Bullish statements under such circumstances may end up sounding like that by-product associated with cud-chewing cattle, unless they are backed up by action. The problem with the National Democratic Alliance government is that while all its constituents mouth the right phrases on policy, only a handful in the union council of ministers is really committed to the hard work required to get the economy off the ground. There is no dearth of reformist talk, but no evidence of the energy to walk.

Nowhere is this schizophrenia more evident than in the one area of economic policy which ought to have been on top of this government's agenda - privatisation. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and many constituents of the NDA, particularly the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhakam (DMK), have been explicitly committed to privatisation, though all of them still seem to prefer the euphemism of `disinvestment' first used by the short-lived Chandra Shekhar government in 1990.

Consider the games that some of the other NDA constituents are playing. Shiv Sena's Manohar Joshi is hunting with the hounds (or should one say tigers?!) and running with the hares on disinvesting government stake in Maruti Udyog Limited (MUL) and a clutch of other eminently sellable public sector undertakings under his charge. Civil aviation minister Sharad Yadav has turned out to be a cleverer strategist than his many Machiavellian predecessors when it comes to swearing by and swearing at divestment in the same breath. From sundry operators to unionised pilots everyone is jumping on to the airlines privatisation bus to make sure it never moves.

Communications minister Ram Vilas Paswan seems to have perfected the art of hide and seek in stalling divestment in his latest pocket burrough.

So who cares? The union finance minister ought to. He has budgeted for a whopping Rs 10,000 crore in divestment proceeds to bridge the gap in his finances. Realising that he is unlikely to meet that target this fiscal, he has now delivered a dire warning to those lobbying for more tax cuts - business lobbies, on the one hand, and his ministerial colleagues like petroleum minister Ram Naik and railways minister Mamata Banerjee, on the other. Mr Yashwant Sinha's plainspeaking at a seminar in New Delhi last week was entirely warranted. He very correctly rejected demands for tax cuts and even more correctly ruled out protectionist tariff hikes. Shape up or ship out, was Mr Sinha's unambiguous message. But, Mr Sinha too needs to walk the talk.

Tough messages can evaporate into thin air when players in the market place believe that when one government functionary closes the door, another opens a window. The stench of crony capitalism, in large part responsible for the downfall of the Congress government in 1996 and, on a different plane, for the economic crisis in South East Asia, is beginning to spread through the corridors of government in New Delhi and an increasing number of state governments. Those who feel excessively smug about US$40 bn foreign exchange reserves, a by no means modest rate of growth of close to 6.0 per cent and a relatively stable political environment, must remember that all this can come apart fairly quickly if enterprise is hijacked by cronyism. Fostering competition, sustaining higher rates of growth and fostering investment within a transparent regulatory framework is essential to ensure stable growth. Equally important is hard-nosed fiscal governance. The latter is not possible in a regime of cronyism, non-transparentgovernance and with the `politicisation' of economic policy-making in the worst sense of that term.

Many fear that this is precisely what is beginning to happen. Parliamentary majorities breed cronyism as much as parliamentary minorities have done.Perception is half reality in a market economy. Perceptions can be altered.

However, occasional speeches by the finance minister or prime minister, or even the odd reforming minister, will not suffice. A government must be seen to be in command and committed to a clearly defined policy. Decisions once taken must not be shelved or action delayed. A government that has been able to muster the courage required to declare India a nuclear weapons power in the face of developed countries' sanctions must not be seen meekly surrendering to blackmail tactics at home, repeatedly. Some crucial policy decisions acquire symbolic importance at times, like increasing oil prices or privatising Maruti, and events surrounding such symbols send signals to markets, shaping perceptions, altering sentiments, changing reality.