What is the difference between a mistake and a crime?
A mistake is when your office, hoodwinks you to sell
spectrum at throwaway prices. A crime is when you know a mistake has been
committed and compound it by removing the evidence (read the coalgate files). A
mistake can be condoned by an apology, but a crime must call for a befitting
punishment.
For UPA, spectrum allocation can be called a mistake
(a crime by an ally), but coalgate is surely an offence and the jury of the
public shall announce the verdict within 200 days, when they cast a vote during
the next general elections.
The Prime Minister would be feeling like the hero of a
greek tragedy (like Oedipus and Antigone). All his actions that he did as
a Finance Minister, and which made him famous are being undone by his own
inaction. He pulled India from the brink of bankruptcy, by the steps that increased
the dollar inflows and the investor confidence into the economy.
On the other hand, the government’s inaction has led
the rupee into a comatose state. When India achieved independence, a rupee was
worth a dollar. Today after 66 years, a dollar is worth 63 rupees. The poetic
justice does not end here. In fact, the statistics on the table are chilling.
The current fiscal deficit is close to $175 billion and counting. The RBI has
about 7 months of foreign exchange to cover our imports, after which we may
have to go to the IMF with a begging bowl.
The government has alibis but no solutions. In fact,
it is selling dreams by making outrageous plans like food security bill.
Somebody has to explain (Raghuram Rajan can be a good choice) that food
security cannot come by making beggars out of hard working men.
The dreams of future have to be paid in the hard cash
of reality. The poor, for whom UPA made schemes like MGNREGA, are at the
receiving end of inflation. They may not understand current account deficit (CAD),
but surely understand that the prices of goods are just not going down. The
prices are up when there is a drought, but even a good current monsoon cannot
make the prices go south. That is precisely their translation of the government’s
economic record.
History suggests that change and economic lapse have a
symbiotic relationship. Leon Trotsky suggested that people do not change
governments, and consequently their lives, when they found an alternative; they
did so when they were fed up. It is a season of revolutions across the world; I
hope if there is one in India, it is one that is bought by a ballot and not by
the bullet.
