: The United Democratic Front (UDF) manifesto is inclusive in its coverage and promises a wide range of benefits and doles besides hoping “to wipe out tears from every eye” and holds out everything to everybody from the womb to tomb. The Perspective Plan 2030 prepared by investing tremendous expertise, energy and resources gets a mention only in the last part, and remains organically delinked from the rest of the manifesto, like dead mutton in a butcher’s shop. The manifesto abstracts from rent-seeking and corruption. This is a dangerous portent. While rent-seeking, which is a search for privilege and personal gain through the political process, is unwarranted in a democracy, corruption is totally illegal.
I have not seen the BJP manifesto. The LDF manifesto is specific in its analysis and strategic in its policy choices. To be sure, a lot of deliberations, homework and expert thinking have gone into its making. This makes it more professional and is certainly not ad hoc political rhetoric. The LDF manifesto devotes nearly three pages to discuss resource mobilisation and public finance and wherever possible tries to link economic and fiscal targets and parameters to State Domestic Product. You can make promises, but Aladdin’s wonder lamp exists only in the Arabian fairy tales. Any government, Right-wing or Left, which refuses to see the writings on the wall and fails to address vital issues such as providing dedicated drinking water to the people, the environmental overkill painfully enveloping the State, the pathology under way in the health and educational system demanding radical reforms, the growing inequality in per capita consumption, income and assets (also intra-class inequality among Dalits and Adivasis), the refusal to see the demographic malady and so on can be of no help to the State. Actually, the deepening demographic crisis is only inadequately recognised or has been indifferently appreciated, by both UDF and LDF manifestos.
The elderly will take over the young in 2031 and today we are fast heading towards zero population growth. We have already lost the demographic dividend while the rest of India is in the process of harvesting it for decades to come. To mention one question on which both the manifestos are silent is the raising of retirement age and recruitment age significantly, which are burning issues especially as the number of government employees today is equal to the number of pensioners. Parties seem to fear some invisible imps while an acute problem knocks at the door. Crucial strategic decisions can be made only by statesmen, probably not by parties.
About the Perspective Plan 2030 projection of a rise in Kerala’s per capita income from around $ 4,700 to $ 36,000 by 2040, a linear progression of per capita income per se has no meaning unless it is part of common well-being, expanding freedom, building capabilities and ensuring a viable and integrated place for Dalits, Adivasis, fisher folk and the marginalised in general. Kerala’s growth is expected to come as per the perspective plan from more marketisation, especially of health and education, which is an absurd proposition. Moreover, governments in Kerala have failed to harness the tremendous flow of foreign remittances productively during the last 40 years and allowed them to be wasted on conspicuous consumption and luxury housing, the prospects are bleak.
As told to Oommen
A. Ninan
Noted economist M.A. Oommentakes a close look at the UDF and LDF manifestos
