BackAnother futile cabinet reshuffle
It is a political reshuffle, with an eye on the state and Lok Sabha elections
Premium(Arvind Yadav/Hindustan Times)
As usual, there was heavy media coverage leading up to the latest cabinet reshuffle by the Prime Minister (though, of course, no one knows how much of a voice he actually had in finalizing the roster). As usual, the reshuffle proved to be a damp squib. Can one remember a single UPA reshuffle that wasn’t disappointing, where most of the new inductees were not tired old names that you associated with the past and not with the future?
Yesterday’s reshuffle has followed that tradition to the T. Among the eight new ministers, J.D. Seelam is the youngest at 60. All the other seven clock in at 65 years or more. Two are in their 70s, and Sis Ram Ola, the new minister for labour and employment is a ripe old 86. The average age of the four full ministers among these is 73. After the reshuffle, the mean age of the UPA cabinet is 67 years.
Of course, political analysts in the media have figured out the reasons for inducting these eight worthies. Some of them represent certain castes in certain states that are due for elections in the next few months, some needed to be mollified for being passed over earlier, and others are plain and simple long-time Gandhi family loyalists. It is a political reshuffle, with an eye on the state and Lok Sabha elections, and such a move would have been fair enough if not for a few undeniable realities facing India right now.
One, by almost any measure that is applied, the Indian economy is not doing well. Our growth rate has almost halved in two years, our industrial production is stumbling along, new investment is almost non-existent, and we have a current account deficit larger than that of any comparable economy. The UPA in its second term embraced Nehruvian socialism with the sort of fervour last seen during the climaxes of the late Manmohan Desai’s “lost-and-found" films. No Indian government has poured so much money into what are essentially dole schemes that, firstly, leak like crazy, and secondly, do not result in any activity that can contribute to GDP growth.
If that was not enough to scare off investors, it raked up old tax cases, presided over a raid raj during Pranab Mukherjee’s tenure as finance minister, and passed laws with retrospective effect (defying Supreme Court judgements) that every businessman sees as hostile acts. Is it any wonder that foreign direct investment is dwindling and Indian business is hardly making new investments in India? P. Chidambaram seems to be fighting some sort of lone battle, promising reforms, trying to talk up the markets, making presentations in India and abroad, but no one else in either his cabinet or his party seems to care. This latest reshuffle only proves that there’s nothing that the UPA is interested in other than staying in power, and that too, through a regressive caste-community-appeasement strategy. For a government that would have been in power for a whole decade by the time they go to the hustings next year, this is rather pathetic.
Two, 65% of the Indian population is below 35 years of age. The median age of Indians today is 26.5 years. Rahul Gandhi, in every public speech, keeps talking about youth power and how only young Indians can save the country. Surely he knows, as does everyone with any brains in the UPA, that we have had five years of “jobless growth" now, as admitted in the government’s own Economic Survey 2012-13. We are sitting on a workforce time bomb that’s ticking faster and faster. According to a report released by consultancy firm Manpower Global in June, the job outlook for this quarter (July to September) is the worst in eight years. An estimated one million Indians are coming into the job market every month, and with the GDP slowdown, in terms of net jobs (new jobs minus downsizing), we are possibly creating only a tenth of that number. Add to that the fact that our per capita agricultural productivity is abysmal. More than 50% of India’s population is engaged in agriculture, and all their efforts result in only 16% of the GDP.
Given these numbers, which are hardly a secret, the appointment of the 86-year-old Sis Ram Ola as minister for labour and employment is a joke in very poor taste.
Consequently, one wonders whether this cabinet reshuffle is even good electoral strategy. Poll after poll shows that Narendra Modi is the most popular leader among Indian youth. There may be no serious possibility of Modi becoming Prime Minister, but is this the way to counter his appeal? By promoting people with whom a very significant chunk of the electorate has no connect at all? Clearly, there are enough young Congressmen who could have been elevated from minister of state level. Oh, but then, we forget the other angle here. No one under 45 can perhaps be made a full minister as long as Gandhi is out there somewhere, away from governance.
So the UPA ends up giving the impression that it gives two hoots for age demographics and young aspirations, and still looks at the Indian voter only through narrow caste and community lenses. Perhaps, the UPA also simply does not care for the urban voter.
But surely, after 10 years in power, when the UPA faces elections, the performance of its government will be a significant issue? Yes, the UPA is running a Bharat Nirman advertising campaign, highlighting its achievements, but then why are the numbers about the economy not reflecting all these good deeds at all? Where is even one initiative that the UPA government launched that could increase productivity or have a multiplier effect? In March 2010, the Prime Minister spoke about investing ₹ 5 lakh crore in infrastructure during the 12th Plan period (2012-17). What happened? Almost exactly a year ago, on 28 June 2012, he spoke of reviving the animal spirits of Indian businessmen. What happened?
The cabinet reshuffle is proof that there won’t be any answers forthcoming.
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