Seeing reason in the CPI(M)’s politics

R. Ramakumar

The decision of the Central Committee of the largest Left party in India - the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or the CPI(M) - to refrain from any alliance or understanding with the Congress party has led to many critical responses. A number of secular and progressive-minded people have taken exception to the CPI(M)’s decision. Many of them have argued in favour of an umbrella-electoral alliance of non-BJP parties to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2019 elections to the Parliament. The refusal of the CPI(M) to join hands with the Congress is proof, they argue, that it is just a “B-team” of the BJP.

These views, though may be well-meaning, are misguided and betray a poor understanding of the complex realities of Indian politics in the times of Hindutva. In my opinion, an alternative to the BJP’s rule can not simply be a return to a scenario prior to the BJP’s rule, which was singularly guilty of sowing the seeds for the BJP’s rise in the Indian society and polity.

To begin with, the strength of the Left in India, particularly the CPI(M), has never been in the electoral sphere. The Left is electorally powerful in only three States. Of course, in these States, the Left has shown that an alternative development trajectory is indeed possible. If we look outside these States, the Left simply lacks any pan-Indian electoral strength. Yet, the importance of Left politics in the country’s public domain has never been on the wane. Whenever there is an attack on the liberal values of our society or on the livelihoods of people, it is the Left that people expect to be on the vanguard. This phenomenon is because of the remarkable ability of the Left parties, and their mass organisations of farmers, workers, students and women, to mobilise people and mount powerful movements for pro-people policies, and against anti-people policies of the ruling classes.

In India, this ruling class is constituted by the BJP and the Congress. They, together, represent the rural and the urban rich. Crony capitalism has been a hallmark of both the Congress and BJP governments. It is their combined interest to move India towards imperialist-driven globalisation, liberalisation and a free market economy. The contemporary agrarian crisis in India is a direct fall-out of the Congress party’s neoliberal agenda in agriculture, which the BJP government has taken forward. It is the Congress’s agenda of privatisation and fund-squeeze for higher education that the BJP government has been gladly pursuing. The Orwellian Aadhaar was a brain-child of the Congress. The two parties have, historically, presided over regimes that have entrenched upper caste groups in their pursuit of domination over lower caste groups. They have together created a fertile ground in Indian society where science and rational thinking are dumped in favour of obscurantism and superstitions.

Of course, the BJP is a bigger danger than the Congress. The BJP is also a communal right-wing entity that aims at converting secular India into a Hindu Rashtra. Hence, the argument is put forward that the “neoliberal, but secular” Congress and the “non-neoliberal and secular” Left could ally with each other to keep the common enemy - the “neoliberal and communal” BJP - out of power. In this regard, a number of commentators have pointed to the post-election developments of 2004 as a useful guide. However, this may be a simplistic portrayal of a far more complex political reality in Indian politics. Experience shows that electoral adjustments may temporarily keep the BJP out of power, but they distract attention from the more fundamental task of transforming how people’s consciousness is moulded by communal ideologies. In a recent speech at the Mumbai Collective in Mumbai, Prakash Karat had elaborated on this point in detail:

“We have seen that the non-BJP, or the non-Hindutva political forces in this country, ranging from the secular Right to the Left in India, have [in the past] sought to fight off the Hindutva forces primarily through electoral politics. We did that successfully in the year 2004, when electoral tactics were worked out to oust the Vajpayee government from office and defeat the BJP. But despite the electoral defeat of the BJP, there was no real erosion or weakening of Hindutva forces. They suffered a setback, but their bases were intact…That is because Hindutva politics is something that is fashioned and engineered by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). And the RSS works round the clock, 24*7, in our society in terms of spreading the Hindutva ideology…it is a political project of the RSS, the ultimate aim being to establish a Hindu Rashtra. So, while they suffered electoral defeat from time to time, because of effective political and electoral measures adopted by the secular opposition/regional parties, their consistent work in different spheres of our society never ceased and they continued to gain ground. And we have not tackled that seriously.”

This takes us to two questions: first, does the Congress have a meaningful role in effectively defeating the ideology of Hindutva? Second, whether a singular attention to electoral adjustments distracts the Left from the more fundamental task of building genuine people’s movements against communalism and neoliberalism?

First, if there is a sure “B-team” of the BJP in India, it has been the Congress. History is replete with evidence on this ground. It was Rajiv Gandhi who first opened the doors of the so-called Ram temple in Ayodhya’s Babri Masjid and promised a Ram Rajya to the people. The Babri Masjid was demolished in 1992 under the aegis of a Congress government. Countless communal riots have been engineered across the country with incumbent Congress governments watching in silence. The UPA-1 government had appointed the Rajinder Sacchar Commission to enquire into the economic backwardness of Muslims. Some hesitant policy actions followed, but when the Congress lost the 2014 Parliament elections, its General Secretary A. K. Antony attributed the loss to the party’s appeasement of minorities, which alienated the majority community.

After 2014, the Congress has once again returned to its time-tested “soft-Hindutva” plank. This was unmistakably visible during the Gujarat elections of 2017, in which the party’s spokespersons introduced temple-hopper Rahul Gandhi as a “shiv bhakt” and “janeudhaari brahmin”. In the forthcoming Karnataka assembly polls, report suggest, the Congress is getting ready to repeat the “temple strategy” attempted in Gujarat. In Maharashtra, Congress leaders are busy setting up “sadhu-sant samaj” cells to influence Hindu monks and sages. More recently, they have publicly invited the fascistic Shiv Sena for an alliance to bring the BJP down from power. The Congress party has never had an unambiguous policy on cow slaughter. Many State-level leaders of the Congress are strong votaries of the ban on cow slaughter and the beef ban. Congress leaders from Haryana have been some of the strongest supporters of the extra-constitutional khap panchayats. It is not for nothing then that hordes of senior leaders of the Congress - Rita Bahuguna, S. M. Krishna, Himanta Biswa Sarma, Satpal Maharaj, Jagadambika Pal and Narayan Rane among others - have jumped ship overnight to transform into leaders of the BJP. To top it all, in the Tripura assembly polls of 2018, all the sitting Congress MLAs of the current assembly are contesting as BJP candidates.

The Congress, then, is a poor candidate to lead the socio-cultural offensive against the communal Right. Arun Jaitley was probably right in his comment soon after the Gujarat assembly elections: “if an original is available, why would anyone prefer a clone?”

