Crisis planning

An index of the deep frustration among bureaucrats on Raisina Hill can be had from the opinion of a senior North Block mandarin. He’s hoping the European crisis deepens. Not because he has anything against Europeans but he reckons that a crisis there will provoke a deeper crisis in India and force the political establishment to promote the many pro-reform policies that are stuck for one reason or another. After all, he reasons, it was the balance of payments crisis that precipitated the end of the licence-permit raj and put India on a higher growth trajectory ever since.