The BJP/NDA’s Monumental Failures And The Success Of Secular UPA
In the five years at the centre, the BJP-led NDA government
has massively increased unemployment by economic policies that
have thrown lakhs of workers out of employment in agriculture,
the handlooms sector, other non-farm rural employment and manufacturing
and mining. It failed to ensure the devolution of functions,
functionaries and finances to the panchayats and municipalities,
thus limiting the potential for employment generation by elected
local bodies. It also caused stagnation of investment and growth
in small-scale and cottage industry and agriculture, which are
the main sources of employment in the country. It generated
employment reduction schemes in government services and the
public sector. It mounted an ideological assault on the public
sector, particularly profitable public enterprises which have
been the single-most important avenue of organized employment
since Independence. It also destabilized and lowered growth
rates, ending the steady rise in growth rates year after year,
climaxing in nearly seven per cent annual growth, which characterized
the 1992-97 growth performance. It lowered annual average growth
over the last five years to much below six per cent, indeed
as low as four per cent in two of the five years, accompanied
by wild swings in the pendulum of growth. The BLP-led Government
caused acute distress for kisans and khet mazdoors, leading
to an unprecedented number of kisan suicides across the country
and growing destitution among khet mazdoors. All their policies
in-turn weakened national security by not spending huge amounts
of money running into thousands of crores of rupees allocated
for modernization of our armed forces which also damaged social
harmony by deliberately inciting and sponsoring a communal carnage
in Gujarat, by glorifying violence against missionaries, by
encouraging viciously communal and fascist organizations like
the VHP / Bajrang Dal to spread hate. It also subverted school
curricula by rewriting history books to spread religious hatred
and eroded the autonomy of prestigious intellectual institutions
by taking away their professional independence. It destroyed
probity in administration by encouraging corruption and fomenting
scams in defense, telecom, DDA, allotment of petrol pumps, stock
markets and UTI. It denigrated key institutions of parliamentary
democracy like the CAG, NHRC, CEC, PAC and the CVC whenever
their reports have indicted the government for its corruption
and inefficiency and grossly misused the CBI. All this undermined
the independence of our foreign policy by not speaking up forcefully
against the marginalisation of the United Nations, by not asserting
India's position on world issues effectively and by constant
flip-flops in our relations with Pakistan.
The Prime Minister has displayed a singular lack of consistency
and clarity on major national issues, he indulged in double-speak,
whether it be Ayodhya and on the preservation of secularism;
the carnage in Gujarat; relations with Pakistan; negotiations
with different groups in Jammu and Kashmir; and links with the
RSS.
The Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister took office not
withstanding his being arraigned before a court of law and the
Liberhan Commission for his role in the demolition of the Babri
Masjid. He presided over shocking security lapses in the nation’s
capital and elsewhere. A few years ago, he grandly announced
that he would come out with a White Paper on ISI Activities
in India. Till today, the nation is waiting for that expose.
It is a matter of record that most of the serious terrorist
attacks in the past three-four years have not been investigated
by the Home Ministry and accountability fixed, while the Prime
Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister keep on chanting their
firm resolve to combat the menace of terrorism at all costs
- a resolve that is completely hollow.
The External Affairs Minister personally escorted three hard-core
terrorists to safety to Kandahar in Afghanistan. These terrorists
then continued their wanton killings of innocent men, women
and children in J&K.
The BJP had gone to the polls on a so-called “feel good”
factor. This was bogus. The reality is that under Shri Atal
Bihari Vajpayee, the average annual rate of economic growth
was lower than in the 1980s and much lower than during 1992-96
when the Congress was in power. The rate of both public and
private investment declined over the period that the BJP-led
NDA government has been in office. It is this lack of investment
demand that caused the build-up of foreign exchange reserves
and that resulted in the fall in interest rates both factors
identified by the BJP as its “achievements”. The
BJP claimed that its highway development programme implemented
by the National Highway Authority of India(NHAI) is unprecedented.
The truth is that the NHAI was established by the Congress government
in 1995. Most of the plans had been finalized before the Congress
demitted office. All that the BJP-led NDA government has done
is turn the national highways already built by the Congress
governments of the past, into express highways. Moreover, the
new highways being built are not free; they can be used only
after payment. Highways built under earlier Congress regimes
during 1950-90 were all free and anybody could use them.
It was during the term of the BJP-led NDA government that the
stock market and UTI scams took place, as detailed by the Joint
Parliamentary Committee that has fixed the eighteen months commencing
from the swearing in of the NDA government in October 1999 as
the period of the scams. The scams wiped out the hard-earned
savings of crores of middle class families, senior citizens,
pensioners and widows. The epicenter of the scams lay in cooperative
banks based in the constituencies of the Prime Minister and
the Deputy Prime Minister.
The Tehelka video film showed the BJP President and other NDA
leaders taking bribes. The Defence Minister who resigned in
the wake of this expose saying he would not return till his
name was cleared rejoined office while the enquiry was on.
The BJP and its cohorts orchestrated the horrific communal carnage
in Gujarat after the tragic events at Godhra. The RSS is indicted
in most commissions of inquiry into communal riots. The Supreme
Court has pulled up the Gujarat government repeatedly for its
complicity in the communal carnage of 2001.
The BJP fostered corruption to an unprecedented degree with scams after scams being revealed. The BJP’s economic policies sharpened the divide between the rich and the poor, between the fortunate few and the disadvantaged many, between rural and urban India, between different regions of the country.