Secondly, the CPI(M)’s emerging strategy to counter the BJP moves away from temporary electoral adjustments, as have been tried in the past, towards more substantive building up of people’s movements against both communalism and neoliberalism. Let’s get the fact right. There has been a secular decline in the electoral support for the Left parties over the years, particularly in States outside its strongholds. One of the reasons for this decline has been the electoral alliances stitched together, year after year, with both the Congress and many regional parties. A casualty in the midst of these electoral forays has been the independent struggles of the Left. The decision of the CPI(M)’s Central Committee appears to correct this anomaly and focus on building independent struggles of the Left across the country. The work has already begun. The two largest farmer’s struggles of recent times - in Maharashtra and Rajasthan - were spearheaded by the All India Kisan Sabha, a CPI(M)-led organisation of farmers. The Left’s trade unions have been in the leadership of national strikes and agitations of the workers, the largest being the maha padav in New Delhi of November 2017. Left-led student organisations have been holding the fort in campuses across India against the heinous attacks on higher education by the Narendra Modi government.

The importance of a sustained build-up of such movements from below against Hindutva politics on the one hand, and neoliberal policies on the other, is unfortunately not appreciated by some in the progressive circles. It is only such a comprehensive struggle that would ultimately alienate the RSS and its pet themes from the public sphere. In his Mumbai lecture, Prakash Karat had elaborated on this point too:

“After three-and-a-half years of the Modi regime, all of us are seriously grappling with the question of how to counter this challenge; how do we overcome this political challenge of the Hindutva forces…There is a natural and popular urge that all of you should get together and defeat the BJP in electoral terms. But I believe that this is putting the cart before the horse…There is still insufficient recognition that the advance made by Hindutva politics and ideology over substantial sections of our people cannot be undone purely through electoral battle and electoral struggle. We have to have a more comprehensive plan of action. Here, the first thing is to recognise that large sections of the people, including the working people - the working class, the peasantry, the rural poor, the urban poor - all those should be the basis for our fight against the Hindutva forces. These people have been won over to the other side of the camp of the Hindutva forces. In order to fight the Hindutva forces effectively, we have to win the battle for the minds and interests of these sections of people. The shrinking of the space for the secular democratic forces is underlined by this reality at the ground level…”

In the contemporary situation where Hindutva and neoliberalism are inseparably inter-twined, as under Narendra Modi’s BJP, the alternative too has to be equally encompassing. Alliances or understandings with elements of the so-called “secular Right” would not only diminish the legitimacy of such an arrangement in the minds of people. It would also deliver a major setback to the cause of a genuine Left and democratic alternative to the Congress and the BJP. It is hoped that short-sighted commentators who slight the Left have a rethink on their position and see reason in the CPI(M)’s stance.

CPI (M) and Koodankulam: What Mahasweta Devi left unsaid

These are some notes in the context of Mahasweta Devi's letter to Pinarayi Vijayan telling him that she would visit his house if he would visit Koodankulam with her. Some so-called "activists" have been under the impression that  Mahasweta Devi managed to stump Vijayan and the CPI (M) with that letter. According to them, the CPI (M) is confused on Koodankulam and has no answer to Mahasweta Devi. Here is a short response.

I don’t think, whether one agrees with it or not, that there is any ambiguity in the CPI (M)’s position on nuclear power. The CPI (M) has a longstanding position against nuclear weaponisation and in favour of universal nuclear disarmament. During the 123 agreement debate itself, this point has been made again and again. At the same time, according to the CPI (M), India has to aim for the attainment of self-reliance within the indigenous civilian nuclear programme. For that matter, the technological option of nuclear power has to be kept open and not closed; research should continue.

The CPI (M) believes that it is impossible to generate something like 40,000 MW of nuclear power by 2021, as the UPA government claims. Imported nuclear reactors are unviable due to their high cost. They also have longer periods of completion. There are also uncertainties and dangers involved in ensuring supply of imported fuel to the same. There are cheaper and speedier options open for generation of electricity with indigenous technology and a combination of fuels like coal and natural gas and hydel power. Along with these options, there has to be also gradual development of nuclear technology and fuels in the country.

Now, this was the position of the CPI (M) when the nuclear deal was stuck. The 123 deal imposed new complications into the policy. The Left parties held that the 123 deal 

“...should not be seen in isolation from the overall strategic tie-up with the United States. The nuclear cooperation deal is an integral part of the July 2005 joint statement, which has political, economic and strategic aspects. It is also closely linked to the June 2005 military framework agreement signed with the United States. It is therefore not possible to view the text of the bilateral “123” agreement negotiated with the United States as a separate and compartmentalised entity without considering its implications for India’s independent foreign policy, strategic autonomy and the repercussions of the US quest to make India its reliable ally in Asia...”.

Thus, the 123 deal compromised India’s commitment to nuclear non-weaponisation as well as violated its policymaking autonomy in the energy sphere. Thus, the CPI (M) demanded not just the rejection of the 123 deal; it was also critical of starving the indigenous research sector in domestic nuclear energy generation for funds.

The Fukushima incident inserted an even newer complication. It generated fears of nuclear accidents among people. Thus, any new nuclear plant could not be installed without taking the people into confidence and addressing their concerns and fears regarding safety. Even if the plant is supposed to be “technically safe”, it is not an automatic substitute for allaying the fears of people living nearby. This has also been the CPI (M)’s position after the Fukushima disaster.

In Koodankulam, the CPI (M), going by the above position, has not disapproved of Phase 1. On Phase 2, it has stated:

“The two reactors set-up in Koodankulam and purchased from Russia much before the nuclear deal falls in a different category. The local people have various apprehensions about the safety and the impact on the environment of these reactors, especially after the Fukushima accident. It is necessary to conduct an independent safety review and allay the apprehensions of the people before commissioning the plant. The CPI(M) has demanded an immediate halt to the import of nuclear power plants to Jaitapur and other locations. Existing nuclear power plants in India should undergo a thorough safety review to be conducted by an independent body. There has to be an independent and autonomous nuclear safety regulatory authority. The proposed legislation by the government to set up such an authority will only make it a controlled body captive to the government.”

This is the CPI (M)’s position on the Koodankulam plant.

The CPI (M)’s Tamil Nadu unit has made two seperate points. First, it has supported the plant’s commissioning. Secondly, it has asked the government to end repression there and convince people there about the project. See the following reports in support of these two points, sorted by dates.

