HVK Archives: Not assured
Not assured - The Telegraph
Editorial
()
8 August 1997
Title: Not assured
Author: Editorial
Publication: The Telegraph
Date: August 8, 1997
Socialism is dead but the mindset that belongs to that ideology refuses to
take its rightful place in the S graveyard of outmoded ideas. In India, it
continues to be alive and kicking. Its latest victim is the insurance
regulatory authority bill which the United Front withdrew on Wednesday. The
immediate reason for the withdrawal was simple. It became clear that the
Bharatiya Janata Party's amendment to the bill, prohibiting multinationals
from entering the insurance sector, would be carried if it was put to vote.
The government may find it convenient to explain the withdrawal in terms of
bad floor management or in terms of a failure of negotiations. But there is
behind the government's backpedalling a long history The IRA bill, since
its inception, has not had a friendly reception. The left parties, prone
as they are to seeing international capital conspiracies behind every
policy, have been opposed to opening up the insurance sector. They have
used the IRA bill as a means to blackmail Mr I.K. Gujral's government.
Even those who are not as opposed to economic reforms as the left parties
have expressed their reservations about the IRA. These reservations have
no substance save as an a priori ideological antipathy to allowing foreign
insurance companies to operate in India. Lip service to reforms has gone
hand in hand with an advocacy of swadeshi.
The problem is more fundamental than merely opposing a bill. The entire
project of economic reforms in India has been hamstrung by a lack of
commitment. From the time of Mr Manmohan Singh to the present United Front
government, the reform package has been seen as an instrument of crisis
management rather than as the only means India can get back on the path of
economic growth and development. This has made economic reforms something
of a reluctant starter. The present finance minister, Mr P Chidambaram, is
an honourable exception to this tendency His advocacy of liberalization and
globalization grows not out of the logic of expediency but out of sincere
commitment and sound economic thinking. His is, unfortunately, a lone
voice which is drowned in a Nehruvian cacophony The absence of a firm
commitment renders infirm the political will necessary to institute radical
changes in a democracy. The result: a weak kneed government that seizes
the first chance to retreat in the face of opposition. The withdrawal of
the IRA bill is the most recent in a long series of examples of this kind
of cowardice. There has been a failure too in the sphere of delinking
politics and economic liberalization. The latter is seen as "anti-people"
and therefore politicians, whatever their personal views, are unwilling to
be seen as propagators of liberalization. Populism, on the other hand, is
seen as a sure vote winner. Mr Chidambaram has reasons to feel bitter.
But he must remember that he has chosen to sup with the devil with a very
short spoon.
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