Author: R K Nandan
Publication: The Economic Times
Date: May 21, 2006
URL: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1540119.cms
On May 14, while inaugurating in Delhi the
complex of the Defence Research & Development Organisation, Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh called for the creating of a favourable working environment
to retain within the country the best talent in cutting edge departments.
"We have to think of new ways to stem
the haemorrhage of scientific talent from our technology departments in a
highly competitive environment," he said.
On the same day, Union HRD minister Arjun
Singh was declaring before the media that there could be no relook at the
proposal to extend the ambit of reservation for the country's premier educational
institutions and Central universities from the existing 22.5% for SCs and
STs to 49.5% to also take care of the OBCs.
Which, in other words, contradicted what his
PM had been saying since the proposal articulated by Arjun Singh meant that
one out of every two students admitted into the country's premier educational
institutions would not be getting in on the basis of merit!
Arjun Singh even did his bit to add insult
to injury by making the point that the PM's eight-member Knowledge Commission,
which had come out against the extension of reservation by a majority of six
to two, was behaving as if it was above the Constitution of India.
All political parties had, Singh added, recently
approved an amendment to the Constitution which was an enabling clause in
terms of extending the ambit of reservation to 49.5%.
And so what if Knowledge Commission member
and Centre for Policy Research director Pratap Bhanu Mehta indicated that
the enabling clause did not automatically require the government to extend
quotas and that it could not be used as a pretext!
However, Arjun Singh was not the only politician
trying to undermine non-partisan bodies set up by the PM like the Knowledge
Commission. Round about the same time, in an atavistic throwback to the days
of the licence-permit raj, Union commerce minister Kamal Nath was threatening
to crack the whip by imposing a ban on the export of cement unless prices
of the commodity came down.
Apart from ignoring the fact that only six
per cent of the commodity was being exported and that prices had risen because
of the basic economic laws of supply and demand, Kamal Nath was also pre-empting
the role of the Competition Commission which had been set up to precisely
look at all attempts by all industries at cartelisation through price-fixing
and to take remedial action.
On May 13, Kamal Nath had also threatened
India's entire industrial private sector by warning that the government could
consider mandatory measures unless companies recruited a greater proportion
of those belonging to the SCs, STs and OBCs.
Kamal Nath also urged India's private sector
to set up more ventures in those districts which had a dominant proportion
of SCs, STs and OBCs! Surely, if any of the Union ministers could claim to
be aware of the 21st century winds of change and the need to be globally competitive,
it is Kamal Nath who has attended so many multilateral meetings at the WTO
and elsewhere over the last few years in his capacity as India's commerce
minister.
Surely, if any minister is aware that China
is a far more attractive FDI destination than India in this era of global
competitivenes, it is Kamal Nath. Surely, Kamal Nath would be aware that it
is growth and growth alone which can liberate the masses in India from the
shackles of poverty and backwardness.
So why are India's ministers like Arjun Singh
and Kamal Nath articulating policies which could take the country two paces
back for every single step it progresses. The answer has to be seen in the
malaise of vote-bank politics.
If even an otherwise sound Union finance minister
like P Chidambaram can state on the campaign trail in TN that it is sadhayam
-- Tamil for feasible -- to gift colour TVs to the masses below the poverty-line,
that only indicates that India's politicians are engaged in a lemming-like
rush to strike the lowest common denominator (LCD) when it comes to ensuring
their success at the polls even at the cost of mortgaging the country's economic
future!
If Chuchill defined democracy as not an undiluted
good but a lesser evil, it was because he was aware of the damage which could
be done by demagogues like Adolf Hitler who, on the basis of one electoral
win, managed to make even the Holocaust a state objective!
If tomorrow, Arjun Singh, Kamal Nath or P
Chidambaram becomes the Raksha Mantri of India, they would see nothing wrong
in exhorting the youth of India to sacrifice their lives for the sake of the
country, irrespective of caste, creed or community.
At the same time, these netas seem to see
nothing wrong in sacrificing the country's tomorrow for their electoral todays
by striking the LCD! And so what if their late leader Rajiv Gandhi had some
16 years ago accused the then prime minister V P Singh of dividing the country
for politically partisan purposes under the guise of implementing the Mondal
Commission's report on quotas!