In support of the plant:

1) 1 March 2012:

“The State Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Wednesday urged Central and State governments to initiate steps for commencing operations of the Koodankulam project soon after reviewing the reports submitted by the expert committees.” 

2) 24 March 2012:

“The State unit of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Friday called upon anti-Koodankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP) protestors to give up their agitation, as panels of experts appointed by the Centre and the State governments had vouched for the safety of the plants...In a statement here, State secretary of the party G. Ramakrishnan welcomed the State government decision to go ahead with the commissioning of the plants. He requested the local people to extend their support for the functioning of the plants.”

Against repression on the agitating people:

1) 21 September 2011:

“The State unit of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has urged the Centre to defer the generation of power from Koodankulam Nuclear Power Project until all its safety aspects are ensured. In a statement here, CPI (M) secretary G. Ramakrishnan said that after the accident in a Japanese atomic power plant following tsunami, a fear psychosis had cropped up all over the world regarding atomic power stations. This had triggered a fast at Koodankulam in which a number of local people and organisations were involved.

While a number of countries were subjecting their atomic power plants to re-certification, India was also trying to get such a certification for the new nuclear reactor it was planning to buy from France. “However, as far as the Koodankulam plant is concerned, only a superficial inspection was conducted after the incident in the Japanese plant. It is not satisfactory,” he said. 

The CPI (M) pleaded that a “trustworthy team” of experts should certify the safety aspects of the Koodankulam plant. Besides, both the Atomic Energy Commission and Nuclear Power Corporation should set up all the safety measures. “In addition, this atomic power plant should be brought under the Nuclear Liability Bill”. “Also, the government should convince the public that their livelihood will not be affected because of the plant. Till these things are completed, commencement of power generation should be deferred”, he said.”

2) 12 October 2011:

“On the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Project, Mr. Ramakrishnan said that the people in Tirunelveli district still entertained fears about the safety of the project. He, therefore, wanted the government to keep the project in abeyance till an independent committee of experts studied the project and guaranteed its safety.”

3) 15 October 2011:

“The Centre should put on hold all works at the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Project till an independent expert committee certified the safety of the nuclear reactors there, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) secretary, G. Ramakrishnan, has said. Talking to reporters here on Friday, he said that though the type of reactors used in Koodankulam were in use in European countries for the last four decades, it was for the first time that this type of reactor was being installed in India. Pointing to the apprehension expressed by the local people, Mr. Ramakrishnan said that the Centre should appoint an independent expert committee to study the safety aspects of the reactors. “Till such time the panel certifies the safety of the reactors, the work should be put on hold,” he said. The Centre should handle the issue in the right way, he added.”

4) 15 February 2012:

“On the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant row, he said that the priority of the government should be to allay the fears of the local people on the safety of the plant. The Centre should also consider developing livelihood infrastructure for the local people as suggested by the former President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, he added.”

5) 1 March 2012:

“In a release, CPI (M) general secretary G. Ramakrishnan stated that based on former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam’s recommendations, the Centre should ensure the safety of those in and around Koodankulam and allocate Rs.200 crore for development activities.”

6) 23 March 2012:

“The CPI(M) condemns the police repression on the people protesting against the commissioning of the nuclear power plant at Koodankulam. Those arrested are being charged with sedition and for waging war against the State which is baseless and unwarranted. There are reports of water supply being cut off and other essential supplies being blocked to the Idinthakari village. The CPI(M) calls upon the state administration not to resort to repression and force against peaceful protesters. Since there are a number of issues still agitating the people regarding the nuclear plant, the concerned authorities should immediately begin talks to address these issues.”

7)  24 March 2012:

“In a statement, State secretary of the party G. Ramakrishnan welcomed the State government decision to go ahead with the commissioning of the plants. He requested the local people to extend their support for the functioning of the plants. Mr. Ramakrishnan said that instead of resorting to repressive measures such as filing criminal cases against the protestors, the State government should take steps to allay the fears of people about the technology and safety aspects of the Koodankulam project.”

8) 24 March 2012:

“CPM state secretary G Ramakrishnan on Friday urged the state government to make efforts to muster support for the Koodankulam nuclear power project by convincing the anti-nuclear protesters on the safety aspects.”

9) 24 March 2012:

“Mr. Ramakrishnan said that instead of resorting to repressive measures such as filing criminal cases against the protestors, the State government should take steps to allay the fears of people about the technology and safety aspects of the Koodankulam project.”

10) 19 May 2012:

News item from Theekkathir (translated from Tamil):

CPI (M) demonstration demanding withdrawal of cases on people of Idinthakarai: 100 persons including MLA Nagai Mali, arrested 

Tirunelveli, dated May 18^th 2012 

The CPI (M) carried out a demonstration demanding the withdrawal of cases instituted by the Government of Tamil Nadu against the people opposing the Koodankulam nuclear plant. Hundreds of people who participated in the demonstration, including MLA Nagai Mali, were arrested.

The Secretary of the Tirunelveli Corporation unit of the CPI (M) R. Karunanidhi presided over the demonstration and meeting, which took place in Jawahar Maidan in Palayankottai.

The CPI (M) district secretary spoke inaugurating the demonstration. Former MLA Noor Mohammed and Nagai Mali MLA spoke condemning the launching of cases. The CPI (M) district secretariat member V. Palani, other District Secretariat members, corporation committee members, District Committee members and many others participated. Since there was no police permission for the demonstration, the police arrested hundreds of people who took part in the demonstration. They were released a few hours later.

A photo of the demonstration organised by the CPI (M) at Jawahar Maidan in Palayankottai dated 18th May 2012 against police repression on agitating people at Idinthakarai.

A roughly translated excerpt from S. P. Udayakumar's speech welcoming the CPI (M) delegation at Idinthakarai on 18^th May 2012:

“The Congress is completely corrupt. The BJP is communal. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) is a party that fights for the working people from Kanyakumari to Kashmir. Even though they differ from us, they have come to visit us and lent their voice against repression on us. We thank them for coming.”

From another news report on the same speech in Tamil:

"காங்கிரஸ் ஊழல் கறைபிடிந்த கட்சி, பிஜேபி மதவெறி கட்சி, இந்தியாவில் உழைக்கும் மக்களுக்காக குமரி முதல் இமயம் வியாபித்து போராடும் இயக்கம் மார்க்சிஸ்ட் கட்சி என போராட்டக்குழுவின் அமைப்பாளர் உதயகுமார் வரவேற்று பேசினார்."

