:: Dilip Cherian

Putting an austere ring around paucity of ideas

By Dilip Cherian

Oct 03 : Hypocrisy has a definite place in public life, as seen in the rediscovery of the virtues of austerity by the government. The political class is making a huge noise about this and odious comparisons are being made with babus. Of course, our political leaders have immediately taken a cue from the highest quarters in the land and embraced the new mantra, though as we saw in some highly-publicised instances, extremely reluctantly.

After all, let us not forget that political correctness is more often than not a coded cover for hypocrisy; a rhetorical device to escape some unpalatable truth(s). And even in a nation such as ours whose polity, much as anything else, rests on the timeless values of sacrifice, austerity and renunciation, there comes a time when people begin to see such acts as empty gestures devoid of any substance.

So the cynic may be forgiven for assuming that the missive that emanated from the finance ministry’s expenditure department — advising babus to shun first-class air travel, discourage use of five-star hotels, foreign travel, and "other administrative expenses" — should be viewed in the light of the forthcoming state elections. The political class is "sensitive" to those hapless ones in the citizenry who have been buffeted by the worst ill-effects of the economic slowdown. For sure, a certain frugality in the sarkar and its minions would not be amiss in a recessionary climate. But this is not the first time that such austerity drives have been announced, and going by past record, it can be safely stated that it would be highly optimistic to expect any great gains from the current one.

The thing is that austerity means different things to different people. The difference is in the semantics. What the politicians call austerity is what everyone else knows as cost-cutting. And while cost-cutting is eminently practical, it does lack the resonance of "austerity", which has a haloed air around it, thanks to its socio-cultural and historical linkage.

Gandhi is the overused excuse and the new Congress mantra of being as far Left as convenient is a long-term positioning strategy that ends up with just this approach. Surely, one may ask, if an austerity-stricken government is serious about cutting costs, not to mention bureaucratic inertia and inefficiency, it needs to trim "government". There is simply too much of it around. The fault lies not in babus but in the fact that we have too many of them. And it is a bit thick for the government to advocate austerity when the babus had barely laid their hands on to the Rs 12,500 crores largesse in the form of salary hikes and arrears from the Sixth Pay Commission! And this is just for the more than 3.5 million Central government employees, excluding defence personnel. The states have even more. Under pressure from their employees, they too have substantially jacked up salaries of babus in their respective states. According to an estimate, the combined budgetary deficit of all states is a staggering Rs 116,000 crores!

Let me illustrate with a recent example: Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and his Akali cohorts never tire of complaining about the fiscal crisis in the state. Most recently Mr Badal asked the Central government to release funds to compensate drought-hit farmers in the state. Still, the so-called paucity of funds has not stopped the Badal government from giving hefty pay hikes and salary arrears to babus and mantris alike.

Consider the fact that though babus in several other states are yet to get the second instalment of arrears recommended by the Sixth Central Pay Commission, officers in Punjab have, without waiting for the Union government notification, pressurised the chief minister into ordering the release of the arrears in advance. Clearly, austerity is something that you only impose on others when you are on the top. So it’s best imposed downwards and minimally imposed, but maximally imposed when you’re on the top. Therefore, the same set of babus and mantris are opposing release of Rs 4,800 crores arrears (recommended by the Fifth State Pay Commission) for state government employees, citing lack of funds!

After such knowledge, what forgiveness!

Simplicity and austerity should not be reduced to a one-line formula of mode of travel or class of travel. Austerity should be a sum total of babus employed. Travel, whether by babus or netas, forms a minor percentage of the government’s expenses although it does make for headline-grabbing reports in the media. A 10 per cent cut in all expenses of babus, as advised by Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, or donating a miniscule percentage of ministers’ salaries for drought relief will not win any brownie points for the advocates of austerity. The real culprit is "Big Government". We need to start downsizing it after countless years of budget speeches and reports of various pay and expenditure reform commissions.

Do we need 50 ministries (there were 18 at the time of Independence) apart from nearly a score of independent and attached departments and countless commissions and panels? Downsizing the government massively would be the real sign of austerity that is meaningful. Only once the Centre does it, can it tighten the screws on the states who anyway tend to be more profligate.

This means not only more administrative reforms and less discretionary government controls, but more transparent rules. Eschew the tokenism. That may also mean owning up and dealing with the bothersome equation between political leaders and babus. Ultimately, it should mean fewer government employees.

And could we do the same with netas, too?