Manmohan hits the ground running
By Santwana Bhattacharya
NEW DELHI - A long "second honeymoon" has been scripted for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh - his government goes into a crucial session of parliament kicking off on July 2 in such a dominating position that the one thing that can conceivably go wrong may be the sheer surplus of comfort.
There's no mistaking the looming crises: the very real constraints on the economy, the task of pursuing growth while simultaneously evolving a functioning welfare state, the traumatic India-Pakistan relations, the trouble spilling over on the streets of Kashmir ... a long roster of problems that are the rightful bequest of any government.
But the contrast between the atmospherics of 2004 and 2009 - the relative freedom of movement available to the United Progressive Alliance government's second avatar - can hardly escape anyone's notice as the system prepares for the passage of finance bills after the ceremonious presentation of the
economic survey, the railway and the general budgets, in that order.
One indication of the high level of confidence is the willingness to take on something that, at any other time, would have been a red rag to a bull in parliament: the report on an incident that deeply divided India and impacted its politics for over a decade. The Liberhan Commission - set up to investigate the infamous 1992 demolition of the medieval Babri mosque by Hindu fundamentalists in the Uttar Pradesh town of Ayodhya, believed to be the birthplace of the revered mythic hero Rama - submitted its report to the prime minister on Tuesday.
The report itself was in danger of becoming a myth. It took all of 16 years, 48 extensions, 399 sittings and an equivalent of almost US$2 million to be ready. Manmohan will be tabling the three-volume report, which could prove rather embarrassing for senior leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), including leader of the opposition in parliament, Lal Krishna Advani. For years, both the commission and the government have approached things timidly - mostly with another extension to postpone the trouble - but not this time.
One can only gasp at the change in the political climate. Compared to the dramatic disarray in the opposition camp, the comfort zone Manmohan and his Congress party currently inhabit is enviable. It shows in the tone and content of official pronouncements, the messianic zeal being exhibited by some cabinet ministers, the swashbuckling manner in which they are unveiling radically transformative plans for sundry sectors.
After the Manmohan regime decided it had to give the impression of hitting the ground running on its second coming, it borrowed from the Barack Obama dispensation the idea of setting short-term, capsule-like targets - the whole framework and metaphor and hoopla of 100 days.
In itself, it's not a bad addition to the Indian vocabulary: it invests governments normally seen as lethargic with a sense of purpose, an illusion of speed. Government sexed up, in pursuit of the sheen of private-sector efficiency. In response, Manmohan's ministers have gone into an almost competitive overdrive, each eager to exhibit not just how quick they are on the draw but how straight they can shoot.
Education Minister Kapil Sibal drew first. Foremost on his brief, as was becoming clear in a gathering press campaign, was to consider allowing foreign universities to participate in India's higher education sector - likely to be a stormy issue. Instead of broaching that directly, he let loose a slew of "radical reform" proposals: collapsing all of India's school boards into one unified board, scrapping the traumatic Class X board exam and shifting from marks to grades, junking the existing regulatory and accreditation bodies for university and technical education, going in for the public-private partnership model in primary education ... all of that in 100 days.
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Santwana Bhattacharya is a New Delhi-based journalist who writes on politics, parliament and elections. She is currently working on a book on electoral reforms and the emergence of regional parties in India. |