11) 24 May 2012:

A CPI (M) delegation went to visit the agitators on May 18th, 2012. The agitating group has itself in a press release stated that:

“On May 18, 2012, a Communist Party of India (Marxist) team came to visit us at Idinthakarai under the leadership of Comrade P. Mahalingam (aka V.P. Nagai Maali), an MLA from Kilvelur constituency in Tamil Nadu. That evening the CPI(M) organized an agitation at Tirunelveli in support of us and some 50 of them including 6 women were arrested by police.”

So, I do not think Mahasweta Devi’s plagiarised paragraphs on the Koodankulam plant have to be taken seriously by Pinarayi Vijayan. I say plagiarised because it turns out that large parts of Mahasweta Devi's "techno-savvy" letter to Vijayan that dealt with Koodankulam were plainly lifted from a website. Please compare her letter with the article on Koodankulam written by one K. Ramachandran. The TN State unit of the CPI (M) has strongly stood with the agitating people there, even as it has supported Phase 1 of the project. 

Mahasweta Devi's plagiarised letter to Vijayan wrongly assumes that the CPI (M) is silent on the repression on people there. The same "civil society activists" who wrote the letter for her have also deliberately hidden this fact from her. Hence her question "I will visit Pinarayi village and will you visit Koodankulam to express your solidarity to the people there?" is a non-starter. 

For how long would Mahasweta Devi continue to be a tool in the hands of these wicked anti-CPI (M) guys? Why should she cut a sorry face for the short-term personal gains of these few individuals? 

A Budget for the Rich

R. Ramakumar

Budget 2011-12 marks a sharp retreat of the government from the social and economic sectors. It has cut back expenditures in sectors that matter to common people, especially the poor. On the other hand, it has given huge concessions to the corporate sector in the form of tax cuts and exemptions.

Let us take the overall fiscal stance of the budget. The underlying strategy is to reduce its fiscal deficit to 3.5 per cent and revenue deficit to 2.1 per cent by 2013-14. For this purpose, it has rolling targets for every intervening year. In 2010-11, the fiscal deficit was 5.1 per cent. Thus, fiscal deficit would fall by 1.6 per cent between 2010-11 and 2013-14. During the same period, the Gross Tax Revenue is projected to rise from 10 per cent to 11.3 per cent of the GDP, a rise by just 1.3 per cent. In other words, there has to be a continuous cutback in expenditures between 2010-11 and 2013-14.

Budget 2011-12 begins this process in earnest. It has sharply cut total expenditure, as a share of the GDP, from 15.4 per cent in 2010-11 to 13.7 per cent in 2011-12 (assuming that nominal GDP grows at 17 per cent in 2011-12). Within total expenditure, revenue expenditure would fall from 13.4 per cent to 11.9 per cent of the GDP and capital expenditure would fall from 1.7 per cent to 1.6 per cent of the GDP.

The cut in expenditures as a share of GDP is set to apply across a large number of sectors. The largest cut has been on subsidies. If we take “major subsidies”, the expenditure is set to fall from Rs 154,212 crore in 2010-11 to Rs 134,411 crore in 2011-12. In relative terms, this would mean a fall from 2 per cent to 1.5 per cent of the GDP. Within major subsidies, the sharpest cut has been in petroleum subsidy, by Rs 14,746 crore. Fertiliser subsidy has been cut by Rs 4,978 crore. Without doubt, a major rise in fertilizer prices can be expected in 2011-12, as the government would move into a nutrient-based subsidy (NBS) regime for urea too. Costs of cultivation are set to rise, when millions of farmers face distress.

Food subsidy has been cut by Rs 27 crore. At a time when food inflation continues to be high, the government has refused to use the public distribution system (PDS) to provide food to the poor at affordable prices. In the light of the absolute cut in spending, the sincerity of UPA-2 in bringing in a meaningful food security bill stands in serious doubt. Clearly, the effort of the government is to dismantle the PDS in a phased manner and introduce food coupons or direct cash transfers (as Economic Survey 2010-11 demands). This marks a clear retreat of the state from its vital social welfare functions, and its transformation from a direct provider to an indirect provider. The budget has announced similar intent in the case of subsidies in kerosene and fertilizers also.

There are major problems associated with moving into a direct cash transfer scheme while distributing subsidies. Leaving them apart, how will the government provide direct cash assistance? On this, the budget harps all hopes on an extraordinarily ambitious and faultily designed Aadhaar project. The Aadhaar project still does not have a feasibility report in place. Privacy concerns apart, it remains unclear whether biometric technology is capable of the gigantic task of de-duplication among a population of over one billion. The Unique Identification Authority of India’s (UIDAI) “Biometrics Standards Committee” itself has noted that over 15 per cent of the Indian population (or over 150 million persons) may not be able to enroll for a UID number due to poor quality fingerprints. In other words, the scheme to directly provide subsidies to people is based on a project with an unproven technology and unknown cost.

The withdrawal of the government is visible in several other sectors too. Let us take revenue expenditures under “social services”. The fall in expenditure on social services is by 4.8 per cent between 2010-11 and 2011-12; there was an absolute fall of Rs 5,295 crore. In almost every sub-sector within social services, the growth rate of expenditure between 2010-11 and 2011-12 is lower than between 2009-10 and 2010-11. In “social security and welfare”, expenditure is set to fall by a whopping Rs 15,184 crore.

There are absolute falls in revenue expenditures in “economic services” also. Between 2010-11 and 2011-12, the revenue expenditure on all economic services is set to fall by Rs 17,731 crore. Within economic services, the largest cuts are to be in “agriculture and allied services”; the revenue expenditure on agriculture is to fall in absolute terms by Rs 5,568 crore. Within agriculture, the largest fall is to be in crop husbandry, with an absolute cut of Rs 4,477 crore. “Rural employment” is a category within economic services, which includes MGNREGS. Here, the revenue expenditure is to fall by Rs 100 crore. Given the grandiose announcement regarding linkage of MGNREGS wages to the price index, this cutback leaves one in deep doubt about the seriousness with which UPA-2 views the scheme.

While “subsidies” for the poor are cut, there has been a shower of “incentives” on the corporate sector. The total revenue foregone, by way of direct and indirect tax exemptions, was Rs 4.82 lakh crore in 2009-10; this rose to 5.11 lakh crore in 2010-11, of which Rs 88,263 crore was for the corporate sector. In 2010-11, revenue worth Rs 11,501 crore was lost on account of deduction of export profits to software technology parks; another Rs 5,555 crore was lost on SEZs. When we compare this with the cut in expenditures in crucial social and economic sectors, the class bias of the government is fully revealed.

