On the face of it, particularly after the prime minister’s stirring speech a few days ago, the Vajpayee government looked like it was back on course, finally. Despite all the differences within the Cabinet, and the pressure tactics of the RSS and Swadeshi Jagran Manch, the government had just cleared a very ambitious Tenth Five Year Plan. More than the numbers of the plan itself, what is important is the underlying message it sends. The 8 per cent growth the plan cites is to be achieved through a very aggressive disinvestment schedule (Rs 80,000 crore in five years can only be achieved by selling ‘crown jewels’ like HPCL/ BPCL and MTNL), foreign investors are to be assiduously wooed and a whole host of reforms such as those in the labour sector are to be pursued. Reform is to take place even in innocuous areas like the Department of Post. The Tenth Plans states that rates paid for postal services are to be raised and fairly significant privatisation is to take place.Add to this the interest rate cuts by the Reserve Bank, the long term tax initiatives put out by the finance ministry, and the decisions to provide more teeth to the stock market regulator, and it was evident that the government had not entirely given up on its economic reforms agenda.Yet, there are enough signs that the government’s new-found commitment to reforms is a lot of hot air. For one, on the very day the government cleared the Tenth Plan, it cleared a wholly unnecessary Rs 1,000 crore hike in dearness allowance for bureaucrats. This, at a time when the government itself is talking of downsizing, and the state governments are groaning under the massive salary burden. At the recent chief ministers’ conference, some CMs had, in fact, asked the Centre to help them out by freezing DA payments. This clearly shows that populism isn’t dead, at least as far as Prime Minister Vajpayee is concerned. More important, as this newspaper has been reporting, the anti-privatisation brigade in the government has now gone into over-drive. Just two days ago, officials of the A.V. Birla group, who are one of the bidders for Nalco, were threatened and driven away when they came to Orissa to begin their due diligence process. Clearly the state chief minister, who is opposing the privatisation, was encouraged by the fact that even the union mines minister is opposing the deal, and didn’t think it fit to insist that his police officials provide adequate security to the Birla employees. So far at least no one in the Vajpayee government has thought it fit to summon, and admonish, Naveen Patnaik for his behaviour. If we are to believe that the government is really serious this time around, Vajpayee the Prime Minister will have to take a cue from Vajpayee the Speech Deliverer.