Do bandhs work any more? Or have they lost their cutting edge through repeated misuse?
I spent monday morning trying to figure this out on twitter where I am fortunate to have a varied universe of friends and followers. I set off the chat by saying that while I don’t usually support bandhs the persistent price rise over the past two years, and the recent fuel price increase at a time when food inflation has reached such an alarming state shows that the Government has simply stopped listening to public opinion and a bandh may actually help this time to set that right. Some agreed. Others complained about the way bandhs are enforced. I asked if anyone had a better idea on how to protest against a Government that refuses to listen to the people. Inflation has been our worst nightmare for a while. To make matters worse, the Government now jacks up fuel prices by another 10% under the pretext of removing subsidies, knowing fully well that such an increase has a cascading effect on prices and is the surest way to stoke further inflation.
Current economic wisdom argues against subsidies, true. But politics is not about economic theories. It’s also about people, real people with real problems. There’s a point beyond which people will not accept a callous, unfeeling bunch of rulers. Whatever may have been its other successes, there’s not the slightest doubt the UPA has failed miserably in keeping prices in check, particularly food prices. Dal, milk, foodgrains, vegetables, fruit, everything has gone through the roof. There has been a lot of buck passing but the question is not where the failure can be parked. The responsibility vests in the Government, not Sharad Pawar, even though his ministry may be responsible for the failure. It’s exactly the same as in telecom. The Government simply can’t walk away by blaming Raja for the spectrum scam. The entire UPA is tainted by it, and that taint will only go when action is taken against Raja. But Pawar's clever. Sensing the anger stacking up against him, he has started urging the Prime Minister to lessen his responsibilities.
Instead of fighting this scary scenario where food costs 20% more, and so does pretty much everything else, the Government boasts of 9% growth. It proudly announces huge defence purchases, big investments in infrastructure. Yet it can’t provide the most basic necessity to the average Indian-- food security. We see TV images of hundreds of tonnes of foodgrains rotting in State granaries and we read about rodents destroying 20% of our annual crop. We hear about vast wastages in transportation. At the same time, farmers are committing suicide because they can’t feed their families, tribals are joining hands with extremist political groups just to ensure that they get two square meals a day, and millions of people are migrating to our overcrowded cities in the hope that their children can escape the cycle of poverty and illiteracy they have grown up with. How do you reconcile this with vast stocks of foodgrains that the Government simply won't release in the market just to keep the prices artificially high?
But is the bandh an apt instrument of protest? Or is it just another weapon that lumpens and thugs have co-opted as their preferred political option? Well, a nationwide sms poll conducted on the bandh day showed that, for the first time, 60% Indians strongly came out in support of the bandh. (It was 72% in Maharashtra.) They believed the cause was right and thought this was the correct way to show their disapproval. Hopefully, this will break the resolve of the Government to increase diesel prices too and, if we are lucky, bring about a roll back in the petrol, kerosene and cooking gas prices. Interestingly, the cost of the one day bandh was more than what the Government annually incurs in sustaining what it describes as subsidized fuel prices.
What is particularly annoying is that there are no clear disclosures by the State as to what is the actual price of fuel which needs to be recovered from the people to end the subsidy regime. The prices referred to are always inclusive of vast amounts of Central and State taxes, excise, VAT and many other hidden recoveries already being made by the Government as well as profit expectations of the PSU oil companies. If the State was to only realise the actual cost of the fuel from us, the price of all fuel would be less than half of what we pay for it today. So removing the so called subsidization of fuel is actually just another glib argument to enforce a price rise. Half the price we pay for fuel is already being taken away by the Government under different taxes and the subsidy it gives today is but a tiny fraction of that money.
Whether the BJP or the Sena or the Left parties gained from this bandh or not is not the issue. What matters is that, after a long time, people in general have come to agree that a bandh was sometimes required to tell a Government where it gets off.
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