Budget 2011-12 is not for the aam aadmi, leave alone the poor. The chant of the mantra of inclusiveness is just rhetoric.

(written for Asian Age, 01-03-2011)

Food insecurities

My article in the latest issue of Frontline:



Volume 27 - Issue 15 :: Jul. 17-30, 2010

COVER STORY

Food insecurities

R. RAMAKUMAR

The most efficient way of addressing the problem of food inflation is to expand and deepen the public distribution system.

Read on at http://www.flonnet.com/fl2715/stories/20100730271513000.htm

Some tentative notes on Verdict 2009

R. Ramakumar

The results of the 2009 elections to the Parliament have surprised most observers. Indeed, it appears from most reactions that the conclusions to be drawn from the results are straightforward and obvious. Some of the most common reactions from the mainstream commentators are as follows.

First, the electorate has reposed faith in the Congress party, which alone can ensure political stability. The third alternative of the Left raised the spectre of instability and the electorate rejected the option.

Secondly, the results present a clear green signal for economic reforms. Such an analysis comes not just from the thoroughly partisan pink press. Sociologist Shiv Viswanathan beat the pink press; calling the Left a “dog in the manger”, he advised: “it is…a reminder to the Congress that the millstone of CPI (M) politics is no longer there. It is a nudge to remind it about the reforms it has been lackadaisical about.”

Thirdly, the verdict against the Left in Kerala and West Bengal is also a verdict against the “neo-liberal policies” of these State governments.

I believe that the above views are one-sided, if not misplaced.


First, it is accepted that the third alternative put forward by the Left was not seen by the people as a “credible and viable alternative” at the national level. The presence of some parties with not-so-clean pasts in the State-level alliances and the failure to put forward concrete alternative policies before the elections did create ambiguities in peoples’ minds. In part, the loss of votes from sections of religious minorities and other secular-minded people for the Left and the third alternative reflects this lack of conviction about the proposed formation. However, this much cannot be a full reading of the verdict.

It must also be plain to any observer that the success of the UPA in the elections was a result of the failure of the NDA to cobble up a strong coalition. In turn, the failure of the NDA to do so was a result of the decision of many regional parties to cooperate with the third alternative. Among the regional parties that may have been forced to go with the NDA in the absence of a third alternative are the TDP, the AIADMK and the BSP. Significantly, the parties that came into the third alternative together obtained about 21 per cent of the vote share in the elections. In a sense, this was a signal contribution of the Left in the 2009 elections. However, many parties in the third alternative have had a history of being associated with the BJP in the past and there were doubts raised over whether they would move over to the BJP again, if the need arose. This has also contributed to the ambiguities about the third alternative in peoples’ minds. The unintentional outcome was that the ensuing three-cornered fight benefited the Congress party.

Further, the views of the electorate on national issues and national parties are always expressed in an interface with State-level issues and regional parties. This fact renders a simple reading of the stability story problematic. If national stability was indeed an overriding objective of the electorate, one would have to ignore the results from States like Bihar and Orissa. Also, till 2009, voters from West Bengal (and to an extent, Kerala) have preferred to vote for the Left even while national issues have dominated the elections.

The argument that the Left should have tailed the UPA in these elections is a bizarre one. Somnath Chatterjee needs a reminder that the historical basis for the existence of the CPI (M) in India is the struggle to forge an alternative to the bourgeois-landlord party called the Indian National Congress. That is the reason why the CPI (M) considers the resolution of the agrarian question as a national question. The Left would have got ideologically decimated in these elections if it had tailed the UPA in any form.


Secondly, the success of the UPA was aided by the coincidence that economic conditions in India were upbeat between 2004 and 2009. The period between 2004 and 2009 was a period of high economic growth. This growth was fuelled in part by a phenomenal growth in the stock market and FII inflows. However, there was also a growth in the real economy. After 2004-05, agricultural growth had averaged at around 4 per cent per annum till 2007-08. This growth had two sources. One, the growth was price-led, associated with a marked rise in world commodity prices. Two, there was a phenomenal expansion in the supply of rural credit and a moderate rise in public investment after 2004. Even though much of the additional supply of rural credit went to big cultivators and private corporations, the multiplier effects that it might have had on rural demand is likely to have been high. On the top of this, the loan waiver scheme helped peasants – needy or otherwise – to improve their farm finances. Both these initiatives followed consistent pressure exerted by the Left parties on the UPA government.

One source of major disbelief among many Left followers is the poor correlation between farmer suicides and the electoral verdict. This poor correlation cannot be explained away by citing the loan waiver package. Here is my hypothesis. It would be wrong to simply assume that every region in India is equally affected by agrarian distress. In India, just as the development of capitalist relations in agriculture has been biased across crops, classes and regions, the contemporary agrarian crisis has also been uneven across crops, classes and regions. In the midst of such unevenness, one cannot expect to get a neat result that would reveal the anger of sections of peasants towards the Congress party. The good show put up by the Congress party in Vidarbha and parts of Andhra Pradesh are evidence to this pattern. In Vidarbha, particularly, the loan waiver package would have been meaningless if the prices of cotton were not ruling high in 2007 and 2008. The price that prevailed at the harvest of 2008 was Rs 2800 per quintal; after many years of low prices, the prices in 2007 and 2008 were received by farmers with great relief.

Similarly, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) aided the Congress party in garnering votes of the rural poor in the elections. The NREGS was passed after the Left parties and progressive social movements exerted considerable pressure on the UPA government. It is well known that the UPA government was deeply skeptical about introducing the NREGS in the way it exists today and given the first chance, the neo-liberals are likely to cut it to size.

Most importantly, the effects of the global economic crisis, which became most acute by early-2009, were not fully felt by the people at the time of the elections. While most of the developing world was reeling under job losses and bank crashes, India was largely immune to such huge losses. Without doubt, this immunity was due to the refusal of the Left parties to allow the introduction of fuller capital account convertibility and the privatization of banks, insurance companies and pension funds. Again, the Congress party became an unintended beneficiary.

The point I am trying to press is that upbeat economic conditions that aided the Congress party in the 2009 elections have nothing to do with neo-liberal reforms. They were fortuitous on the one hand, and a result of decisive public intervention and regulation on the other. As such, Verdict 2009 can in no way be interpreted as a go ahead for economic reforms.


