UF Govt’s Common Minimum Performance

It is difficult to fault the UF in terms of its intention to wipe the tear from every eye. The CMP set down a formidable list of targets, ranging from guaranteed employment to unemployed persons for 100 days to the Freedom of Information Bill.

But while the spirit was willing, the flesh and Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram often were not. In fact, no other sector of governance was as affected by the disparate nature of the coalition as this one. The 1997 budget, widely praised by the captains of industry, was panned by social activists for its casual treatment of social commitments, despite the Union minister’s rhetoric about “battling poverty at the grassroots”. While subsidies were cut in the budget, outlays for the social sector rose only marginally with Rs 3,500-crore being allocated for basic minimum services.

Schisms also surfaced over PDS. The CMP made three commitments on this: that families living below the poverty line will be given special ration cards, that foodgrains will be given to them at half the issue price, and that local bodies would get to run PDS shops. While noises were periodically made on these issues, with the Deve Gowda government even allocating Rs 1,000 crore for `targeted public distribution’, nothing substantial emerged.

Despite the strong presence of the Left in the coalition, labour as a category got short shrift. While the CMP made a token nod in the direction of protecting workers in the unorganised sector, most of them were left to fend for themselves, as did their locked-out or unemployed counterparts in the organised sector. The much-touted safety net for the casualties of the liberalisation process clearly had large holes in it. This was bad news in a country where unemployment was projected to touch 94 million by 2002. The agricultural sector didn’t do much better by its workers, with The Economic Survey, 1997 reporting that wages of unskilled agricultural workers actually declined in real terms since the early ’90s.

The UF wished for transparency in governance, and mooted the reviewing of the Official Secrets Act and the introduction of the Freedom of Information Bill. It wanted transparency of the electoral process, but its Bill on electoral reforms did not fructify into law. Neither did its Bill on judicial reforms. Similarly, while it stated that it would make India totally literate by the year 2005, the 83rd Amendment Bill, which sought to make elementary education a fundamental right and was expected to be passed in the Winter Session, met with the same fate as the government.

Seeking justice for women, the UF introduced the Women’s Bill for political representation in September ’96. The move was met with hostility by large sections of the House, including those within the UF. On a memorable occasion Prime Minister I.K.Gujral was actually shouted down by his own partymen when he tried to support the Bill.

What did repair the Gujral government’s image somewhat was the Balika Samriddhi Yojna, which made a grant of Rs 500 available to every girl child born after August 15, 1997, although it was criticised as being a case of too little, too late. Another move that was unanimously welcomed was the abolishing of discretionary quotas for ministers.

Looking back, it appears that the UF often failed to think through its approach to social welfare and often settled for quick-fix remedies that cured nothing. Health Minister Renuka Chaudhury’s facile motto for family planning — “one is fun” — illustrates this rather well.

Or it chose to push politically uncomfortable decisions under the carpet, as for instance the move to come up with a national policy on water sharing.

But the UF certainly has a good excuse for the incomplete jobs left behind — its premature ejection from the driver’s seat after only 18 months in power.