Among the many lessons which pundits will undoubtedly draw from the elections, one stands out loud and clear--the comparative success of Chandrababu Naidu in hanging on to his state, at a time when the so-called anti-incumbency factor has become a potent force elsewhere in the country. Naidu has managed to fend off a serious challenge to his leadership inspite of widely predicted disaster for his party. Consider the factors ranged against him -- the withdrawal of prohibition, the withdrawal of the Rs 2 per kilo rice scheme, attempts to raise the cost of power to farmers, and finally a spate of suicides by cotton farmers in the state. Far more experienced politicians like Bansi Lal in Haryana have bitten the dust, one factor being a refusal to bow down to farmers' demands for free power.The difference lies in the way the reforms have been communicated. Naidu has been at pains to explain to the people of his state why the populist policies pursued by the previous TDP government were emptying the statetreasury and making the state a basket case, and how he had no alternative but to change those policies. At the same time, Naidu also launched his "Janmabhoomi" programme, designed not only to improve productivity in the state administration, but also to make it much more transparent. This has paid dividends, and although the TDP tally has been pruned, his policies have been vindicated.
The point that emerges is that there is not only a case for economic reform, but a case for taking the rationale for the reforms to the people. So far, there has been no attempt to communicate the need for reform to the masses, nor has there been any discussion on the way reforms could change people's lives. The assumptions implicit in this attitude could be two -- one, that the masses are fools, and cannot be expected to understand such complicated subjects, and two, that they will in any case be anti-reform. The first assumption does not hold water -- politicians would have lost no time in explaining the benefits of reformto their constituencies, and taken the credit for it, if they had themselves believed that the masses would benefit. It is probable therefore, that there is a covert belief that liberalisation is anti-poor. This is clearly not the case, as rising living standards in the rest of Asia prove. If the people were shown the ways in which they stand to benefit, inspite of initial pain, they would back the reformer, as they have done Naidu. Reforms till now have taken place almost by stealth--a process unbecoming of a democracy. It is only when economic reform is explained to the people that they will attract mass support, and in the process, liberalisation can also be made more meaningful for the common man.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
