Sangh Parivar

When a Government enters the last year of its term, it is expected to
consolidate the gains of the previous four years, accruing from policies and
programmes, and thus present a picture of all-round success to the voters. In
the past, Governments would go on a publicity binge in the fifth year, making
tall claims in a bid to sway popular opinion in the ruling party's favour. But
in this day and age of instant television and increased awareness among the
masses, it is difficult to peddle propaganda as fact and use glib slogans to
swing elections. The NDA learned this rather bitter lesson in 2004; it lost the
general election despite commendable achievements and a hugely admired Prime
Minister. As the UPA Government crosses the fouryear mark and enters the last
year of its term, its political managers, we can be sure, are seeking to collate
achievements that can be showcased to convince voters that the Congress-led
regime has performed wonders. There's a problem, though: The UPA has little to
show as evidence of its ‘successful' performance over the last four years. What
makes the situation worse is the fact that this Government is headed by a Prime
Minister who has been in office but not in power, and who has busied himself
with issues that are extraneous to India's interests. He has demonstrated a
stunning incapacity to comprehend concerns at home and amazing inability to
fathom geo-political realities abroad. This, of course, is no comment on his
integrity; it merely highlights the folly of saddling the Government with an
"accidental" Prime Minister who is constantly looking over his shoulder. It can
be said in Mr Manmohan Singh's defence that as Prime Minister, he has never
quite been his own man, but someone dependent on 10 Janpath's approval, if not
directive. It is, therefore, not surprising that he should have so utterly
failed in making his Ministers accountable; with the centre of political power
elsewhere, Mr Singh's ministerial colleagues have little or no reason to accept
him as their leader. Never before has India had a Prime Minister so denuded of
authority and bereft of clout, barring, of course, the wasted National Front and
United Front years.

This has hobbled governance enormously and policy-making has been reduced to
no more than a joke as individual Ministers, especially those who belong to the
Congress's allies, occupy themselves with either feathering their nests or
following narrow selfserving agendas, without contributing anything to the
country's development. Resorting to populist measures, the UPA Government has
discontinued with the NDA regime's massive infrastructure investment and
economic reforms. Funds, instead, have been diverted to hocus-pocus ‘social
welfare' schemes whose intended beneficiaries remain untouched by Government's
helping hand. Meanwhile, with the economic gains of the NDA years having been
callously frittered away, the national economy has begun to totter; skyrocketing
prices have added to the woes of the people. The rapidly deteriorating national
security scenario further highlights this Government's allround and abysmal
failure. But all this and more does not appear to bother the Congress. As for
the Prime Minister, for the last three years all that he has bothered about is
pushing the India-US nuclear deal and doing Washington's bidding vis-à-vis
Pakistan. The grand strategy of the NDA is now reduced to a footnote of history.
India stands diminished. Such are the joys of having the Congress in power.

Source : The Pioneer

Date : 22 may 2008

editorial