Thirdly, without doubt, the Left parties have faced substantial setbacks in this election. The setback demands serious introspection coupled with great care not to be shaken by sheer populist criticisms. In particular, results from the Left-ruled States are to be dissected in great detail. To its credit, the CPI (M) in Kerala has shown great frankness and humility in assessment. According to the CPI (M)’s Kerala State secretariat, while the results also reflected a national wave, the loss of votes that traditionally accrued to it cannot be dismissed away. It said that the party would strive hard to work in tune with the aspirations of the masses that stood by it by making appropriate corrections.

For the Left, the results from Kerala are less worrisome than West Bengal. In Kerala, even when the LDF scripted some of its worst electoral performances in recent history, as in 1991 and 2001, its vote share had not fallen below the floor level of 42 to 43 per cent. In 2009 too, the vote share of the LDF did not fall below 42 per cent; the actual share was 42.01 per cent. It is, nevertheless, a different matter that the Left lost significantly with respect to the number of seats. Also, the loss of the LDF in its bastions like Kannur and Vadakara has been shocking. Knee-jerk reactions will not help, and a detailed comment has to wait till the LDF completes its internal review.

A feature of the 2009 elections in Kerala was that the LDF was faced against a strong alliance of all the anti-Left forces. The Janata Dal (S), led by the media moghul M. P. Veerendra Kumar, had moved over to the UDF as part of a long-term political game plan. His popular daily Mathrubhumi was virulent and nasty in its attack on the LDF. The Catholic Church in Kerala had vowed to defeat the LDF in protest against the government’s efforts to regulate fee structures in Church-managed self-financing colleges. Most of the caste-based organizations in the State, which are historically UDF-leaning, were lined up against the LDF on petty issues. Religious fundamentalist organizations like the NDF and the PFI vowed to keep the Muslim votes undivided, and transferred votes in large chunks to the Muslim League.

Even this unscrupulous mahajot against the LDF could not reduce its vote share to below 42 per cent. Between 2004 and 2009, the absolute decline in the number votes that the LDF candidates together polled was only about 2.3 lakhs. The notes on the LDF’s imminent demise are not only premature, but also misplaced given the CPI (M)’s commitment to undertake corrections and turn things around.

The loss of the Left in West Bengal has been the most worrisome. West Bengal has all along been the exception to anti-incumbency sentiments in India, and the number of seats for the Left has declined from 35 to 15. While the national wave in favour of the UPA may have passed West Bengal too, the results reveal more than what they hide.

West Bengal has been the centre of much political action from 2006 onwards. The controversies surrounding Singur and Nandigram, the nexus between the Trinamul Congress, Maoists and a section of the Indian civil society, allegations related to poor governance and neglect of human development had brought the State into India’s political centre stage. It appears that most of these factors played a role in different degrees in the loss of the Left. Here again, the detailed comment would have to wait till the CPI (M)’s State unit comes out with its internal review.

An open letter to Omar Abdullah

An open letter to Omar Abdullah from T. Jayaraman, Mumbai.

Dear Mr. Omar Abdullah,

Now that the sound of the cheers and the applause following your speech in the Lok Sabha on the occasion of the trust vote a few days ago must have stopped ringing in your ears, I would like to draw your attention to some questions regarding our practice of secularism and the conduct of our foreign policy.

Your staunch defense of the nuclear deal ``as an Indian and a Muslim'' has undoubtedly endeared you to our pro-nuclear deal media. It is undoubtedly correct that we must all conceive of our foreign policy as ``Indians'' and not as part of any particular religious or other identity that we may have. However, when the conduct of the nation's foreign policy itself bears the clear stamp of the weakening commitment to secularism in important sections of our political class, bureaucracy and civil society then it becomes unclear to many ordinary citizens, such as myself, whether your stirring speech was indeed appropriate for the occasion.

However, as you most manfully confessed in Parliament, even at the height of the Gujarat riots the subtlety of the link between these riots and the politics of the leading party of the then ruling coalition seems to have escaped your watchful commitment to secularism. So this other connection between our weakening commitment to secularism and our foreign policy must undoubtedly be even more surprising to you and deserves to be explained briefly.

You will undoubtedly recall that the BJP-led NDA alliance began its rule in 1998 with the Pokhran nuclear tests. The tests were promptly followed by considerable sabre-rattling vis-a-vis Pakistan exemplified by Shri Advani's comment that Pakistan should now be conscious of the changed geo-political realities of the situation. In that remarkable statement of May 18, 1998, Shri Advani linked the tests to the Kashmir issue and claimed that the ``decisive step to become a nuclear weapons state has brought about a qualitatively new stage in Indo-Pak relations, particularly in finding a lasting solution to the Kashmir problem.'' Regrettably Pakistan refused to take the hint and continued on to its own nuclear tests shortly thereafter. The slippery slope on to which Indo-Pak relations were thrust by these tests culminated in the Kargil conflict of 1999, showing how hollow was Shri Vajpayee's claim that nuclear weapons were ``weapons of peace.'' Nuclear threats continued to be exchanged with Pakistan during and after the Kargil conflict through the years of NDA rule. You will undoubtedly appreciate that these threats also boded little good for Kashmir as a prospective theater of nuclear war.

Simultaneously after the tests the VHP/RSS combine took to the streets hailing the tests as the arrival of a new and resurgent India, taking as a cue Shri Vajpayee's claim that the ``tests had given ...India shakti.'' The VHP toured the country with handfuls of the dirt from the soil of Pokhran to celebrate
the tests. The RSS mouthpiece Organiser hailed the tests in a special May 17, 1998 issue with a collection of hawkish and virulently anti-China and anti-Pakistan articles that the bomb had to be made to ``tame Pakistan'' and teach China a lesson.

That these remarks were not simply those of an extremist fringe was made clear by Prime Minister Vajpayee's letter to Bill Clinton, then President of the United States, claiming that the tests were necessary to deal with a ``deteriorating security environment'' due to an ``overt nuclear weapons state on our borders''. Further the letter speaks of the ``atmosphere of distrust'' with this state that ``persists mainly due to an unresolved border problem''. And further linking Pakistan to this obvious reference to
China, the letter adds, ``that country has materially helped another neighbour of ours to become a covert nuclear weapons state.''

If this ill-timed letter were not alone enough evidence, the long record of negotiations between Shri Jaswant Singh and the U. S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott made it clear that the tests were less about India's nuclear independence and more, much more, about aligning at the earliest with the world's foremost superpower.

