FIVE YEARS OF DISASTER

Harkishan Singh Surjeet

LEADERS of the BJP are nowadays a happy lot. Of late, their refrain is that theirs is the only non-Congress government in New Delhi that has completed its 5 years. It is another thing that if arithmetic is on their side, humility has certainly deserted them. The sum comes to 5 years only if one adds together the first stint of Vajpayee government (March 1998 to April 1999), its status as a caretaker (April 1999 to October 1999) and its second stint from October 1999 to March 2003.

Yet, BJP leaders seem to have forgotten the days when the Congress used to claim that only it could provide a stable government to the country. Then, these very leaders used to shout back, and correctly, that a regime’s stability could not in itself guarantee that it would be working for the people’s welfare.

Now the circle has moved a full 180 degrees. No matter how much Vajpayee & Co may shout that completing 5 years is an achievement, the fact remains that these 5 years have been perhaps the worst period in our people’s life since independence --- a period of unmitigated and all-round disaster. 

ECONOMY IN A DIRE STRAIT

TAKE the case of our economy that is in a dire strait today. For the last 3 years, final estimates of GDP growth have been giving a lie to the budget estimates. If the government’s budget for a fiscal year claims the economy would grow by 6 or 7 per cent, the Central Statistical Organisation says something different after that year passes. For the fiscal 2002-03 too, the CSO had earlier estimated that GDP growth would be a paltry 4.5 per cent against the claim of 6.5 per cent made a year ago. (In fact, Hindustan Times reported on April 1 that according to the CSO the rate declined to 2.6 per cent in the third quarter of 2002-03.) If one leaves the year 1990-91, the actual growth rates for the last 3 years have been the lowest since independence.

It is therefore not surprising that the NCAER, the CMIE or even the CII and ASSOCHAM are not prepared to buy the finance minister’s claim that the economy would have grown by 7 per cent a year henceforth. As for achieving the 8 per cent growth rate by the end of the tenth five-year plan, it has become an object of deep skepticism if not outright ridicule. For, as we once said in these columns, India can certainly achieve an 8 or even 10 per cent growth but that would require some basic changes in orientation, which are lacking. One would certainly agree with us that mere talks of the fundamentals being strong do not make these fundamentals strong.

In sum, an 8 per cent growth rate is certainly a tall order for a government that is busy attacking the people’s purchasing power, is increasingly jeopardising the development of human resources by refusing to universalise the education and health facilities, and is even threatening to bring down our savings rate by lowering the interest rates on household savings.  

Take just one instance. Agriculture contributes about 28 per cent of our GDP. So if agricultural production grows negatively (-- 3.1 per cent), that is, if it declines, what hopes could two-third of our people have of a betterment in their lives? (The latest CSO estimate: agriculture, forestry and fishing went down by 7.9 per cent in the third quarter of 2002-03.)

Yet these figures may not give an idea of the real-life sufferings of our people. Let one talk to the relatives of the more than 1,000 peasants who have committed suicide in recent years. And one of the reasons was the steep decline in prices of agricultural produce following the lifting of quantitative restrictions on import of about one and a half thousand commodities. The starvation death of more than four dozen people in three districts of Orissa, at a time when FCI godowns were stocked with about 60 million tonnes of foodgrains, has mercilessly exposed the real face of the BJP-led NDA regime. 

In the latest budget too, Jaswant Singh hiked the urea price to the detriment of our agriculture and peasantry. It is another thing that he was forced to withdraw it at the call of his “conscience,” as he told the Lok Sabha. Only that here the call of conscience means just one thing --- the fear of public outrage in an election year.   

The NDA regime’s poll promise of creating 1 crore jobs a year has also proved to be a cruel joke. Vajpayee recently quipped in Lok Sabha that what he meant before the elections was that 1 crore jobs would be created not just in public sector but in public and private sectors together. Yet the fact remains that while employment has declined in public sector, it has grown by a mere 0.1 per cent in private sector, and most of these jobs are contract jobs. The spate of closures, retrenchments and ‘voluntary’ retirements in the last 5 years has taken a heavy toll in terms of employment. In sum, the regime has left no stone unturned to give the new generations a bleak life. However, the government is still not ashamed of playing its deception game and the tenth plan approach paper has talked of creating 5 crore jobs in the next 5 years!

