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| T N Ninan: A darker mood | | As another Independence Day approaches, it would seem that the country's mood is darker than it was a year ago |
| T N Ninan / New Delhi Aug 14, 2010, 00:46 IST |
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As another Independence Day approaches, it would seem that the country’s mood is darker than it was a year ago. The Kashmir situation has got dramatically worse (and cannot be dismissed as the handiwork of the Hurriyat), as has the Maoist problem. Inflation has remained stubbornly high, defying all predictions of quick moderation. Scandals have dominated the newspaper headlines — first there was the sleaze surrounding the Indian Premier League, now there are the even greater scandals over the Commonwealth Games, with politicians neck deep in both. In between there has been the business of foodgrain rotting in government godowns, even as the Cabinet decides not to sell it in the market because of the losses that will be incurred (as though the losses can be avoided by holding on to the grain). The Bhopal scandal resurfaced as a ghost from the past, pointing a harsh light at how the poor and the victimised get a raw deal at the hands of the state.
So, it is now cold comfort to most people that the economy has returned to a high growth path. The country seems to be confronted by issues that go well beyond economic growth. And it does not help that the government is rudderless, with ministers talking at cross-purposes, alliance partners doing their own thing (e.g. Mamata Banerjee consorting with Maoists), and the prime minister mostly invisible and not heard from at all except very occasionally. What is needed most of all in difficult times is firm leadership, and that is not in evidence.
It isn’t all bleak, of course. The most heartening development of recent months has been the discovery that the backward states of the Hindi heartland have begun to do noticeably better on many economic and social parameters. To all those concerned about growing inequality in the system, this holds out the hope that regional (and, therefore, inter-personal) inequalities can, in fact, be addressed.
But the issue that trumps everything else, as a matter of growing worry, is the scale jump in corruption, and the systemic threat posed by the rise of oligarchies (in whom political and financial power get fused). Most people have come to assume in recent years that the rapid growth that the economy has been able to achieve points to what is to come in the next decade or two. Such facile optimism is to be expected; most projections into the future are a continuation of present trends. However, it would be instructive to look at other promising economies that too were growing rapidly at some stage, and which then got short-changed because they lost their legitimacy on account of corruption and the rise of oligarchies.
In Asia, the Philippines and Indonesia are prime examples of once promising entities that became by-words for corruption, and which lost their momentum, to the point where they have long forgotten what rapid growth was like. The Philippines under Marcos and Indonesia under Suharto were systems that were captured by oligarchies and eventually undermined from the viewpoint of both fairness and efficiency. There are similar examples in Africa and Latin America, which should serve as warnings that economic growth and democratic systems are fragile flowers in half-formed societies where institutions still need to be nurtured, where poverty is still widespread and where inequalities are likely to grow in the initial stages of rapid growth. If the system is seen to lose its basic fairness, and corruption crosses tolerable limits and envelopes the most important public institutions (like the courts), then the system itself is at risk.
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