I am sure you would agree that this was not the common variety of anti-Pakistan or anti-China sentiment with which we are all familiar but had a special character to it from the fact that it was promoted by the BJP.

We may also remind ourselves that these moves in foreign policy went hand-in-hand with a virulent communal agenda in domestic politics. The tirade against conversion was directly responsible for the tragic death of Staines and his sons in Orissa, the high-point of a series of attacks on Christian communities and their places of worship. The communal agenda was thrust everywhere from our children's textbooks to the world of art and letters. Gujarat was merely the high-point of a broad communal campaign.

The other dramatic turn in India's foreign policy was a new opening to Israel, setting aside the long-standing ties between our country and the people of Palestine and West Asia. Israel today is the arch-exemplar of a fundamentalist state in its unremitting pursuit of its Zionist aims. Shri Brajesh Mishra, one of the key figures of the BJP's foreign policy, was feted by Jewish/Zionist groups in the United States as the architect of this new policy. This turn undoubtedly also pleased the political establishment in the United States no end, since secular, non-aligned India's opposition to Zionism had long been a thorn in the side of their foreign policy.

The brand-new new foreign policy that began to emerge in the years of BJP-rule would be inexplicable if we did not recall the writings of the late Guru Golwalkar . In a 1965 essay titled ``Welcome bigger war'' in his book, ``Bunch of Thoughts'' the Guru characterised China as ``the one common menace to entire humanity'' and looked forward to a superpower and global alliance, including India, the United States (and even the then Soviet Union) to destroy it. For Golwalkar the building of a nuclear bomb was an essential requirement for the conduct of India's foreign and defence policy. This campaign for the nuclear bomb and a corresponding shift in India's foreign policy has long been an ardent desire of the RSS/Jan Sangh combine, articulated at every turn and subsequently carried over to the policy of the newly-formed BJP. If the new foreign policy attracted many non-communal elements too in our nation's corridors of power, I would humbly submit that it points not to the secular nature of the new policy but the extent to which our establishment was willing to sacrifice secularism for this new pursuit of aligning with the United States to become its gendarme in South Asia.

The Islamophobic campaign launched by President George W. Bush after 9/11 clearly came as a welcome relief to the NDA government that had made little headway in its negotiations with Bill Clinton. Bush's call for a `` War on Terror,'' that has repeatedly and indiscriminately targeted the innocent (predominantly of the Islamic faith) and killed far more innocents than the few terrorists it has managed to seize or kill, fell on receptive ears in our country's leadership. The violence of Gujarat drew little condemnation from the United States that has been quick to condemn any perceived violation of the democratic rights of the poor millions of the Third World (including that of the followers of Islam in Kosovo).

It is this foreign and nuclear policy that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's regime inherited. But despite its protestations of secularism, this regime has consistently refused to recognize the anti-secular roots of its inheritance and has maintained a continuity of policy with the former regime. Dr. Manmohan Singh said it all with his cry `` I have completed what you had begun'' as he greeted Shri Vajpayee at the briefing given to the former Prime Minister on the 123 agreement last year.

I would respectfully submit to you that this connection has not been lost on the Muslim masses in our country. They are not so naïve as to think that the deal per se is anti-Muslim. Nor are they naive enough not to know that solving the problems food, health and livelihood are the key to ending the poverty of all, Muslim or non-Muslim. But the large numbers of Muslims who turned out for the protest rallies on the occasion of the Bush visit in 2006, demonstrated unmistakably that they percieved the anti-secular roots of the UPA's foreign policy when it came to India's relations with the United States and the nuclear deal.

In the event, your renewed commitment to secularism may perhaps be of some value. You could begin by campaigning against the judgement of the Gujarat court that has refused to return the young boy to his parents, who were separated from him at the height of one of worst incidents in the infamous Gujarat riots. Many would be thankful if you would use your new-found influence with the UPA government to persuade them to greater action on the recommendations of the Srikrishna Commission so that they may prosecute at least some of your erstwhile NDA colleagues with the same enthusiasm that has been shown on the Mumbai blasts case. It would be of value if you and your party were to firmly take a stance against the demand for the trifurcation of the state of Jammu and Kashmir on religious lines that has emerged once more in the wake of the Amarnath land agitation.

In the meanwhile, the drama of the nuclear deal will continue to play itself out. I am also sure you will have the opportunity to see the claims of nuclear power providing electricity every rural household tested against reality just as the claims regarding power supply for Maharashtra from the Dabhol power project were tested within a very short time.

I would be grateful if you would see it fit to forward this letter to Shri Sachin Pilot, Shri Manavendra Singh, Shri Jyotiraditya Scindia and others, all young leaders with a strong political lineage, which as our media has made clear is the indispensable proof of competence, indeed excellence, in the political arena. They too in similar fashion might have misunderstood the millions who protested against George Bush two years ago and still harbour the same sentiments. Who knows, all of you together might even confess, a few years hence, that you made a grave mistake today, just as you personally had made one in the years of NDA rule.

Two instruments by name Kalawati and Sasikala

One of the most discussed speeches in the debate on the trust motion in the Loksabha was Rahul Gandhi’s. Arguing that “energy security is directly related to poverty”, Rahul Gandhi pitched in for the deal in the name of two widows from suicide-stricken Vidarbha – Kalawati and Sasikala. According to him, the lesson from his Vidarbha rural ride was that Kalawati and Sasikala were poor because they were energy-insecure; their children could not study and become doctors, engineers or collectors as there was no electricity in the evenings. Coming from a man, known for his wholesome support for the deal and portrayed as India’s future Prime Minister, the speech was celebrated in most of India’s dailies. “Empower Kalawati with N-deal”, said the CNN-IBN. “The millions of Kalawatis in rural India must become part of a new politics of social-economic emancipation”, wrote the Economic Times.

In a sense, Rahul Gandhi’s speech was a classic cover-up operation that should have left his tour guides aghast. The current power crisis of Maharashtra – with regions outside the power-guzzling Mumbai subjected to a massive power cut – is a very direct outcome of the shady and disastrous Enron deal of the 1990s. It was the State’s Congress government that initiated talks with Enron and signed the MoU in 1992 and the PPA in 1993. It was the Narasimha Rao government at the centre in 1994 that signed the counter-guarantees with Enron. The MoU, PPA and the counter-guarantee were sold to India’s people in the name of “energy security” for Maharashtra. Much the same enchanting dreams that we were asked to see during the debate on the nuclear deal were told to us in the early-1990s also, when Left parties and progressive activists were opposing the Enron deal. The Shiv Sena-BJP combine that came to power in 1995 was equally guilty of getting “politically educated” and moving towards supporting the deal in the name of “renegotiations”. The Enron deal came crashing in the late-1990s, upsetting energy plans for the State – a shock from which Maharashtra still reels.

