I am not sure if India is a police state yet or not. I think tourists don't have it easy as they don't understand the country as well as the natives. If you are a native you do know how to get things done. However, it is true that India is on the slippery slope where its most important democratic institutions are slowly breaking down. The first to go was the media, an example of which was the media now running paid columns as well as the attacks on journalists who threaten the status quo. The next in line is the judiciary. While the top levels of the judiciary seem to be still untainted, the lower levels seem to have been corrupted. The Election Commision was tainted a long time back as well. All this is happening and most of the middle class is unconcerned at this stage.
The recent media coverage of the recent riots and migration was distressing, marking yet another nadir in their slide downwards.
I got better reports from following leads on reddit and forums than I did from looking at the media.
At first I didn't give credence to what people said about the media being mouth pieces for various parties. Now I wouldn't trust them if they told me the earth was round.
The judiciary is doing a better job, but are constantly having to encroach on duties supposed to be carried out by the government.
Take the idea of Public Interest Litigations which were propounded by a Chief Justice. They in turn became a corner stone of the fight against corruption. Allowing people to take up injustices so that the common good can be defended.
Fortunately the election commission found its teeth a while back and fought hard against to bring us fair elections. Unfortunately there were some signs of push back against the EC recently, so the next wave is underway by the looks of things.
Similarly the government is headed by what should be the most progressive of leaders, the man who helped create the 1991 liberalization reforms.
Yet it is constantly hamstrung by its own politics to increase its power, and at the mercy of pro communist, anti market, and anti progress swing parties.
The middle class WAS concerned recently with the Anna Hazare campaigns to push for an anti corruption ombudsman.
That was frightening to an extent for the government because they had a vote bank which was apathetic suddenly show signs of life.
The subsequent destruction and implosion of the organizers of the anti corruption drive, have now left the middle class in a stage between waking and sleeping.
I think Manmohan Singh gets far too much credit for the reforms. Those who have studied Indian Economics will know that liberalization was forced on us. We were close to bankruptcy in 1991 and the IMF forced the reforms on us in exchange for a bailout. Unfortunately, having branded him as an architect of our reforms, we have also set our expectations very high.
The balance of payments crisis was a long time brewing, and books have been written to do it justice.
Heres how it went -
Rajiv Gandhi was murdered in 1991.
That year a "stop gap" intellectual was made Prime Minister, The now un-lamented Narasimha Rao.
He chose Manmohan Singh, a quiet intellectual to be his Finance Minister.
Manmohan was the planner, and Rao the force that allowed him to follow his goals.
Manmohan in turn broke the task down and gave it to several different competent people to implement.
At one point, over 3 days, the devalued the RS by 20%.
Following that he told the new commerce minister, P. Chidambaram, that he wanted to abolish the export subsidy, because the lowered RS was enough of an incentive.
That would have ended his Chidambaram as a commerce minister, since it was his only way to encourage exports. Yet he had to agree in the end.
So he asked if he could also announce a formal trade reform at the same time.
He and Montek Singh worked to demolish the import licensing raj and had only 8 hours to manage it. They settled on an exim scrips, which allowed market forces to help settle currency trades, and removed the bureaucrat from the process.
40 years of red tape, vested interest, a wounded economy, and under the hardest of deadlines they managed to slice off a huge chunk of that.
If you think, the details of that are trivial or obvious, please spend some time to read the document.
When asked, Manmohan Singh said that it was worth doing, and Narasimha Rao signed the bill.
Thats how a good team works. They had a good FM, a PM which was willing to do the task, however reluctantly, and well ordered subordinates.
Other countries have faced easier challenges and failed.
And thats only the dismantling of the export license raj. They dismantled the industry side of the raj. Then they went on to abolish the MRTP act, opened up everything from banking to airlines, allowed foreign investment (remember Coke buying thums up?), reduced tax rates, and on and on.
This happened over 2 years. They didn't have to beyond a point though. They could have said "this is well enough".
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When you say
> Those who have studied Indian Economics will know that liberalization was forced on us.
You make it sound like a trivial task. As if one were breaking an egg.
Ask Russia how it went for them after Yelstin, in contrast. I never saw tanks having to protect our Parliament from a coup.
The theory du jour is to reduce the importance of Manmohan Singh to the reform process. But these reductions first don't understand the role he played in the first place.
I was a big fan of Manmohan Singh and used to be a vocal supporter. I had high hopes too that we finally have someone who understands what India needs but his leadership through these scandals has been poor, to put it mildly. In any case, when it came to liberalization, he had no other option. The previous budgets used expenditure control and increased exports as a strategy to solve the BOP crisis but it failed miserably. He couldn't have ignored the IMF and continued a policy that had failed for the last 4-5 years. In some ways, the previous finance ministers were already taking small steps towards that path by encouraging public sector disinvestment. I'm sure any other Finance Minister would have taken the same decision. On the topic of execution, his team did a great job. However, the Indian government always steps up when it is in a serious crisis. Whether it is Kargil/ Commonwealth/Tsunami/Terror attacks, we manage to unite in a crisis and find a way to get things done. So, should we start calling Shelia Dixit the "architect" of Commonwealth Games. I'm not so sure.
His current leadership is poor, mainly since there is little of it, as I stated in the grand parent post. So we are in agreement.
We agree for most things except the last.
No, other fin mins could have stopped short. As I pointed out in my post, this went on for 2 years. Once the BoP crisis was over, and the gulf war induced oil shock was gone, they had no reason to stay on course.
Check a chart on the price of oil for the periods under question, they stabilize pretty quick.
more credit should be given to PV N Rao, who was the driving force and the source of courage behind Manmohan.
Many people fail during crises. Just because some people step up when the chips are down doesn't mean that their achievement was ordained. It means they had the mettle and is actually more praiseworthy for their ability under pressure.
This is also why I brought up Russia. They opened up their markets and it was eaten alive by corruption the way a wolf eats a new born lamb.
Manmohan is given credit as the architecht and designer of the reforms because he designed it and decided who was to head what committe and what they should aim for. He obviously had people execute it. He is given credit where it is due.
HPG Is given credit for Ycomb in a similar manner.
While you may have stopped being a supporter, like many of us, it should have no bearing on his past achievements.
If anything it only highlights how he would have performed with a stronger hand behind the throne, sadly.
