Volume 5, No. 5, May 2004

Lok Sabha Election

Another Round Of Deception

M. Sunil

The Lok Sabha election and simultaneously the Assembly election in 4 states will be held from April 20 to May 10, in this biggest democratic country (!) of the world. The Chief Election Commissioner, supposed to be the guardian of this democratic process, asked for the cooperation of state machinery to ensure ‘‘clean, free and fearless elections’’. The Chief Election Commissioner also asked all parties/candidates to follow the model code of conduct i.e., ‘‘not to indulge in violence, criminal activities and any personal attacks during campaign.’’ In fact, months before this declaration, the election fray had started and this code of conduct as usual have been violated by all the players of this game. The media have been playing their role as well. Personal vilification, instigation to religious communalism, caste chauvinism, criminalization of politics and politicization of criminals – all these have been continuing as a part of the game – electioneering activities. The leaders of all the parliamentary parties, specially, of the Congress and the BJP are busy meeting the people, even the wretched ones and have hit the roads, streets and dusty tracks of the villages. The various types of Ratha Yatras – traditional and hi-tech ones – are being conducted to import gimmicks in their election campaign. Volley of promises are being floated to placate dissatisfied people and woo them. For these purposes thousands of crores of rupees are being spent. A great democratic circus indeed!

While the plight of the vast majority of the people has been deteriorating, the NDA govt. led by the BJP has been trying to convince them that they ‘‘feel good’’! Despite progressive sell-out, the NDA govt. under the stewardship of the BJP has been projecting that ‘‘India is shining’’ and a new India has been emerging – ‘Bharat Udaya’! All these are the main slogans of the Alliance led by the BJP. The NDA govt. utilized public money (tax-payer, money) to the tune of Rs. 700 crores for propagating these slogans. (The Ananda Bazar Patrika, March 3, 2004) Moreover, to conduct the 14th Lok Sabha election for more than Rs. 1,200 crore (cost of conducting the 1999 general election was Rs. 880 cr.) will be spent from the govt. exchequer, this too will have to be born by the people through increased taxes.. In return they will have some hollow promises and commitments! This farce is being repeated again and again since 1947. All the earlier govts depicted a rosy picture of the future to confound the people, followed the dictats of the IMF-World Bank and provided more and more scope to the imperialist forces for their exploitation and plunder. As political representatives of the indigenous ruling classes, whenever these parties, including the CPI, CPI(M) and other so-called left parties, formed the govt. at the centre/state, they endeavoured their best to serve the interest of the ruling classes, particularly of the so-called India inc. These indigenous ruling classes, subservient to imperialist forces, are happy to have a small portion of the imperialist booty disregarding the very interest of the country and the vast majority of the people. The present economic policy of liberalization, privatisation, disinvestment and of other economic reform programmes which are part of the imperialist globalization policy, was first introduced by the congress govt led by N. Rao. The UF govt of so-called nationalist parties and ‘‘left’’ parties like CPI, CPI(M) not only implemented these very policies, they implemented those at a faster pace. The NDA govt. led by the ‘‘swadeshi’’ BJP took up the task in no time and began to implement these policies vigorously. This, professed to be swadeshi govt., opened wide all sectors of the country’s economy to the imperialist forces for their reckless exploitation and plunder.

The Vajpayee govt. very much boasts of its success. It puts forward some dry staistics to prove its efficient governance in accelerating the development of the country. The BJP and the constituent parties of the NDA are striving hard to lure the people, projecting these policies of economic enslavement as those which will transform the country into a great economic power of the world! The stark reality tells a different story.

According to the latest estimate of the Central Statistical Organization (CSO) the growth rate of gross domestic product (GDP) was 10.4 percent in the third quarter (October-December) of 2003-04. Consequently, the rate of the previous three quarters now stands at 8.2 percent. The CSO did not indicate the factors that had contributed to this upward move. It may be attributed to a good monsoon that follows a poor one, or to a fundamental change in the economy. The fact is that there was a downturn in the performance of agriculture due to a poor monsoon in 2002-03. In 2003-04 there has been a good monsoon resulting in a better performance in agriculture. As the growth rate of the agricultural sector has been estimated on the basis of last year’s performance, it stands at 16.9 % which is exaggerated by the downturn in the previous year. In general, agriculture contributes less than 25 % to the increase in net economic output. Whereas in the last quarter it has contributed 41 percent. This extra-ordinary performance should be considered as recovery from the severe drought of 2002-03. During the tenure of the NDA govt. led by the BJP there has been no such major improvement in investment and productivity which are the driving forces for the economic growth. Thus it is predominantly the good monsoon that has rendered an increase in growth rate of the GDP. S. Mahendra Dev, Director of the Centre for Economic and Social Studies, opined, ‘‘the euphoria in 2003-04 is mainly due to good monsoon. Even if we consider growth in the past 2 years the average during 1997-2004 would not be higher than 5.5 or 6 pc per year.’’

Even then the BJP and the parties of the NDA have been continuing to claim that under the prudent economic governance of the NDA govt. the present development of the country’s economy has been achieved and this is an unprecedented one! If anybody compares the trend of rate of growth in the economy between two periods–1992-93 to 1997-98 and 1998-99 to 2003-04, he can well realize their false claim. C. Rammanohar Reddy in his article ‘‘Mediocre report card on economy’’ published in the Hindu dated 17.3.2004, placed a table (see chart on next page). It compares the above-cited two periods’ performance taking into account the economic outcomes of ‘‘the more important sectors: overall GDP, net output in agriculture and industry, and in the external sector, merchandise exports and ...invisibles (which comprise software exports, remittances and many services).

