Mood:
don't askNow Playing: SOCIALISM IS THE CAUSE OF ALL ILLS IN INDIA
Topic: Y DON'T WE HAVE IT IN US
All through my life I have hated Pandit Nehru for his political philosophy as much as his leanings towards the British. His political leanings still leave me cold as it is the foremost reason for India's deprivity as much as the cause of almost all problems, from terrorism to poverty.
But it is his leanings towards the Brits that I am now beholden to. I will explain why Pandit Nehru, or rather his philosophy was so hypocritical.
Often when I travel by crowded trains I am witness to the most ugly brawls. Sometimes it even ends in fisticuffs. Lot of four-letter words flying around. All leading to unnecessary stress. I am not suggesting that we should be calm and peaceful. Rather it is our peace and quietitude that has exacerbated our problems to points of no return. But if you notice it is always on day to day small non-issues that we get hot under the collar. We are ready to beat anyone up if he even inadvertently hurts our ego. But what about the 50 years of Pakistani terrorism which still kills our people in hundreds. Where does all our celebrated, gung ho self esteem disappear?!
Why do we have this irrepressible urge to find soft targets? We all know for sure that crowded trains are caused by mismanagement. Lately, with just very little efforts Laloo Yadav has been able to turn the railways into a profit-making PSU. So think what a hard-nosed private company like Reliance or Kumaramangalam Birla would do to railways if it were privatised.
Better still, give each zone to a couple of private companies, like in telecom sector, or like in the UK and see what competition will do to our railway system. And being the undisputed leader in IT we could be having the best railway network in the world, every which way you look -- swanky carriages, timely service, safety, speed and comfort!
But no, we would have none of that. We voted out Arun Shourie's party from power because he transparently privatised PSUs. I have even heard my stock market-savvy Christian friends vociferously maintaining that Arun Shourie's policies will only bring misery. And I suspect it is secularism talking there. Modi would meet the same fate. If Laloo had done all that my secular friends would have cheered. And there in lies our immaturity and lack of sophistication.
But never mind the secularists, they don't matter in the number game of Indian democracy. It is the common people who have to travel in 19th century coaches who should know better than to oppose Shourie. I have seen people nudging railway personnel to snap up their act at the ticket counter. Why doesn't the everyday train traveller realise that the solution to all this misery is privatisation. And in today's world of the demand parrying supply in human resources the people who get laid off by privatisation would anyway get better jobs. But that is begging the question. In all the cases of privatisation of PSUs the number of employees has only trebled, leave apart lay-offs.
In every case of PSU disinvestment, the companies have been loss-making because of mismanagement or because of indifference of top echlons. In either situations privatisation has remarkably changed the situation where everyone is in a win-win situation -- be it the employees, the government or the customers. I fail to understand why even the media does not seem to want to highlight this ostensible truth. In this she of 10+ per cent growth every company is in crying need for expansions. So where is the question of lay-offs.
But even today, we will only vote for the sick socialism that has stifled our economic growth to the Hindu rate. Even today we will not support Dr Manmohan Singh in his plans to liberalise the economy. We are so stupid to still support a failed system like socialism which has failed the world over.
And it is not that we haven't seen successful economies. Almost all Bollywood films are shot in developed countries these days in the name of cross-over films. Hollywood films are shown in theaters as well as TV channels dubbed in Hindi. All these movies show the swanky, plush developed countries in all their splendour. Yet we, the immature Indian, refuse to learn lessons.
Posted by Anil Nair
at 7:04 AM
