Never let a good crisis go to waste!

The quote ” never let a good crisis go to waste” is often attributed, wrongly, to the American politician Rahm Emanuel. But the original author of this quote was the inimitable and formidable American political activist Saul Alinsky who famously wrote the book ” Rules for Radicals” which is still an excellent primer for grassroots organization and revolutionary movements around the world.

That Indian foreign and trade policy faces an unprecendented crisis is unarguable. The full extent of the crisis and why it occurred may be debatable, but not the crisis itself. While the Ministry of External Affairs and the Government of India must be trusted to do its job of managing the geopolitical crisis, the question is what the other actors in the Government of India can and should do. A number of knowledgeable commentators have said that the present crisis has engendered a ” 1991 moment” that India should grab without hesitation. Hence, the salience of Saul Alinsky’s saying which is the title of this blog.

Government must therefore embrace and carry out the most important reforms that the Indian economy desperately needs. These have been known for a long time and hardly bear any repetition here. Land, Labour, Agriculture, Power, Investment, Tariffs and Ease of doing Business are the obvious candidates. There are reams of paper available in Niti Ayog and in the respective line Ministries on what needs to be done in these and other areas. What has been lacking so far is national will. But now is a perfect opportunity that has been presented to us.

Nevertheless, a few home truths about economic reforms that India must remember:

> All economic reforms are painful. The more substantive the reforms , the more painful they are but equally, more rewarding for the country.

> India is done with incremental reforms and low-hanging fruits. The time is for substantive reforms.

>Since there is no such thing as pain-free reform, the fundamental question for India is who is going to bear the pain?

>Obviously, the people at the bottom of the pyramid should not and cannot bear any more pain than what they are enduring already.

>It is therefore the more prosperous sections of the society who ought to bear the pain.

>The ultra-rich, the big corporates and the upper class must pay and how this is to be done is for the Government to decide.

> It is often said that India is complex and even ungovernable. But it is equally true that if the reforms can be properly explained to the people, justified on the basis of national interest and implemented fairly, all reasonable Indians will be willing to sacrifice and accept some pain.

A foreign diplomat told me as far back as 2006: India is a country of immense potential but is likely to remain that way for a long time! I was offended then but that statement has turned out to be largely true. The time to make amends is now. We have nothing to lose except our poverty, our backwardness and the reputed inability to fulfil our true potential.