This clearly exposes that the performance of the economy has deteriorated during the tenure of the BJP-NDA govt. How Industry would register such a growth rate without increasing investment and adopting proper policy that was not mentioned. The present economic policy which goes against the interest of the country and that of the people, has resulted in a downward trend in investment. Public investment as a proportion of GDP declined from 8 pc in the 8th plan (1992-98) to 6.6 pc in the 9th plan (‘98-02’) and private corporate investment as a proportion of GDP declined fom 7.3 to 6.1 pc during the same period. (The Hindu, March 13, ‘04).

Other so-called success stories are — improvement of foreign exchange reserves which are manifestation of the slackness of the economy, higher growth in services and Information Technology sectors which help imperialist exploit cheap labour of the country, improvement in tele-communication, easy availability of consumer loans to purchase new consumer goods which are mostly improted ones, the recent mini-boom in the stock market etc. etc. The ‘swadeshi’ govt. has been projecting these as positive developments of the economy. And this development is the result of the present pro-imperialist, anti-people economic policy. It is this firm adherence to this policy and efficient governance in implementation of the same that make it possible to achieve such a success! By adopting various measures in their mini-budget they once again proved their strict adherence to this economic policy. This effort was highly applauded by all the leading organizations of Industry, who praised the ‘‘swadeshi’’ govt for ‘‘its concerted efforts towards economic reforms’’. (The Hindu, February 4, 2004).

This sham swadeshi govt. has always been at the service of the imperialists and their subservient industrial houses of this country. To popularize this policy of economic reform — liberalization, privatization, disinvestment and other measures — they did not hesitate to import the slogan ‘Feel Good’ which is popularly used by brokers at the New york stock Exchange when the market rose. Here in India this ‘Feel Good’ expression was first used by the CII and then Gray worldwide prepared the BJP’s first ‘Feel good’’ advertisement which was aired on Dooradarshan in October 2003. As a broker of imperialists and indigenous industrialists these parties are peddling this slogan to hoodwink the people, while a small section of the middle class and the rich are being favoured. This tiny section ‘feels good’. These people, not India, are shining. ‘‘India is indeed shining for a small minority has probably never had it so good.’’ Most of the measures adopted in the mini-budget will further benefit these sections.

To counter this ‘‘success’’ of the BJP-led NDA govt. the congress is now busy to propagate that they sowed the seeds of economic reforms and the BJP-led NDA govt. reaped the harvest! So people should support them!

The vast majority of the people have been passing through deplorable conditions. Joblessness, poverty, starvation, deprivation pervade the whole country. It is a cruel joke to make them realize that they ‘‘feel good’’!

Despite the tall talk about the development and growth of the economy, the employment problem has been continuing and becoming increasingly intractable. The magnitude of the problem was revealed when 50 lakh well educated young men submitted applications for 20,000 posts of gangmen. This led to a bloody job-war between locals and migrant labourers in Assam and Maharashtra.

The report of the special group headed by S. P. Gupta a member of the Planning Commission, was published in May, 2002. According to this report the growth of employment fell from 2.7 percent per year in 1993-94 to 1.07 percent in 1999-2000 though during this period the GDP growth rate registered an increase from 5.2 to 6.7% This clearly reveals a sharp decline in the employment content of the output. This report further stated that the employment generating capacity of the organized/formal sector came down to near zero and that of the public sector was negative. In 1999-2000, only a mere 8 percent of the total employment was contributed by the organized sector, while 92 percent of the total employment was contributed by the informal sector. The workers/Employees of the informal sector are being denied hard earned democratic rights. They are now being exploited recklessly and this will continue along with the persistence of the present economic policy.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) reported that only 17.6 percent of the work force was covered by employment. And the service sector which is the largest and fast growing sector of the economy provided 26 percent of the total employment. The ADB further reported that inspite high growth in GDP, employment was growing at less than one percent and described this phenomenon as ‘‘jobless growth’’. All these official statistics cannot capture the ground reality. That is far more deplorable.

The rural people are passing through a gruesome condition. Everyday reports of starvation deaths, deaths due to under-nutrition and increasing number of suicides by the indebted farmers are being covered by the media. Contract farming wipes out the small peasants and transforms them into contract labourers. The number of landless peasant is fast swelling. There is no increase in employment. Increase in the cost-price of agriculture-inputs and depressed prices destroy the agricultural economy. All these are the outcome of the liberalization policy which is a part of the present policy of economic reforms. As usual, promises and commitments were made to solve their problems and improve their conditions of lives. But those were not implemented. This time again these are being reiterated to entice them for votes.

The present round of ‘democratic’ process has already turned into a fight between two alliances – one is led by the BJP and the other one is led by the Congress. Both the alliances have been formed irrespective of ideological and political differences. Some parties like SP and BSP have not joined any of these alliances. These parties are waiting for an opportune situation which will help them share power at the centre. There are no such differences between these alliances on major issues e.g. economic and foreign policy. Both have expressed their support to the present policy of economic reform. Even the ‘left’ parties like CPI, CPI(M) and others who are placing their criticisms against the policy of economic reform, while at the same time they are energetically implementing that policy in West Bengal and Tripura where they are in power. These parties, particularly the CPI and CPI(M) expressed that they would support the Congress led alliance. So whatever may be the outcome of the election the present policy of economic reform will continue? More and more scope will be provided to imperialist forces, particularly to US imperialist to exploit the people and plunder the rich resources of the country. Moreover, to suppress the revolutionary forces and peoples’ agitations, the govt. will resort to various fascist methods. The plight of the people will further deteriorate. They are being deceived once again.

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