Mumbai will never be Shanghai. It should worry that it does not become Beirut. Lebanon was once a prosperous nation with the most enterprising people who since the earliest days of civilisation as Phoenicians traded with the world. Lebanon went through a civil war and became a shell of itself. Mumbai could be on its way there. I guess the leaders of the Marathi Manoos would not mind as long as we call the old VT station Chhatrapati Shivaji Central terminus. That was the one thing which newsreaders changed immediately on a busy night. At least, Balasaheb was in control that night.
Beirut could happen here. All the talk of Incredible India and the world?s largest free market democracy bit the dust late Wednesday/ early Thursday. Call it India?s 27/11. India has been shown to be soft and easy to penetrate, ripe for attack any time any day. The entire paraphernalia of the security services was helpless to prevent the occurrence of terrorism and even the rapid spread of the terrorists. How could people come by boat, off the Gateway of India and rush with guns blazing into the Taj? Were there no police, anywhere?
No guards?
If there had been a VIP or even his brother-in-law present, there would have been Z-security personnel crawling all over the place. Even the Congress dynasty?s son-in-law who holds no elected position, gets Z-security. But after we have paid for the least important VIPs and their brothers- in- law, what resources are left for the rest of us? Why cannot the Indian State, which interferes in all sorts of unnecessary ways, but fails to do the one thing even Adam Smith thought it should do?provide law and order?get its act together?
The Indian state has been falling apart now for 20 years. While there was a single party majority, corrupt at it was, it delivered the minimum. It was costly in terms of low growth and horrendous corruption. But it worked. Now there are more parties than the varieties of Heinz canned foods and yet there is paralysis. The Lalus and Mulayams and Mayawatis care for their pocketbooks and their relations and fellow caste members. Ministers in Rajasthan increased their assets six fold in the last five years, a growth rate of more than 40% per annum, no doubt honestly serving the people in their own humble ways. I don?t even mind their corruption, if they would only deliver the simplest public goods. But no such luck. What is to be done ?
The Indian business fraternity has to take action. They have to stop being so cautious and so sycophantic. The days of infant industry are gone. Business is the one efficient sector of the society. Had private sector been in charge, it would not have been a bewildered, incomprehending Ratan Tata asking why no one has taken heed of all the previous attacks ? Ratan Tata has been now betrayed twice over by the great Indian state, first in Singur and now with a burnt out Taj. No wonder he was asking: Why were no lessons learnt? Why does it take so long for the police to get to the scene of crim e?
The Indian state costs far too much for what little it delivers. It fails on education and health and now law and order.
There is no political party today which is both genuinely secular and sound on economics. Swatantra was there in the sixties and seventies but was cannibalised by Janata and BJP. India badly needs a right of centre political party which will do what is needed?ensure a government which is at least a good nightwatchman.
The first thing to demand is electoral reform. No party has commanded a majority of those voting, let alone the electorate since independence. Still governments claim that they have a mandate, to flout the constitution and abridge fundamental rights in the name of some flimsy ideology of socialism. Indira Gandhi laid the foundations of this tragedy by her arbitrary rule. Let us have proportional representation and strict limits on executive power as exists all over continental Europe.
Let us have fixed term governments so elections do not become a perpetual circus. Let us curb executive and legislative privilege and ask what is the the sum of a MP?s salary and perks and what is the ratio of this largesse to the per capita income of the aam admi. How many days or indeed hours does a MP actually do legislative work and not rush down to the Well of Parliament in protest?
It is time to take an audit of the dysfunctional Indian State before it destroys the Indian economy and indeed the nation.
?The author is a prominent economist and Labour peer