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Jaswantspeak is a mixed language

BS Economy Bureau

This is one comment Finance Minister Jaswant Singh would like to forget. In 1997, asked by a Web site to rate P Chidambaram's (the then finance minister) performance, Singh had said, "Chidambaram is not a free agent, he is constrained by the fact that he has to manage a bundle of 13."

Little did Singh know that one day he would have to manage a bundle of 24.

Singh was finance minister for 13 days in the summer of 1996, and his stock as a finance man is unknown. At a time when no one has a clue about the priority list Singh has drawn up for the North Block, his rare interviews and chat sessions give some insight into his economic thinking. Although most of these comments were made in 1997, they are as relevant today.

Sample Jaswantspeak:

His main concerns: First, the size of the bureaucracy and the enormous waste and expenditure of the government; second, this tendency towards wanting to over-govern without having the ability to deliver; third, the enormous debt that we have saddled ourselves with and the crippling disability of having to pay such a huge amount as interest; and, fourth, an ambitious economic reforms programme with a ridiculously low direct tax base.

On protection: Swadeshi is an assertion of India's economic sovereignty. Protectionism is not dead even in the Mecca of free markets. There are any number of serious politicians in the US who speak of job losses as a result of the opening up of the US economy. All that the philosophy of swadeshi attempts to do is to raise pride in India and things Indian, and to cultivate a sense of self-reliance.

On free markets: "Free market" is not a euphemism for a free-for-all. A country like India will always have to take into account that 30-40 per cent of its people have not enough purchasing power to buy 1,800 calories worth of food a day, people who are not even part of the market. There is a continuing responsibility for the state.

On the stock markets: The mysteries of stock exchanges are extremely difficult to unravel. But I think it is as safe to invest in the Indian stock exchange as it is in Wall Street.

On small industry: The ancillary and small-scale sectors have to be given some kind of fiscal protection. In the first flush of liberalisation, this was an area not sufficiently appreciated. This is also an area that gives a great deal of employment. The answer, therefore, is to protect it through taxation and encourage it through technological upgradation.

On social security: What is needed are reforms in the labour laws of the country. "Exit policy" is an unhappy choice of words, as if human beings were superfluous. Without the safety net of unemployment protection, or even a rudimentary welfare state, no economic reforms programme can succeed.

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