A Bold Agenda for United Progressive Alliance (UPA)

The clouds of uncertainty have cleared. Ms. Sonia Gandhi has chosen to be a stateswoman rather than a prime minister. She stands even taller today than she did when the results of the elections were announced, by putting the interests of the nation above any personal ambition that she might have had. She realized that her prime ministership would polarize the country and the parliament, with a real possibility of the NDA members boycotting the parliament. Politically, too, this is an astute move; in a society which highly values renunciation, she has won new respect and admiration, even from those who had threatened to go into mourning if Sonia became the prime minister.

It is time now to look ahead. India will have a new government under the leadership of Dr. Manmohan Singh, perhaps the least controversial politician in the country, with an unmatched reputation of competency combined with decency and personal integrity. The new government has a mandate from the people to reform reforms. The following is a proposed agenda for the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government to initiate this process. The agenda deliberately focuses on a few areas so that the government’s energies are not frittered away in chasing too many unrealistic goals.

Before I outline this proposed agenda, here are some of the assumptions upon which it is based:

- While there may be some differences in nuances, there is a large consensus in India on foreign policies, especially the peace initiative with Pakistan;
- The NDA’s economic policies, which have mostly meant non-interference in the market economy, have been quite successful at the macro-level;
- The fruits of economic growth have been unevenly distributed. The markets have not done a satisfactory job of redistribution of the generated wealth. There is a need for government intervention to achieve this;
- With mounting fiscal deficits, the government lacks the resources to undertake any large-scale social programs;
- There is a communal divide in India which needs to be bridged;
- The minority community, especially the Muslims, are feeling unsafe and insecure about their life, property and identity following a history of communal riots in India since independence, but especially after the Gujarat carnage. On the other hand, many in the majority community feel that the minority community has been spoiled by the “pseudo-secularism” of the Congress and left parties;

I believe that the new government can make meaningful progress in addressing these issues and satisfy its progressive aspirations without adversely affecting the overall economic growth that the country has achieved in recent years. I propose the following plan of action to achieve these objectives:

- Make no substantive changes in foreign policy. The government should, in fact, consider retaining Brajesh Mishra as a policy adviser to send a signal of continuity to Pakistan and other countries;

- No change in macro-economic policies in general; if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! Let the mandarins of Reserve Bank and Finance continue to manage the overall economy;

- Continue the policy of selling PSUs - even the profit-making ones - unless absolutely necessary to retain them for reasons of national security. To meet with the objections of the leftists supporting the government, the proceeds from the sale of these PSUs should not go into the government’s general revenues but should be used to fund special initiatives to provide drinking water and other schemes, such as harvesting rain water and biomass energy generation. These schemes will provide jobs as well as meet some basic needs of the poor. This should be done through a predetermined formula and not through the creation of a new bureaucracy. The funds should be provided directly to panchayats or other bodies locally accountable to the people;

- Impose a levy of 10-15% on all tuition fees charged by the private schools; the proceeds should once again not go into central revenues but to improve facilities in rural schools; the funds should go directly to the panchayats based on a formula and not by creating a new bureaucracy;

- Impose a levy of 10% on all use of private hospitals; the funds should similarly be directly transferred to village local bodies to improve village level healthcare;

- All students from private schools should be required to do social work in a village or a slum for a period of at least 50 days during summer holidays as a requirement to receive a high school certificate. The village panchayats can be counted upon to provide free room and board for the students while the state can provide subsidized train/bus transportation for this purpose;

- The curricula of all schools run by religious organizations should be scrutinized by a central agency to ensure that they do not contain any material which causes mistrust or hatred towards others, even if that means going against an orthodox interpretation of religions. For example, madrassas should not be allowed to teach their students that they are living in dar-ul-harb or that the majority of their countrymen are jahils/kaafirs. Similarly, the RSS-run school should not be allowed to teach that Muslims are outsiders in India and should be treated as second class citizens;

- The schools should focus on producing good citizens for the country. The task of making them good Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims, Christians, etc. should be left to parents and religious institutions;

- Substantially jack up the tuition fees charged to students at colleges and universities; those unable to afford the higher fees should be given interest-free loans payable in easy installments after the students obtain employment; revenues from the increased fees should be used for interest-free loans for the needy students as well as to improve the crumbling infrastructure of centres of higher education;

- Pro-active measures should be taken to improve the representation of Muslims in police, army and other government agencies. If a smaller percentage of qualified Muslim candidates succeed in obtaining jobs, it should be considered as a preliminary evidence of discrimination and the recruiting officials should be held accountable for their lapses.

- A POTA-type legislation should be introduced to deal with communal riots and other hate crimes;

- A certain percentage of caste-based reserved seats, say one-fourth, should be changed into income-based reservations, so that others, especially religious minorities can benefit from them;

- All religious subsidies should be abolished; let religious institutions look after the religious needs of their needy. The funds saved from the Haj subsidies should be used to provide loans to deserving Muslims to start small scale enterprises;

- All discriminatory provisions of the constitution with regards to religions should be removed. The same provisions should govern educational and religious institutions irrespective of whether the institution belongs to a religious majority or minority;

- Finally, the govt. should seek to evolve a national consensus for a uniform civil code, as required by the directive principles of the Constitution. The UPA government can do this since its secular credentials are beyond challenge.

These proposals are driven by common-sense and not by any ideology. They are pragmatic and intended to create social harmony and improve general social welfare without causing any disruption to the engines of economic growth. They will likely meet the resistance of religious extremists and fundamentalists but the these risks are worth taking. Fortune favours the brave.