Convergence of ideas

Though the country’s citizens typically don’t vote on the basis of economic vision statements, they’d be terribly confused if they did — since the vision documents of both the BJP and the Congress are similar in most respects.

In the case of expenditure on education, for instance, both parties wish to increase spending to the same 6 per cent of the GDP! Both talk of increasing the rate of GDP growth, both want to take it up to 10 per cent, both want to focus on the farm sector and the unorganised sector, and so on.

The BJP wants to “incentivise” the private sector to create more education and employment opportunities for the SCs and the STs, and promises to focus on policies and programmes for agriculture, textiles, and agro-processing.

The Congress economic vision, on the other hand, talks of special development incentives to channelise investment/employment in favoured areas. The BJP talks of actively encouraging companies, including foreign ones, to set up more R&D activities, the Congress talks of special tax credits to do the same thing.

None of this is surprising, given that employment growth in the second half of the 1990s has plummeted — and so both parties have to address the issue. It is equally true that if employment is to be increased, the only way to do this is to focus on the farm sector and on areas like agro-processing and textiles.

Similarly, if India is to continue “Shining”, never mind whose campaign it is, there has to be a sharper focus on both education as well as higher R&D spend. Since both parties wish to increase government spending in certain areas, both talk of involving what’s called civil society to monitor this.

Both talk of an increased role for panchayats — while the Congress takes credit for having come up with the original idea, the BJP says the Congress came up with the idea but didn’t really empower the panchayats with enough financial and administrative powers, and this is something the party promises to rectify through, if need be, a Constitutional amendment.

All this suggests a convergence of economic views between the two main political parties. The problem lies in the approach of both parties. Unchastened by 50 years of experience in the failure of directed lending and all manner of reservations for all manner of objectives, the Congress is in favour of bringing them back, although under a different garb.

So, incentives are to be given for developing rural roads, for instance, and for employing more people, and setting up industries in backward areas — the party, of course, doesn’t see that this will add more layers to bureaucracy with someone having to decide what is additional employment, for instance.

The BJP’s approach is less revanchist, perhaps because it hasn’t spelt out how it plans to “incentivise” private sector firms to employ dalits and tribals, for instance. If pressed for an answer, the BJP leadership too might come up with Congress-type solutions, though the party does seem more nuanced in its approaches.