Kalawati’s lights were switched off primarily due to the Congress’s shady Enron deal. If only Rahul Gandhi’s advisors had given him a few lessons in history, he would not have committed that gaffe.

There is more. Rahul Gandhi’s comments did not just cover-up for the Enron fiasco. It was also a poor effort to sidestep the central role of the Congress party (as well as the Sena-BJP combine) in triggering the series of farmers’ suicides in rural Maharashtra. The agrarian distress in Maharashtra is largely a result of the crisis in its cotton economy. This crisis has many causes that have been repeatedly discussed. First, the crash in cotton prices adversely affected the economics of cotton cultivation, primarily because the government began to gradually weaken the ‘Monopoly Cotton Procurement Scheme’ from the late-1990s. Till the late-1990s, cotton was purchased from farmers by the Maharashtra State Cotton Growers Marketing Federation at an assured price, and then sold in the open market. The Congress’ remarkably ineffective Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh went a step ahead in 2005 by withdrawing the promised ‘advance bonus’ of Rs 500 per quintal of cotton; this was one of the final nails in the cotton coffin. The withdrawal of the procurement scheme rendered cotton farmers, including Parashuram Bandurkar (the late husband of Kalawati), totally susceptible to volatilities in international and national prices.

Secondly, cheap imports of cotton have flooded the Indian market after the activation of the WTO agreement signed by the Congress (again, without the approval of India’s Parliament). Import duties on cotton were significantly lowered in 1997, resulting in a surge of imports and a fall in prices. Incidentally, 1997 was the year when the first reported suicide by a farmer took place in Vidarbha. The central government eliminated quantitative import restrictions for cotton, and reduced import tariffs from 35 percent in 2001-02 to 5 percent in 2002-03. Farmers like Parashuram Bandurkar faced growing competition from subsidized cotton grown in the West. Both the NDA and UPA governments at the centre have consistently refused to raise import tariffs for cotton and protect farmers from cheaper imports.

Thirdly, both the Congress and BJP governments at the centre and the State have presided over a period of breakdown of institutional support structures in rural areas from 1991 onwards. Input costs have exhibited a sharp rise after a reduction in subsidies. The rise in the input costs is reflected in the rising bills for electricity, fertilisers, energy (diesel) and transportation. Given the declining public investment in agricultural extension, farmers have lost access to the public extension that is supposed to give reliable information on how to deal with pests and declining productivity of land. In its place, the farmers are dependent on agents of seed, fertiliser and pesticide companies – a dependence that has attained disastrous dimensions in the suicide-stricken regions like Vidarbha.

To top it all, the Vidarbha Relief Package – conceived and implemented by Congress governments at the centre and the State – has been shown by the Maharashtra’s CAG report for 2006-07 to be a major failure.

The Indo-US nuclear deal is not an agreement with foreign policy implications alone. The strategic embrace with the US has important economic dimensions; a series of agreements have been signed between the two countries in fields like energy, agriculture, trade, investment and open sky policies. For instance, the Indo-US Knowledge Initiative in Agriculture (KIA) is a step towards the privatization of agricultural research in India. It has been noted that this agreement would weaken public sector research and promote private sector research on commercialized crops at the expense of food crops – an agenda identified by multinational corporations. The Board set up for the implementation of the KIA includes representatives of Wal-Mart and Monsanto. It was ironic that Rahul Gandhi chose to invoke the Vidarbha suicides to sponsor a policy shift that is likely to exacerbate the agrarian crisis in rural India.

In his speech, Rahul Gandhi seemed unperturbed by the damage the Congress-initiated economic reform had inflicted on Indian agriculture. In trivializing the discussion on poverty and farmers’ suicides, thereby trying to portray energy insecurity as the cause of poverty, he was doing a neat whitewash job of Congress’ bleak record in this sphere. Indeed, to this end, Kalawati and Sasikala were good instruments.

Celebrations have begun...

It is celebration time for crony capitalism in India...

The Indian Express was remarkably frank in its July 9th editorial. It said, "With the Left losing its stranglehold on the UPA government, big new spaces have opened up in economic policy." It further says,

"Many things that were taboo can now be back on the agenda. The last major achievement in Indian financial sector reforms was in 2001, when rolling settlement was pushed onto the equity spot market. The Percy Mistry and Raghuram Rajan reports have carefully thought through financial sector reforms, India's engagement with globalisation and the macroeconomic policy framework. Roughly speaking, the UPA can now push through roughly three-quarters of the recommendations of the two reports"

"The best strategy that they cannow adopt is similar to what was done by the NDA with the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act (FRBM). "

"In elementary education, the task now is of shifting public expenditures towards vouchers, so as to give parents the ability to exert influence on schools. In higher education, the government must start exiting the field...In other areas of health, the key task is that of shifting to a format where providers (private or public) compete on a level playing field, and only get paid when a customer walks in."

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The Economic Times was more specific with a sweet little 16-point programme for Manmohan:

Economic reforms: The unfinished agenda

8 Jul, 2008, 1446 hrs IST, IANS

NEW DELHI: Following are some of the key components of economic reforms, which the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government was unable to push ahead, primarily because of opposition from Left parties:

1. Divestment of government equity in public sector undertakings

2. Privatisation of state-run companies

3. Liberal labour policies for corporate sector

4. Foreign equity in multi-brand retailing

5. Higher equity for foreign companies in single-brand retailing

6. Higher foreign equity for foreign companies in insurance sector

7. Development of a vibrant corporate bond market

8. Easier norms for foreign banks to set up operations in India

9. Removal of 10 percent cap on voting rights for investors in non-state banks

10. Relaxation of land ceiling for foreign realty developers

11. Easier entry norms for credit rating companies

12. Higher foreign equity in asset reconstruction companies

13. Higher equity for foreign firms in state-run refining projects

14. Higher foreign equity in newspapers and current affairs periodicals

15. Permission for news and current affairs programming in FM radio

16. More liberal policies for foreign equity in commodity exchanges