Commentary/Ashok Mitra

Seeking the help of the helpless

The decrepit call to the decrepit.

Of all countries in the Western hemisphere, the United Kingdom has the poorest rate of economic growth. The country, in fact, is the prize exhibit of sustainable non-growth. The load of unemployment in Britain, hovering around 10 per cent of the working force for decades on end, has defied solution, the country's balance of payments crisis is chronic, a massive programme of disinvestment of public undertakings in the more recent period has not improved matters.

The present prime minister presides over what by general agreement is a decaying cadaver. He will, according to all indications, be unceremoniously pushed out of office come May this year, when the next elections are due.

The decrepit can, however, seek support only from the decrepit. The assorted chambers of industry in India were unable to locate any superior person to adorn their widely-trumpeted conference on global partnership. To expect a British prime minister, heading an administration riven by scandals and horrendous economic mismanagement, to offer ideas contributing to India's growth was nothing less than bizarre.

After all, he has not a clue about how to spark growth in his own land. He, in any case, was clear in his mind on the role he was to perform in India. He was here as a commercial traveller, keen to see that India buys some more British merchandise, such as the Hawk fighter aircraft, and lets the British insurance companies in, thereby helping to improve British balance of payments. The state of India's investmentless and sagging balance of payments was the least of his concerns.

Forget the British prime minister, external entities of no other genre too are apparently interested in investing in India's future. The phenomena of sagging rate of both growth and capital formation, gaping fiscal deficits, rising unemployment, soaring prices et al, threaten to be endemic.

The principal postulate, forming the basis of the promised miracle of milk and honey flooding the country following liberalisation, was the gushing inflow of foreign capital. The nation has now waited a neat half-a-dozen years; that kind of inflow has not taken place. Prospects in the immediate future are no better.

There is 'no alternative', crowed the pro-liberalisation lobby in 1991. It is time to inform that lobby that the policies pursued since 1991 have proved to be not much of an alternative either. Polemics many ensue whether, had these policies not been pursued, the economy would have been in a state healthier than she is at this moment. But that hardly justifies the cynicism of the finance minister, who presided over the affairs during 1991-96, to castigate the present finance minister for the country's current travails: his successor has only continued with the nostrum he had recommended.

There is actually total unanimity of views between these five great architects of the country's future. Both think the onus of lifting the country's rate of growth is on foreign investors; the latter are a deviant lot, they got to China but forget India; such conduct on their part is a mystery wrapped in an enigma, or is it the other way round?

The native industrialists are an even sorrier lot. They cannot make up their mind whether the non-arrival of the foreigners is a good or a bad thing. A sense of trepidation, is pervasive: perhaps these intruders will take a slice away from the home market; will that loss be compensated by opportunities for new export earnings that might be opened up? The local bourgeoisie do not know.

Meanwhile, their sentiments were hurt when those amongst them, who rake up hundreds of millions of rupees as profit and have by tradition paid no taxes from such earnings because of the unending schedule of very convenient exemptions, were suddenly called upon last year to, please, cough up cash for a minimum alternative tax. This was unheard of stuff. A reverse take-off from John F Kennedy has filled the air since: Ask not what you can do for the nation, ask what the nation can do for you.

Other irritations such as high interests rates, etc, are, of course, always there, but the first priority is to get rid of MAT, otherwise the indigenous industrial community, the government has been informed, will be in no position to invest in the nation's development.