PEOPLE'S POLICY
Towards entrepreneurial socialism
HINDOL SENGUPTA
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As many of the old political ideas we took for granted crumble, it's time for a new, more equitable, vision of India.
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Photo: V. Sudershan
TIME TO MOVE BEYOND CASTE-BASED RESERVATION?
I was born during the last legs of the year the Mandal Commission was formed. In a sense, when every political party wants to know what the Indian "youth" think, they are trying to peep into the minds of people like me.
For the first time after independence, a new wind is blowing on Raisina Hill. There is a growing sense that the country is changing, perhaps dramatically changed already, and that this demands new policies. In the same way that Dil Maange More dawned the SIM card-sugary, soda-soap factory age upon us. Only this time, material changes, shop-a-thons fuelled by eight per cent growth, will not be enough.
Need for new ideas
This time, many of the ideas we took for
granted - India votes on caste, urban idealism
is for the idiots, the poor vote for voice,
not development, faith-based politics is the
"real India" - seem to be crumbling and in
place, as any political party scrambling for
young faces will tell you, there is a void that
needs to be filled with new vision.
In myriad ways, Mandal has defined politics
for the last two decades. Everything
that we have seen in the last two years -
from caste-based social engineering to
criminals in politics who become the voice
of their people - is, in some way or the
other, children of Mandal.
The violence that followed Mandal's reimagining
and reexamination of Nehruvian
affirmative action in bringing justice to deprived
sections of Indian society redefined,
to stretch the quasi-alliterative chain,
politics.
Lalu Yadav, who won his first election in
1977 and Mayawati who won her first poll in
1989, are both, in a sense, products of Mandal.
Remember that the Bahujan Samaj
Party itself, started in 1984 by Kanshi
Ram to represent the Dalits, was, in that
sense, a post-Mandal product. The Mandal
agitation proved, irretrievably, that
the age of Gandhian Harijanism was over.
There could now be no doubt that there
was an aggressive caste vote that could be
"engineered".
Full circle
The wheel, I am arguing, is turning a
full circle. "Voice" is no longer enough.
Lalu could rule for 15 years on the voice
plank but the wheel, as evidenced by the
re-rise of the Congress in Uttar Pradesh,
might be turning much, much faster for
Mayawati.
I am arguing that policy for the under-
40 is about anything but politics, as
we generally understand the term. It is
now clear that reserving jobs is not
enough.
The reservation plus swanky growth
imagery - malls, more consumer goods -
cannot anymore pass off as concrete
vision.
Those who have malls, also need roads
and water. Those who have reservation,
also crave education and security and low
cost health.
The post-reservation era is dawning
upon us. Reservation as a sop has stopped
working.
I am arguing that the pillars of a
post-reservation era must be grounded in
socialism. Not traditional socialism but an
enlightened indigenously Indian socialism.
What I call Entrepreneurial
Socialism.
Young India is really looking for a level
playing field where a dynamic State generates
opportunities, not reservation dole.
Entrepreneurial Socialism focuses on
the inflow, as it were, rather than the
outflow. It concentrates on low-cost, high
quality primary education, not shrivelled,
static, status-quo maintaining jobs that,
under a chaotic policy, is often not earned
and therefore never respected.
Private venture has been discredited in
India because exactly the reverse has
happened. The State has sold off public
resources piecemeal and then, in an
elaborate farce, worked to dole out micro
benefits like jobs and seats in educational
institutions. So there has never been an
incentive to broaden the pie, only politicise
it and then derive loyalty by redistributing
it as dole. The receivers, in each
case, were loyal only to their benefactors.
The pillars of this Post-Reservationist era are clear to anyone who is young:
Level playing field in access to
education. This is the basic pre-requisite
to any post-reservationist thought. Until
entry-level barriers are flattened and
made incorruptible, there cannot be any
real move forward. The biggest concern in
the post-reservationist era would be the
continuing discrimination on caste and
class and if you bring it down to brass
tacks, the critical entry barrier is always
education. Make the murky world of
education flat and you have paved the first
glittering stone.
Clean competition where the state
provides similar tools - like high quality
primary education - to all and then the
competition, if fierce, is also fiercely
clean.
Access to start-up capital at low cost
and a level-playing field in the access of
such capital.
Expand the State-funded resources
pie, more institutions free for all.
Incentivise governance, pay well for the governance you receive and then demand scrupulous delivery.
The debate on whether an MP is
responsible for the development of his
constituency is no longer valid. People
want to see change and if MPs need more
executive powers to bring change, give
them the powers but also vigorously apply
accountability standards so that there is a
fair assessment of the use, and abuse, of
those powers.
The biggest point that political parties
now must understand is that their bluff
has been called. The debate has moved
from the narrow confines of slicing the
pie to baking many many more pies,
starting more bakeries as it were.
There is one particular idea that invigorates
me from the stock markets -
though usually I find them rather puerile
- the idea of quarterly results that define
market moves. Politics in India should
apply the same stringent accountability
rules to governance.
What Entrepreneurial Socialism needs
is Quarterly Results in Political Accountability.
Hold them accountable for every
vote they received.
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