Letters: A Thatcher for India

This refers to the editorial "The Iron Example" (April 10). Margaret Thatcher and Indira Gandhi were contemporaries. The former had a market-oriented approach, while the latter pursued a centre (rather a centre-left) path, though a decade or so earlier. Thatcher was a success, and so was Gandhi. However, what worked in the 1970s and 1980s for both Britain and India is not working today - which is not surprising.

In fact, India is in the same situation as Britain was when Thatcher took over. The key parameters for the head of the next government due by 2014 are deregulating the economy, encouraging enterprise and risk-taking, and cutting taxes for businesses to incentivise efforts. Individual aspiration also needs to be encouraged. Unions hold on power must be loosened. All these point to Narendra Modi as the most suitable candidate.

In Britain, whatever Thatcher did - and failed in - did not prompt a call by the socialists to take the road back to the days of quasi-communism and union strikes. Some were cynical, no doubt. But, overall, the approach was sensible. Such decency is not confined to the 1980s and 1990s. Even today, amid a recession, the Labour Party in Britain is following the sensible path of liberal socialism, vying for high taxes and spending by the government as a way to ensure equality and access for all citizens to the wealth created. No politician - including the leftist - speaks of culling enterprise-building efforts. True, there were Tory backbenchers and opposition politicians posturing themselves as the best alternative to Thatcher's roughshod approach - but then, that's the politics of it. On the strategy, they fell in line, largely, enabling her to bring about the transition. In India, too, where we are at the cusp of a change, we expect our leftists to avoid talking of going back to the days of the Licence Raj. Less collectivism is what is required now.

If Modi adopts this line of thought, it will not be surprising. He has already proven himself to be a supporter of individual efforts and enterprise. What is worrying is the deafening silence of our socialists (forget communists, they never acknowledge enterprise) to newer ideas to kick-start the economy - and, importantly, keep it running. It's not the lack of strategy that is scary, but the faith reposed by the Indian left on a big government as the owner of all means of production and distributor of resources produced from them. While we believe Modi would do a Thatcher here, we also expect the socialists to not meddle around - just like the British politicians of 1980s when Thatcher reigned. Here's hoping.

Raghu Seshadri Chennai

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