Congress Deserves to Lose India's Elections: Financial Times

Chaitra Krushna Ashtami

By Razeen Sally

(The writer is director of the European Centre for International Political Economy)

The Congress party is standing on the record of the government it has led since 2004. But polls are taking place when the Indian economy has taken a sharp turn for the worse, in a climate of global economic crisis. This exposes the do-nothing, zero-reform record of Manmohan Singh, prime minister, and his government.

More generally, it lays bare India’s huge reform gaps and its brittle, decaying institutions. Finally, it deflates the “ India hype ” peddled by smooth-talking upper-caste politicians, ambassadors, businessmen, management consultants and some academics.

A word about India hype. It highlights high-end services, and now manufacturing sectors, with their globalising, world -beating companies. But it overlooks reform deficits in agriculture, services and manufacturing. It talks of “Chindia”, the notion that India plays in the same league as China as an emerging superpower – which is pure myth. Not least, it glosses over the record of the present Congress-led government.

… Mr Singh has proved a hopeless decision-maker as prime minister. Sadly, he proves the rule that academics should generally be “on tap” but not “on top”.

The whole reform programme relies on the prime minister himself. Mr Rao and A.B. Vajpayee proved their mettle, despite heavy political constraints. Mr Singh has failed; he should bear much of the blame. The Congress party does not deserve to be re-elected and the dream team does not deserve to continue in office. An alternative BJP-led government may do better if it has a decisive leader with a core of able reformers. It will not if its leader follows the dictates of short-term opportunism and messy coalition politics.

Nevertheless, the failures of the Congress-led government should be put into a larger institutional context. The Indian state, led by a venal political-bureaucratic elite, remains unreformed. State institutions – the political class, political parties, parliaments, the bureaucracy, the judiciary – have got worse at both national and state levels. Since the late 1980s, “stealth” reforms have taken place outside the state. But India cannot be expected to grow fast with such shaky foundations.

The upshot is that much-needed market reforms cannot continue to skirt round the reform of the state itself. Politically, that is the hardest nut to crack.

Source: Ft.com