Reforms – The Much Abused Word

 

Reforms – The Much Abused Word

Everybody and her cousin have used the word “reform”. In political speeches, it matters little what the politician is going to talk about, it has to be reformed; and I am here to lead the reformation though I am not Martin Luther King and I do not have a readymade list of 95 theses.

I read an interview of the Chief Minister of a state of India who only recently regained his seat (yes, there appears to be a sense of entitlement/ownership. So, he has the readymade anchor, if not the theses, for his reforms; a human anchor, his predecessor who was dethroned, not very recently but recently enough that memory of his efforts are fresh in the minds of the people.

When he resumed his rightful place on the throne, he was surprised by the challenges he was facing, his administrative inheritance from his predecessor. Never mind that he would have run his campaign on the selfsame deficiencies! The state’s brand name, so assiduously built-up by his earlier administration, was washed away. Hence, the necessary rebuilding/reform.

The next thing he says is very bold for a politician and I appreciate it, “...we need to recover slowly.” No politician admits to a need for time. Ask any bureaucrat and she would have heard the following phrase a million times from her politician boss: “I need it done yesterday!” Thanks CM, I say as I genuflect before him.

His predecessor had “pledged government properties for borrowing.” The tone is one of, “How could he have done this!” His predecessor halted nearly a hundred development schemes for which the Union Government (Central Government does not sound right) had set aside the money. Now, the current CM has to rejig the whole, schemes and monies, from the starting gate. But, he is a thoroughbred and I am sure he would get everything on track.

The funniest lines read, “My agenda is welfare, development, empowerment of people.” To which of the three items the word “people” applies, to welfare, and/or development, and/or empowerment? Whoever wrote down the interview (?), probably the Principal Secretary to the CM, an IAS officer, dropped the ball. Let him/her take the cue from a non-IAS Indian, the individual without any horns on his forehead, me: the rewrite, “...people’s welfare, and their development and empowerment.” The reader may comment.

The CM is creating, as he claims, the P4 mode [of development]: “public, private, people partnership.” The original P3 mode ran thus: “Public Private Partnership.” Public is people; Private is people; and the partnership is between the people, albeit of two different kinds – the moneyed and the others. Where is the need for the third item “people” that merely pads up the 3P to 4P without protecting anyone?

The CM has revived the old, yet “futuristic” projects. He is looking for new revenue models, and of course, consultants are waiting in line outside his office, each to pitch his own set of models−one for agriculture, one for export/import, one for port operations, one for hydrocarbon, one for minerals and so on. It may end up being mix-and-mismatch.

Every model, sure enough, is aimed at enhancing revenue. The critical question is whose revenue? I speak from experience. A top-notch consultancy firm was hired to enhance the profits for the company I was working for then. They came, asked questions, created spreadsheets, trained us in filling the dozen or so forms and showed impressive, indeed incredible profits for the company, on paper and in the future. The Sethji was impressed and the workers toiled under the additional burden. At the end of the financial year, the numbers were still in deep red, not even pink!

I can only hope that the CM would think twice before leaping into the arms of consultants.

The Union Government promoted Three Language Formula is not a threat to his state, indeed to any state, the CM says. “[L]anguage is not an issue at all.” Then, why the focus on one of the two official languages, Hindi, one is tempted to ask. Language not being an issue for the CM does not make it a non-issue for the others. He shall remember that he is a representative of his people.

“Hindi can be taught along English and mother tongue.” Neither Karnataka nor Tamil Nadu has prohibited anyone learning Hindi. They merely say, do not load onto the shoulders/backs of school students additional material.

People would learn whatever language they find necessary to unburden themselves in daily tasks. My brother lives in Hyderabad and he tries to pull along with smattering of Hindi and is successful only to the extent he finds necessary, and has refused to learn Telugu. He talks to the vegetable vendor in Hindi and I had to laugh when I heard him speak in that language! You may put a gun to his head and he would still refuse to learn Telugu, I guarantee.

Finally, the CM mentions that he would want many languages to be taught in colleges whereas the issue is school education! His diversionary tactic is too transparent. I hope his administration is not of this kind of diversionary transparency.

When something has to be reformed one has to understood why whatever that exists does so because it was beneficial. So, by reforms, one can enhance only the usefulness an idea. You cannot throw the idea into the trash bin without sifting through it. Isn’t it overreaching on my part to demand that politicians first sift, then sort and then discard before bringing in the new, reformed ideas? If yes, so be it.

Raghuram Ekambaram