People's DemocracyEditorial
PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS
Coming as it does, on the eve of the final budget to be presented by this UPA government, president Pratibha Devisingh Patil's first address to the joint session of the parliament listed predominantly the government's claims on its economic performance. In the process, the speech suffered from providing a real objective balance sheet of the country's economic situation. Instead, it lists the so-called achievements and initiatives of the government with the claim that, "the measures taken by my government have created the necessary architecture of inclusive growth".
On the eve of this current budget session of the parliament, through these columns, we had urged the UPA government to utilise its last year in office to initiate measures that would try to bridge the hiatus between the `shining' and the `suffering' Indias. Unfortunately, the president's address does not even recognise this glaring reality. While, on the one hand, it is claimed that, "For the first time in history, the Indian economy has grown at close to 9 per cent per annum for four years in a row", the fact that a farmer continues to commit distress suicide every 30 minutes in our country; that 78 per cent of our people live on less than Rs 20 a day is brazenly omitted.
This is the reality of the last four years of economic performance that cannot be ignored. While highlighting the features of `shining' India – a booming sensex; unprecedented foreign exchange reserves; high investment and savings rates of over 34 per cent; the emergence of 48 US dollar billionaires – the plight of the `suffering' India has not even been recognised. Worse, there is no reference to the continuing price rise, particularly of essential commodities, that is eroding further the living standards of the people.
Such was the preoccupation with the so-called achievements that the crisis in Indian agriculture and farmers' suicides were not even mentioned. Claims of substantially increased flow of agricultural credit cannot blind us to the reality that nearly two-thirds of our farmers continue to remain at the mercy of the private moneylenders and their usurious interest rates. This debt burden has been the primary cause for peasants' suicides. Neither is there any reference to the growing vulnerability of India's food security. After claiming, for decades, that we have achieved self-sufficiency in the production of foodgrains, we had to import 5 million tonnes of wheat last year. Yet, the public distribution system continues to be further undermined with the centre drastically reducing the quantum of foodgrain's transfer to the states. All this portends is that the living conditions for the vast masses of suffering India continues to decline further. As we argued in these columns earlier, it can only be hoped that the UPA government will, in its last budget before the next general elections, initiate measures to implement the pro-people commitments made in the Common Minimum Programme.
Stating that `inclusive growth' demands `inclusive governance', the president lists the various measures that the government has initiated for various sections of the population under the key areas of employment generation, education and health. Though she invoked the famous quotation – "women hold up half the sky" – the president chose not to even mention the Women's Reservation Bill. This long-pending legislation was promised to be enacted at the earliest by the UPA's CMP. It is yet to see the light of the day. During its last year in office, the UPA government must bring this Bill before the parliament for adoption.
In the fields of education, health and rural development, the president enumerated the Eleventh Five Year Plan targets. The president, however, chose not to remind the country that the Eleventh Plan increases in allocations in these sectors will only materialise over a five year period. These, hence, do not constitute any immediate relief to the distress of the common people today.
While talking of a range of other issues - from climate change to telecommunications, to the armed forces, to the foreign policy – the president stated that, "It is our hope that civil nuclear cooperation with the USA and other friendly countries will become possible." Now, on this issue, the Left has been consistent and unequivocal in its opposition. As it stands today, the UPA-Left have agreed that the government would proceed to discuss the safeguards issues with the International Atomic Energy Agency and report back to the committee that is examining the implications of this deal on India, before proceeding further. The Left maintains that the government should not proceed with the operationalisation of the Indo-US nuclear deal.
The tone and tenor of the speech has led to speculation in certain quarters that its content was more directed towards the impending general elections rather than providing the country with an objective balancesheet of the government's achievements and failures. Be that as it may, the Left is committed to strengthen popular struggles to mount greater pressure on the UPA government to fulfill its own promises made in the CMP, on which basis, to begin with, the Left had extended its support to this government.
