Ranabir Ray Choudhury

Tackling the problems of poverty, ignorance, malnutrition, hunger and disease" remain "urgent priorities", said the Prime Minister, and looked ahead to say that the attempt should be to "overcome these challenges and move ahead to tackle the challenge of the future." Indeed, there is a scaling of priorities here.

TRUE TO expectation, the Prime Minister, who is essentially an academic, has given the nation — in his "A Caring Government - One Year of UPA" speech (May 22) — a clear enough idea of what is happening today in the country, where we are heading, and where we should be going. This is not to suggest that the speech was memorable in its entirety. Briefly, it was not specially if the portions devoted to the contribution of Mrs Sonia Gandhi to the functioning of the UPA Government are taken into account.

Every citizen is aware that, if she had wanted to, the Congress President could have become the Prime Minister and that, in fact, she did not. To most people, this decision of hers strongly suggests that she is not one of those who craves for (to be specific) the position of Prime Minister.

But, then, to the discerning few, it is more than abundantly clear that Mrs Sonia Gandhi is the power behind the Prime Ministerial throne, apart of course from being the one and only "boss" in the Congress.

What one can say with some degree of certainty is that she has had the good sense to sacrifice for the time being the trappings of power — especially in a situation where the nation could appreciate such a gesture — knowing full well that she controls all the levers of power in the Congress and in the Government, the ultimate objective perhaps being to become Prime Minister at a moment of her choosing when she would have become much more acceptable than she is today not only to the people at large but also to all those politicians who have cited her foreign origins to fight her politically.

This is perhaps all that there is to the political phenomenon we call Sonia Gandhi, and had Dr Manmohan Singh referred to all this in his characteristically understated manner, his May 22 report would have been a sterling performance in every sense of the word.

But consider what he said about the Congress President who, as everyone knows, gave him the position of Prime Minister. Dr Manmohan Singh said: "The people of India are truly grateful to the leaders of the UPA, specially Soniaji, for forging this alliance and making it work. The UPA came into existence last year and its Government is running smoothly largely as a result of the strenuous efforts of Soniaji. I express the views of the entire alliance, and of the people of our country as a whole, when I say that we have all been truly inspired by her courage, wisdom, forbearance and personal example of selflessness in leading the UPA.

Generations to come will marvel at Soniaji's renunciation of the seat of power, an act which is in the great traditions of sages and saints of this ancient land".

Having said this, the point can be made unhesitatingly that Dr Manmohan Singh exceeded himself in his speech, both as regards clarity of view and elegance of expression. What is the UPA's commitment essentially and what has it provided the nation? To quote him: "We have pledged to the people that we do want India to shine, but shine for all. We are committed to building a prosperous, inclusive, equitable, humane, caring and just India."

And again: "Together, we have all been able to offer the people of India an alternative platform — an alternative to the politics of exclusion and majoritarianism, an alternative to the economics of backwardness and bankruptcy; and an alternative to the sociology of conflict and discrimination".

Central to the basic theme of economic development is the integration of the concepts of "inclusive development" and "rapid growth", and it is here that Dr Manmohan Singh treads on slippery ground, not least because his Government depends on the Left bloc support in the Lok Sabha for its survival.

Even without this practical problem, one suspects that the progressive academic in the Prime Minister would have taken the line which he in fact has in his report, namely, one which acknowledges the importance of both the concepts and the need to integrate both into official policy.

In his report, Dr Manmohan Singh said: "The challenge before us is to combine the economics of growth with the economics of equity and social justice. We have no option but to walk on two legs. On the one hand, pursuing policies that unleash the creativity and enterprise inherent in our people, that reward excellence and risk-taking; and, on the other, addressing the needs of every citizen, their right to a decent livelihood, to education and well-being, to equality of opportunity, and to peace and security".

More generally, he said that the challenge ahead is "to ensure that that while sustaining the growth impulses, deliberate efforts are also made to reduce disparities in income and wealth".

While there is the need to "nurse and nurture an economy which rewards creativity and innovation", the interests of workers in the "unorganised sector" must be protected, their working conditions improved "even as we create a more competitive environment for the organised sector".

Fundamentally, Dr Manmohan Singh said: "The Government also has the obligation to ensure that the benefits of growth reach all sections of society, to ensure that they become equal participants in growth processes. We have to ensure that those who are affected by the winds of change are able to adjust to new realities and economic opportunities".

How is the UPA Government implementing this policy? One way is to focus on the rural areas, which is precisely what the Government has done, according to the Prime Minister.

In his speech he drew attention to the "new deal" his regime has for rural India through the Bharat Nirman project. He describes the four-year project as being "at the core of our design to transform rural India and give new hope to our people". But, as is clear from the above, the progress of the under-privileged and the weak is not the be-all and end-all of the UPA Government's economic policy.

While Dr Manmohan Singh reiterated that "tackling the problems of poverty, ignorance, malnutrition, hunger and disease" remain "urgent priorities", he looked ahead and said that the attempt should be to "overcome these challenges and move ahead to tackle the challenge of the future".

Indeed, there is a scaling of priorities here because the Prime Minister said that the "biggest challenge is to survive and flourish in the increasingly integrated and globalised world we are living in", which is actually another way of saying that the battle of the growth rate per se will have to be won.

After all, as Dr Manmohan Singh himself said: "A rapidly expanding economy alone can provide us resources to deal effectively with problems of mass poverty".

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