On the other hand, the ruthless privatisation of public sector units is not only killing jobs in droves. It is also seriously eroding our self-reliance and at the same time depriving the people of whatever defences they have against the unbridled loot and exploitation of the domestic and foreign corporates.

CORRUPTION UNLIMITED

AS for the BJP being the most honest party in the country, the claim is biting dust today. If one Bofors created a huge uproar in the country and the Rajiv regime paid a heavy price for it, now we have a spate of scams and each one of these is capable of throwing the Bofors into insignificance.

In 1998, it was a BJP regime in Delhi when onion and coriander prices shot up to Rs 100 a kg, and the BJP-patronised oil adulterators claimed some 6 dozen lives, instigating the people of Delhi to show that regime the door. But not only a lot of water has flown down the Jamna since then; this water has also washed down the colours and dyes the BJP had been sporting in order to make itself acceptable to the people.

This was the period when about 2 crore small savers were robbed of their lifetime savings because of a scam in the Unit Trust of India. This made, in the bargain, this premier mutual fund the most distrusted financial institution in the country, and paved the way for its corporatisation and privatisation.  

And one of the reasons of this scam was that political bosses had made the UTI invest in shaky companies that were controlled by pro-BJP fellows. Yet another cruel aspect of the scam was that corporate houses like the Reliance were, in advance, made aware of the UTI’s imminent downfall, enabling them to withdraw their money from the institution in time. It was only the small investors who were made to bear the cost of their leaders’ misdemeanour.

Then came the Tehelka scam that exposed how the luminaries of this regime played even with the country’s security. No less than the then BJP president and the defence minister were found involved in it, for the sake of filthy lucre. The “coffin scam” has been yet another dirty feather in the cap of our defence minister who has been acting as the troubleshooter par excellence for the main ruling party, that is, the BJP. It is not without reason that the BJP leaders retrieved him from the oblivion and made him the defence minister again, just as they reinstated their former president Bangaru Laxman, with hefty perks.

Yet another scam exposed how the present BJP president was involved in a land scam in his home state, and illegally cornered some plots of land meant for distribution among the Dalit and other weaker sections of society. It was only after public uproar that he felt compelled to surrender these plots.

Then came the scam in the distribution of petrol pumps and LPG outlets. For no less than 18 days The Indian Express carried exposures of this gigantic scam. This brought to light how the petroleum minister, a BJP luminary, distributed pumps and LPG outlets among the cronies of the BJP in the main, and also of a few other ruling parties, in a number of states. Apart from the minister’s own kith and kin, several top or second rank BJP and RSS leaders were among the beneficiaries. Nay, one of the beneficiaries had the same address in Lucknow as the address of our prime minister. 

These scams represent only the tip of the iceberg in so far as the BJP-NDA’s corrupt deals are concerned. There is reason to believe that the disinvestment of public sector concerns have not all been above board. If the BALCO, with an assets base of some Rs 25,000 crore, was sold to private hands for only Rs 550 crore, it could not have been without its own share of quid pro quo.

How this process has been intended to benefit the corporate houses, is clear from the disinvestment of the VSNL, a navratna company, giving the Tatas full control over it. It was only after the Pramod Mahajan-Arun Shourie feud that the country came to know how the Tatas had illegally transferred Rs 1,200 crore from the VSNL fund to another Tata group company. In yet another similar case, the Sterilite, that now owns the BALCO, has transferred a big sum of money from the BALCO to other Sterilite group companies. Sadly, this scam has gone largely unnoticed.   

All these instances bring to mind how, among others, Advani, Khurana and some other BJP luminaries were involved in the infamous Hawala scam that had direct links with Kashmiri militants. It is true that the court acquitted all those involved in this scam, but the acquittal was only on a technical ground, as the court refused to admit the Jain diaries as evidence. Otherwise, no common man is prepared to believe that these worthies were innocent.

