most commentators. But the fireworks were not over. Less than ten days after the spectacular election results, Congress leader Sonia Ghandi who was expected to become Prime Minister declined the office. She was replaced by Manmohan Singh, who as finance minister in the Rao government between 1991-96 was actually the architect of an earlier round of neo-liberal reforms. TERRY CONWAY reports.
The period between the election and the announcement of the new Prime Minister saw major mobilisations by the defeated BJP, who claimed even more noisily than they had during the month long election campaign that it was not acceptable for Sonia, widow of Rajiv Ghandi, to take office as she was not Indian. Her Italian birth had been a theme of their Hindu chauvinist election campaign, but now the temperature was raised further.
No more was the BJP showing the sup posedly modern and moderate face of Vajpayee. The forces of Hindutva that massacred at least 2000 Muslims in Gujarat in the spring of 2002 in the worst communal mobilisation since partition were again in the ascendancy.
If the defeat of the BJP was as many activists argued a victory against globalisation, what does this backlash show? How much was the Congress leadership pushed by the street protests under Hindu chauvinist slogans and how much by the stock market crash of May 17?
There is no doubt that for important sections of India's urban middle class the rule of the BJP had led to economic prosperity. But the figures of used frequently by the BJP of eight percent growth for 2003-4 are largely a result of an unusually spectacular monsoon in 2003.
As Achin Vanaik explained in New Left Review (NLR March- April 2004) the underlying growth rate over the previous five years remains at around 5.8 per cent - the same level as the last two decades and foreign investment has not yet surpassed the 1997 peak of $4 billion. So the real trends are not as favourable to the BJP.
Further these global figures hide worsening inequalities. If the consumption expenditure of the top two urban deciles has risen an unprecedented 30 per cent between 1997-2002, in rural areas the top two deciles only saw a 10 per cent rise. M uch more significantly the
remaining rural population - the vast majority of the Indian population - witnessed a decline in consumption. Congress and their allies were quick to point out these discrepancies during the election campaign.
Also key was the privatisation programme that Vajpayee had announced, sell. ing off stakes in the big profit-makers - companies such as the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and the Gas Authority of India After Congress' victory, Singh (who at that time was expected to be finance minister) had specifically ruled out proceeding with these two sell-offs or of the privatisation of the banks that had also been mooted, leading to the largest fall in the markets 129-year history.
The end of his sentence seems to have been ignored as Singh also added that if public companies "can't compete with the private sector or become a drag on the exchequer. then they will be allowed to raise resources from the markets through disinvestments."
The stock market does seem to have remembered Singh's record eventually, as trading began to recover after the announcement that he would replace Sonia in the top job
At any rate the manifesto under which Congress fought the election was explicit in its continuity with neoliberal policies including the elimination of the spending deficit within five years and the introduction of a VAT type tax - which is obviously highly regressive.
It may be that some of the economic panic by the markets came from concern that Congress could be pushed to the left by some of its allies. In a 543-seat Lok Sabha (parliament) less than 285 seats are held by the Congress and BJP between them. (Congress has 145 and the BJP less than 140. Last time this totalled around 295 with 113 for Congress and 180 for the BJP). The main parties therefore can only govern through elaborate coalitions that include a whole range of parties some of which only exist at the level of one state or region.
These elections also saw the best 1 by the em out at on te results ever for the Left Front led (Marxist) (CPI (M)) which won 62 seats. The smaller Communist Party of India took 10 seats within this.
But given the fact that the CPI (M) has run the state of West Bengal since 1977, and was also in government in the state of Tripura, without any major breaks with the centre this is actually not a major threat to a neo-liberal orientation. Indeed the government of West Bengal introduced a ban on strikes in information technology in 2002 -something that would dearly be welcomed by the multinationals on an Indian wide basis.
The post-election situation has led to some debates within the CPI (M) with the Central Committee discussing whether to enter the government coalition or support it from the outside and deciding on the later course. However that this is a bit of a formality can be clearly seen by the fact that the party has also accepted the post of speaker of the Lok Sabha - nominated by the govemment but not necessarily of one of their parties
The formal situation is that the new government, the United Progressive Alliance is a 15-party coalition with Congress at its centre and with external support from the Left Front. The key Common Minimum Programme (CPM) of the coalition was
instability, the markets had clamoured for Congress to put forward one of steadying hands Chindambaram or Singh. Now they have both.
The Finance Minister has concluded a widely publicized mission to Mumbai - the centre of India's information technology boom and therefore of "India shining" to convey a direct message to the banks and markets about the new government's abiding commitment to economic reforms. In Mumbai he introduced himself as the minister for investment and reduced the CMP to one single overarching objective of attaining an annual economic growth rate of 7-8 per cent.
Meanwhile, the new minister for civil aviation has launched a full-scale privatisation of this sector, proposing to lease out the Delhi and Mumbai airports - the two most profitable units of the public sector Airports Authority of India - to a joint venture. This measure, he says, is meant only for modernization of the two airports and must not be confused with any kind of privatisation, particularly because the lease is meant for a limited period of merely 30 years! New Labour speak has travelled further than I realised.
While the announcement that the new government will repeal the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) is to be welcomed, especially as this did not feature in the election campaign itself, the record of Congress on questions of communalism can give little comfort to genuine secular forces
They failed to mobilise against the pogroms in Gujarat and still today say nothing about bringing to justice those in the local state apparatus such as Chief Minister Narendra Modi who were completely complicit in the massacre.
In short, while the defeat of the BJP is certainly to be welcomed, there will be many battles ahead for the anti-globalisation movement in India if it is to stop further attacks on living standards and human rights
page 16 of the scan
16 socka Abu Ghraib - and after Images of the US • Summer 2004 what were Blair's 'human rights advisors