The last thing that flew out of Pandora's Box

The last thing that flew out of Pandora’s Box


Why is liberalisation in hibernation three years into the term of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA)? How did the great and good in Sardar Manmohan Singh, Sardar Montek Singh Ahluwalia and the brilliant cool of Shri P.Chidambaram fade away to a moribund twitter? Why are the architects of robust eight plus, even nine per cent GDP growth over the three, with aspirations to take it to double digits for the remaining two, being hounded, curtailed, proscribed and blamed by their own side?

This triumvirate, backed somewhat cagily by a foot-in-both-camps Kamal Nath, is under attack, not only from the Red trio of Karat, Yechury and Bardhan who like to support the presumed agenda of the common man by keeping him forever common; but also by family retainer cum Marxist Aiyar, camp follower and leftist Ramesh, and via media missile and internal missive alike by a trio of all important Gandhis, mother, son, and not to be forgotten for not saying much, daughter. But what desperate remedy, LSE/Oxbridge obfuscation, proletarian threat or comic book strategy makes the aforementioned critics think that by hobbling and stymieing India’s economic progress, they might better their chances of winning elections?

If you’re in the Opposition National Democratic Alliance (NDA), or even an Independent that prefers to lean away from Mount Gandhi; you might be quite appreciative of the work being done internally by the UPA to your general benefit. It would seem good to see the unity of the enterprise falling apart, and we’re only into the first half of 2007? The whisper campaign has it that the old stalwarts might not be in favour with the heir apparent busy forming his own team largely from generation next. It’s a déjà vu situation, reminiscent of 1984 and 1985, and in 2007, it’s still hard to visualise it succeeding with mature men who control grassroots politics. How can they agree to an order of change that might sweep them out in its sweep? That is why in India, politics is a game most successfully played by old men but who can stop the baba log wanting to join in the great game?

But in the forefront, taking more flak than they deserve, is a distinguished triumvirate, probably the most professional set of men in their respective posts India has had the good fortune of seeing in a long time, brought to the point of frustration, humiliation and debility by a set of badly thought out and self-seeking political initiatives. It is an old Stalinist politburo tactic not to mention an old Congress, even pre-independence, stratagem, to weed out inconveniences by citing “internal contradictions” and invoking the common man or aam aadmi. It is another thing altogether that it is inexplicable how stopping progress can actually benefit the aam aadmi. But somehow, it seems to be enough to set up a carping and sniping even if it benefits The UPA nothing at all. Learned commentators, in the context of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, just concluded, have stated that it appears that voters are motivated more towards throwing incumbents out irrespective of their economic performances. In the estimate of the electorate, a spring cleaning is good and expected to help proceedings. So, it probably makes no difference to the mass voter whether the political classes, factions and would-be usurpers of power in the UPA blame the prime minister, the finance minister and the planning commission chief for their unfeeling growing of the economy and their insensitive modernisation initiatives!

But the ones that are being hit, and hard, by the drift, are the performers in the Indian firmament, business, industry, services, export, infrastructure development, even the foreign entities keen on investing and participating in India’s growth story. And before the Left trots out its ruralist argument for the umpteenth time, let it be said that there is no reason why agriculture won’t leap-frog ahead, if, as per the recommendations of The Planning Commission, we throw a determinedly large amount of capital at modernising and supporting it. It just takes more than hypocrisy and lip service and the realisation that uplifting rural India is still no automatic guarantee of the votes of rural India. But perhaps Communists, with their bully-boy cadres and their blood and guts persuasions know this only too well. What you say is not what you do- elementary, my dear Watson!

But “internal contradictions” is a classic beggar-thy-neighbour phrase that the Marxists have always enjoyed using with regard to their persistent fantasy about the imminent demise of Capitalism. They have been dreaming, internationally, for over ninety years now, for Capitalism’s “withering” and collapse. This is ever since the success of Lenin’s Russian Revolution of 1917. But, as Boris Yelstin’s recent demise reminded us about yet again, it is Communism - with its complete lack of economic success anywhere around the world that seems to have done almost all the “withering” and “collapsing”, from causes known and unknown, admitted and not. The story is uniformly bleak, be it in the erstwhile USSR, Cuba, the pre-Deng China, in the Marxist/Naxalite rebellions and guerrilla movements around the world and nearer home; our, by now middle-aged Communist run states of Kerala and Bengal, ravaged by three decades or more of Left Front rule, taking inept steps towards a market economy with a sheepish look on old “comrade” faces.

It is a bitter pill to swallow, the realisation that populism and purple speeches like Aiyar’s at the CII does not actually feed people. It sounds good, generates hope, touches the odd heart, but cannot, in and by itself, for lack of legs to stand on, deliver results. They say the last thing to fly out of the calamitous Pandora’s Box was “Hope”. But according to Greek myth, Hope wasn’t let out by Pandora. Zeus and the Greek Gods actually prevented it. The first wave of fliers were strictly no-hopers, just dreary, weary silver-fish coloured things, flitting out across the world on their little bat wings. Inflictions they were, one and all, designed to cause grievous hurt. Nobody knows how Hope got out, but get out it did, waving and smiling to the fifth column that animated Mount Olympus and gave it most of its spice.

The toxic new introductions, released into the atmosphere, were a pandemic of cutting-edge harmers called Greed, Vanity, Slander, Envy and Pining! Sentiments that might be considered bad anywhere, everywhere too, but indubitably so in idylls. Zeus and his cronies were particularly peeved at the first act of piracy in paradise. Piracy committed by Greek myth’s first Johnny Depp called Prometheus, an immortal Titan. Prometheus, who loved mortals because it was he who had shaped the first ones out of inert clay himself. And, of course, it was Zeus who breathed life into them in the first place and now wanted to place a pox on them. Prometheus upset the gods something terrible when he nicked the gift of fire from Olympus for the use of man. Bad enough, that Prometheus had fashioned men in the image of the gods themselves but this handing them the matches was just too much!.

This was, come to think of it, the first inter-galactic class war wasn’t it? The Greek Gods dealt swiftly with Prometheus in a manner that would probably impress the one-eyed Taliban leader Mullah Omar.They chained Prometheus to a high peak in the Caucus and an eagle was detailed to tear out his liver every day because it would grow back into his torso overnight, on and on, for eternity.

Prometheus is presumably still at his post, paying interest on the capital as usual, even as mankind is cooking and warming and melting things with his gift. Though our livers are our own to corrupt as we please the human curse is more complicated, a kind of slow burn might be apt description, appropriate enough for beneficiaries of fire stolen from the gods. And to get us going on our angst-ridden path, Zeus created Pandora, the “all-gifted” one, into the first woman, mixing exaltation, beauty and contraries in equal measure. There, who says the Gods can’t laugh? But all is not lost. There is still Hope.

(1, 337 words)

By Gautam Mukherjee
Wednesday, 9th May 2007
Also published in main OPINION column on edit-page of The Pioneer www.dailypioneer.com as "Fake concern for the poor" on Saturday, 12th May 2007