Minimum Governance Appears To Mean Maximum PMO

Written by Brinda Karat for NDTV.
 
Brinda Karat is a Politburo member of the CPI(M) and a former Member of the Rajya Sabha.)
 
100 days of a government, though still early days, is certainly long enough to point to the direction it intends to take. This is more so when it commands an imposing majority, as does the present government. The current NDA partners are a shadow of their former selves. In the last year of the then-NDA Government under Vajpayee ji, Sushma Swaraj had moved the Women's Reservation Bill for passage and adoption. Within a day, she had to concede defeat and withdraw her efforts in the face of the opposition within her own party, which used the shoulders of their then-ally Sharad Yadav to shoot it down. Vajpayee ji was a helpless spectator.

There are no such impediments for the present Prime Minister. If the government had wanted, it could have listed and passed the Women's Bill in the first session itself. Instead it prioritized a slew of Bills framed by the previous Government and linked to corporate interests such as the introduction of FDI in insurance, the privatization of banks and of course the notorious effort to enslave workers in the name of labour reform.

This in addition to a budget which seemed made by Chidambaram and which granted further concessions to corporates with taxes foregone to the tune of over 5 lakh crore rupees.

So whose interests have been advanced in the first 100 days?

Not those of ordinary folk who had voted to get relief from relentless price rise.  The issue of price rise has been so downgraded that it did not merit even a mention in the Red Fort speech. This at a time when food inflation continues its relentless upward climb driven by huge increases in the prices of vegetables, pulses, sugar and edible oil. The drastic cuts in fuel subsidy have a cascading impact on prices. The big hike of 14.5 per cent in railway fares and also freight charges only adds to this.

Whose interests have been advanced so far? Not those of the unemployed. No one expects jobs to be provided in 100 days. But a government  that promises jobs should at least not take away jobs. The only employment guarantee programme in rural India, the MGNREGA, has been sharply cut and attempts are being made to convert a legal universal right of 100 days of work  into a targeted scheme limited to selected districts.

Not those of the workers.  The Make in India slogan is attractive to corporates but how will it translate for the Made in India workers? The changes being proposed in labour laws will exclude over half of India's labour force from any protection.

Not those of the Kisans. Amendments are being suggested to the Land Acquisition, Resettlement and Rehabilitation Act to drastically dilute the need for farmer consent for land acquisition, even in Fifth Schedule areas, and to reduce the present levels of compensation.

100 days have also revealed a change in the style of Government. It seems the slogan of minimum Governance is accompanied by a maximum PMO. Centralization of authority seems to be the mantra. There are any number of examples: here is a Prime Minister who, from the ramparts of the Red Fort, announces the scrapping of the Planning Commission, a 40-year-old institution bypassing any discussion in Parliament which was in session till a day earlier, and then asks for alternative suggestions through tweets ! Here is a Prime Minister who trumps the Congress in subverting the autonomy of institutions. His Government vetoed the appointment as Supreme Court judge of a most senior and respected member of the Bar  because as amicus curiae in the Gujarat false encounter case, he had argued that there was ample evidence to include Amit Shah, the current President of the BJP, as an accused.  Surely to be decisive does not mean to sacrifice democratic methods by autocratic ones.

So who is happy? Corporate India seems to be, going by the confidence vote in the stock exchanges, though  this is a world which is never satisfied. Perhaps those who are happiest are the swayam sevaks who under this Government are having a field day manufacturing new ways to communalize love between consenting adults, rewriting history through the most outrageous assertions of Hindutva -- (Hindustan belongs to all Hindustanis, Mr Bhagwat) -- and so on, while the Prime Minister maintains a deafening silence.

So in the first 100 days, there have been achhe din, but only for the select few while the rest have been fed bitter pills.

I do not normally support the views of Brinda Karat but in the above, I cannot fault her arguments. As Modi said, the first four years have been allocated to the Ambanis and Adanis. In the 5th year only he will think of the aam aadmi.
Rajnath Singh must be already regretting having chosen Narendra Modi to lead the BJP.