Honesty and probity in public life! This was one of the slogans on which the BJP sought votes. But the claim stands exposed. Yet the BJP is indeed “a party with a difference,” as it has far surpassed its predecessors in corruption.

FOREIGN POLICY SURRENDERS

IN these five years, the BJP-led regime has also surrendered our standing in the world community by taking a pro-imperialist stance throughout. Not to talk of derecognising the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic, the regime has also refused to come out openly in support of Palestinian freedom fighters who are struggling for their just demand of a homeland. The regime failed to move when Zionists were massacring the hapless Palestinians, compelling the latter to fight with only stones and pebbles. The regime’s only concern was to strengthen relations with Israel, the USA’s biggest crony in the Middle East. 

Despite the calls from the world community, India under BJP has not moved to strengthen the non-aligned movement (NAM) that can still play a role in world affairs. Many people still fondly remember the time when Castro handed over the NAM leadership to Mrs Indira Gandhi, and the jubilation felt at that time all over the country. That changeover of leadership was a tribute to India’s role in the struggle for peace and disarmament, for protection of sovereignty of third world countries from imperialist depredations.

But all that has been given up. India has refused to join the Shanghai-6 though it is evident that mutual cooperation between India, Russia and China may go a long way in ending the present-day unipolarity and saving the world from imperialist blackmail or intimidation.

Instead of striving for total disarmament, India under BJP chose to become a nuclear power itself, causing a grievous setback to disarmament efforts. India also refuses to demand that the US dismantle its nuclear base in Diego Garcia, that threatens all Indian Ocean rim countries --- India not excluded.

But the biggest setback to our standing in the world has come with the US attack on Iraq, a trusted friend of ours. As said last week, the war threatens to make the UN system irrelevant, apart from causing immense losses to Iraqi lives. But the BJP regime has refused to even condemn the aggressor. And this at a time when mighty protest actions are taking place all over the globe, India included. It was the same US that had sent its nuclear-powered Seventh Fleet to the Bay of Bengal in order to intimidate us and kill the Bangladesh liberation struggle. It was only our friendship and cooperation treaty with the USSR that had saved the day for us. Has Vajpayee forgotten all that? Will he take trouble to recall that at that time he had himself hailed the said treaty?

What, after all, the BJP regime wants to achieve by its contemptuous servility vis-a-vis the US? That the US would back India in its tussle with Pakistan? Is it not a pipe dream? Remember the infamous Dixon plan? That the Americans want to bring Kashmir under their tutelage is undeniable. Even after the Naddimarg massacre the Americans have made no move to restrain Pakistan that has been their trusted ally in the region.   

Will Vajpayee & Co realise that defending the sovereignty of Iraq, or of any other country for that matter, is to defend our own sovereignty? But can one expect some such thing from a party that had no role in our freedom struggle?

THREATS TO NATIONAL UNITY

THE biggest threat the BJP regime poses, is to our national unity and amity. Indians have always been proud of their unity in diversity. Here is a country that gave rise to world religions like Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism, apart from many cults and sects. Christianity came here much before it reached Rome and the west. After Indonesia, we have the second biggest Muslim population. All these people have been living here peacefully for centuries and helping one another in time of need. This living together is what gave rise to our composite culture called Ganga-Jamni tehzeeb. This is what enabled India to withstand many an onslaught. In food and dress, in language and literature, in architecture and sculpture, in painting and music --- there is perhaps no area in which we do not find splendid creations that represent this composite culture. World-renowned Taj Mahal and Urdu are only two such examples, among many.   

Immediately after India’s vivisection, our constitution makers did realise the value of this composite culture for our unity and integrity, as Advani himself admitted in Lok Sabha recently. That is why secularism and federalism were made the basic frameworks of Indian polity. But these very things have been an anathema to the RSS that remote controls the BJP. Soon after coming to power, the BJP regime began its attacks on the federal principle. Though the compulsions of realpolitik deter it now from openly attacking federalism, it is still busy weakening the states in one or another way. Discrimination against the non-NDA states is going on. The centre’s callous attitude towards tiny Tripura has only been jeopardising our territorial integrity in northeast.

