths later - to complain that it is consumer price inflation that's the problem.
Nor did Singh double down on ideological, unsubstantiated defences of his actions or inaction; but Subbarao did, by saying again that inflationary expectations are running wild. I am yet to see any persuasive evidence - actually, any evidence - that this is so. Wage increases, which Subbarao cited, are not evidence of a generalised expectations effect, particularly obviously when a certain specified set of wage increases have been openly programmed by policy. The economic and ethical content of a statement that blamed a growth-squeezing monetary stance on a decision to index the incomes of the poorest - those who go the employment guarantee scheme for help - frankly appalled me.
Does the RBI define "inflationary expectations" as expectation that those who are poor, and also largely disconnected from the economy, will be paid more? If so, that's poor economics - and it is immoral. But there's not much chance, sadly, of the statement attracting the criticism it deserves.
In any case, the way we respond to speeches is a funny thing. Indians tend to complain loudly when the other person isn't talking, then ignore him when he does. After the PM spoke, I tuned into news TV - something I now do rarely - to see how it was responding. NDTV and CNN-IBN, to their credit, were discussing it. Times Now was instead indulging in competitive speculation about some police interrogation to which neither of them had access. The same people who bellow nightly that the PM must speak don't seem to think it important to report it when he does. And a special circle in media hell is reserved for Headlines Today, run apparently by bellicose schoolboys; true to this identity, when I switched to the channel, there was a PR-ish interview with the stars of the movie "Grand Masti". Perhaps if Parliament sticks to discussing new Bollywood films, there will be fewer disruptions and more careful reporting.
mihir.sharma@bsmail.in
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