ELECTIONS '98
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A matter of image

A shocking statistic has now come to light. At a time when Indians have been congratulating themselves on their slow-but-steady economic model, which has inured them from the crisis that has overtaken the "miracle" economies of South-East and East Asia, the statistic shows that, bar Indonesia, the fall in the stock market index and the rise in the cost of living index in the past eight months of BJP rule has been more than in any of Asia's crisis-ridden economies.

A flurry of measures have be announced to boost capital markets. But the Sensex refuses to budge. It is still stuck way below peak levels attained when the Congress was last in power two years ago. The basic, unalterable reason for this is a collapse of confidence. It is this same want of confidence that is driving up prices. Of course, both for the fall in share prices and the rise in prices of essentials, there are objective economic factors.

However, the depth of the fall in the former and the heights being scaled by the latter cannot be related to just supply and demand; They can only be explained by investors putting off investment decisions because they do not trust the future; and consumers rushing to buy up whatever stocks are available in the shops because they do not believe prices tomorrow will be brought down to below where they prevail today.

When onions reached Rs 30 a kilo some months back, people recalled the "onion elections" of 1979-80 which brought Indira Gandhi bouncing back to power. The Congress rushed to take political advantage of the onion crisis by organising a massive protest march in Delhi, led by Sonia Gandhi herself. She walked five kilometres in the sweltering heat of July to present a memorandum to Rashtrapati Bhavan. It was difficult to imagine that onion prices, symbol of the economy for the poorest of the poor, could possibly rise any further. They have since doubled and last week touched Rs 70. Reports from the mofussil tell of onions selling at even Rs100.

For the poor, this is a disaster; for Opposition parties it is a bonanza. Unbelievably, the BJP have trumped their own hand. With state assembly elections due in four states -- Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram, Rajasthan, -- on November 25, just three weeks down the road, they have allowed the soaring prices of the commonest of common tubers to become the symbol of their incompetence.

The salt crisis was, therefore, only waiting to happen. If any ingredient is more vital to the poor man's meal than onion, it is salt. Mahatma Gandhi, with unerring perspicacity, zeroed in on salt to launch the great satyagraha of 1930 which persuaded the British that the sun had, indeed, started setting on their empire. If nothing else, history should have taught the BJP that if salt goes, sarkar goes. Incredibly, with stocks in hand sufficient to meet every conceivable level of demand for at least six months, they allowed panic to push the per kilo price of salt above even the price of onions. Such a double wham, two kicks directly into their own goal, bespeaks political incompetence of an impressive order.

Why allow this to happen? The charitable explanation is that, having spent their lives in Opposition, they are still to learn to govern. The more reasonable explanation is that the humungous profits made by the middlemen have been shared with those who made such a killing possible.

That, at any rate, is what many, perhaps most believe. The trader-BJP nexus is one of the oldest parameters of Indian politics. Whether traders have merely taken advantage of the incompetence of governance, or whether the situation was deliberately fomented to make it worth the while of the traders to shell out their contribution on the eve of crucial elections, can only be definitively determined by some future historian beavering away at de-classified papers. Today's voters can only guess.

So the BJP's spokesmen are feeding voters the story that it is the Congress which has paid stockists to become hoarders and blackmarketeers to stoke voter discontent when preparations are being made to go to the hustings. The line appears to have few takers. The consumer knows that the onion crisis was upon us as long ago as May. There was a partial crop failure in the region of Nasik, the onion-bowl of India. The government was so busy congratulating itself on its nuclear explosions that it did not have ears wide enough to listen to the whisper that it was the Bomb which had really blasted the onion crop!

At any time between May and October, the government could easily have arranged onion imports to make up the short-fall. They have done so now. The question is: why did they not do so earlier? And this leads to the next question: why are the bulk of onions being contracted out of Dubai where no onions are grown, why not direct from producing countries like Iran or one of the Central Asian states? The sophisticated answer is that Dubai is one of the world's great entrepot centres. It is an explanation that does not ring true in most Indian ears. For, after all, Dubai was a great trading centre even in May. Why did the government wait till October to explore supply possibilities?

The lack of faith in government's intentions is fuelling price rises in onions and salt, tomatoes and potatoes, lentils and edible oils. No one believes the government can, or even wants to, moderate run-away inflation. Inflation, therefore, starts running away. At the best of times, the economy would have found it difficult to guide the ship of state past the shoals of gathering global recession. At this, the worst of times, the revealed economic incompetence of the ruling establishment is rendering economic management almost impossible. The lack of confidence stems from a lack of confidence in government. Much sooner than had seemed possible in March, when the Vajpayee government was sworn in, the bell is beginning toll the knell of passing day as Vajpayee's government enters what appears to be its final gasp.

Sensing this, the BJP has stressed that the coming four state assembly elections are not a referendum on the performance of the central government. For the ordinary voter, this does not appear to be a matter of sophistry; it is just not true. The government is surviving because Sonia Gandhi refuses to pull it down. If the eventual assembly results constitute a massive rebuff to the BJP, it would be difficult for the BJP to hold its coalition together. And impossible for Sonia Gandhi to continue playing the reluctant débutante!

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