As for the attacks on secularism, the less said the better. The BJP started its rule with attacks on minuscule Christians in Gujarat and other states; these culminated in the burning alive of a priest and his minor sons. And then came the horrendous massacre of Muslims in Gujarat; that shook the conscience of all sane Indians. The threat is still there, as is evident from the strident Sangh Parivar campaign on the issue of a mosque in Dhar, Madhya Pradesh.

But this is not all. Through a network of institutions as well as by saffronising our whole education system, the Parivar is busy poisoning young impressive minds in order to produce a generation of fanatics and bigots that may serve as cannon fodders in its bid for a theocratic state. All the institutions and media have been and are being packed with fanatic RSS men, posing a danger not only to the present but also the future of our nation.

DEMOCRACY IN PERIL

AT the same time, the BJP-led regime is out to deprive our people with their hard-won democratic rights and civil liberties. Anti-democratic legislations in labour laws are in the offing, in a bid to make the working class helpless before brutal exploitation by employers lobby.

On the other hand, draconian laws like POTA were enacted with the help of myopic politicians like Fernandes who were themselves incarcerated under MISA. The BJP government of Jharkhand has far surpassed the terrorist-hit Jammu & Kashmir in matter of POTA detentions; even 13 or 14 years old children were detained there. Ridiculously, only after POTA misuse against the BJP’s allies in Tamilnadu and UP did the BJP come to agree that the law was open to misuse. Yet, there is no talk of scrapping the law. It is another matter that, while talking tall about fighting terrorism, the BJP took help of the NSCN (I-M), a terrorist outfit, to win a few seats in Nagaland. Are not the BJP leaders there a fit case for detention under POTA? 

These are, however, only the examples of open anti-democratic stance of the BJP. The party has also been subverting democracy by other means. In UP, as is well known, it falsified the people’s mandate in 1997 and again in 2002 by its extremely contemptuous opportunism. Twice it attempted to overthrow the elected RJD government of Bihar, though in vain.

But there is nothing surprising in it. The formation called the NDA is itself a product of opportunism par excellence, hurriedly cobbled after Lok Sabha elections in March 1998 to grab power.

The BJP’s opportunism, and a dangerous one at that, is evident also from the fact that in 1998 it agreed not to raise the three contentious issues, though the RSS-controlled outfits have been raising these same issues without fail. This is nothing but part of a calculated game. However, of late, the BJP has even given up that pretense and made it plain to its allies that it would certainly raise the said issues. This is what earned Vajpayee the blessings from RSS chief Sudarshan when they recently met. The RSS, on its part, has already moved all its pawns on the political chessboard. But the BJP also knows that it would not have much opposition from the self-seekers whose only concern is to somehow get what one Hindi writer called Vitamins P and M; these letters stand for power and money respectively.  

If one asks, this is the real danger facing the nation today. These allies swear by secularism but remain silent when secularism is attacked. They swear by non-alignment but do not care if our foreign policy of non-alignment suffers jolts. They profess federalism but gleefully gloat when an elected state government is dismissed. In sum, their commitments are not even skin-deep.

Yet, even if the situation is serious beyond measure, there is no cause for despondency, nor for complacency. The thing to remember is that politics is not confined within the four walls of parliament and assembly buildings. Real forces are there in fields and factories, in slums and educational institutions. Forces of peace, progress and secularism are still alive and kicking. Powerful protest actions against US war are a proof. The working class is soon to sound its war bugle in order to make the deaf hear. Other sections of the people are also on the move: here haltingly, there vigorously. Moreover, going by past experiences, these forces are not going to be fooled by the propaganda barrage let loose by the government on the occasion.

In such a situation, it is in fact the job, rather the bounden duty, of the Left and democratic parties to approach these forces, to mobilise them, to bring them into action. After Gujarat, the people of Himachal have already burst the BJP’s floated balloon. Let this experience be repeated in the days to come. Only then will BJP leaders realise that a regime’s stability cannot give it a license to heap miseries on the people.