Graver is the situation with the prices supported well with commoditization of inflation in the psyche. This psyche has become divisive. Metro India and India of the towns are still not so belonging to the core of this division but it is becoming more and more puzzling. Any factor that has been the most subdued one is anti-incumbency due to price rise if we go back and analyze some past elections.
We opened our economy in 1991 and we still hail it as benchmark of our economic policy. Sure we need to pat ourselves today for the progress that we have made in these years. But again, as mentioned earlier, the recurring floods; the powerless towns and villages, where potable drinking water is scarce and that is still not an issue; where majority of the population still lives on a dollar a day; where majority of the school going population comes in the drop-out category very early in the life cycle; where farmers are committing suicide year after year, - all vehemently big question marks in their own etymologies - that each of these nullify whatever little positive that we have been able to achieve - socio—economically and not just economically.
Can we and should we be proud of the gains made in these years?
Statistics and indicative economic parameters are as good as the ways of their handling. We saw it during the outgoing NDA regime when everything was hunky dory and then suddenly the spiral of vicissitude broke its silence. The figures failed the incumbent hopes of dallying policymakers. This year’s general election again failed the intentions and indentations.
The double digit inflation that had reached over 12% and seemed to be staying there had become one of most sloganeered word and everyone was pinning hopes to nail the incumbents based on it. That didn’t happen not because the policymakers at the core were deserving but their opponents were not sharp enough to tell the voters what the figures were telling as they had failed in 2004. Figures are as good as their manipulators.
But figures have been failing the most vulnerable subject all this while – the entity of a so-called democracy – the voter – the Indian voter of the street.
India is a reality. Bharat has been a reality. The gap is widening. Figures are being done and re-done to tell a story that seems soothing. Dimensions are being looked for to add more virtual surfaces to the trickle-down opium.
So the elections threw the same government at the core. We all felt for the stability factor, more pragmatic policies and, moreover, a hope that figures would stop failing us. But on the contrary, happening are taking the downward spiral again. Let’s come to it.
