A Prime Minister Who Should Be An OpEd Writer
Raju Narisetti -
Sunday, November 30, 2008 7:55 PM
Usually, it is the opinion page editors of newspapers who are in the habit of telling the government and the people as to what ought to be done. In India, however, it is Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's speciality as the man who can get things done and who is supposed to get things done has increasingly turned into an editorial writer (or editorial speech maker), often simply telling the country what ought to be done rather than actually doing it.
The Romantic Realist's last blog post on the Indian government's Shameful Silence for some 17 hours after terrorists struck evoked a lot of interesting responses (read the blog and the comments here). But since the Prime Minister and his Congress party are a few months away from asking Indian voters to give them another five years at the helm of India, it seems appropriate to look at when he breaks his silence and his continued wish list of what ought to be done. So, here are some of his prescriptions for India from just his November speeches, all of which are listed on the Prime Minister's web site. In case you think the prescriptions are only about difficult to deal with subjects such as terrorism, I have listed Dr. Singh's prescriptions for a variety of problems, ranging from education and toilets to Himalayan glaciers and stimulating the Indian economy.
Hindustan Times Leadership Summit on 21 November 2008
"My greatest ambition for the coming century or the present century is to see a fully educated and empowered India. The light of knowledge must touch every child, male or female and empower every one of our citizens...Our challenges and our tasks present themselves to us everyday. It is up to us to exert pressure on our system to deliver results. We must improve the quality of our processes of governance, we must improve the quality of our educational system. We must improve the public delivery system, especially in health care, sanitation, drinking water, education and public transport. We must build a more efficient and competitive society. We must learn to respect the spirit of adventure and enterprise in our entrepreneurs. We must provide an even better environment for individual enterprise to flower and to flourish."
((So, Prime Minister, how about actually passing stalled education reforms bills or asking Arjun Singh to get out of the way?))
Third South Asian Conference on Sanitation on 18 November
"First, sanitation issues need to be given priority in our development policy approaches. Its cross cutting implications need deep study and greater understanding. The role of community leadership in changing old habits and ways of thinking will be crucial as our own experience has shown. The capacities of our rural and urban local bodies to address these issue from both social and economic angles will need to be enhanced. Second, sanitation has to be located in an integrated framework of public health policy to ensure that sanitation activities are indeed adequately funded. We know for example that something as simple as washing hands properly can check 50% of the diarrehea cases in our country. Provision of safe drinking water can also greatly help to contain the incidence of many water borne diseases. Similarly, provision of toilets near the habitat can protect our women against many stomach related diseases. Therefore, conscious efforts have to be made to invest in hygiene consciousness and sanitation as part of a holistic public health policy."
((So, Mr Prime Minister, what's stopping this being done in Bharat Nirman or any other large scale program?))
G20 Heads of State on 15 November 2008
"An obvious issue is to consider whether the emergence of recessionary trends calls for some fiscal stimulus. A coordinated fiscal stimulus by countries that are in a position to do so would help to mitigate the severity and duration of the recession. It would also send a strong signal to investors around the world. Resort to fiscal stimulus may be viewed as risky in some situations, but if we are indeed on the brink of the worst downturn since the Great Depression, the risk may be worth taking. We should therefore take all possible measures at the national level to complement any coordinated international stimulus."
((So, Mr Prime Minister, now that the all-talk, no-action Finance Minister is out of the way and you are incharge of the finance ministry, will we see some concrete and large stimulus package?))
Speaking to the Director Generals of Police on 23 November 2008:
"The virus of communal violence that threatens the secular fabric of our society needs to be checked and checked effectively in time, otherwise our multi-religious, multi-ethnic and multi-caste society could well unravel. The police need to demonstrate greater resourcefulness, greater strength and strength in term of both their intelligence machinery and their response capacity. This is equally true in some measure in regard to the threat from terrorist outfits. The inability of the Intelligence - Agencies and the police to obtain pinpointed and actionable intelligence and in time - has enabled these outfits to carry out some high-profile attacks. The resources at the disposal of the police are often inadequate. The strength of personnel in police stations clearly needs to be augmented. There are far too many vacancies, and much larger numbers need to be recruited into the police, particularly into the civil police. The intelligence machinery at both the Central and State levels needs to be upgraded and should be more sophisticated. Police training has not kept pace with requirements. A quantum increase in the Police Budget across the country is also called for."
((Mr Prime Minister, now that Mumbai terrorist attacks have made this inability ever more clear, will be see "quantum" increases in smart upgrades of our police and intelligence forces?))
"In 2005, while addressing this Conference, I had recommended a ‘Police Mission' approach with a view to achieving focused attention on different police related tasks. The intention was to create an image of the Indian Police as a professionally competent and technologically advanced force, one that would be an agent of socio-economic change endowed with a spirit of humanism. I am told that some steps have been taken in this direction and meetings of the ‘Micro Missions' that were established have been held. On the ground, however, tangible results are yet to be seen.
((So, Mr Prime Minister, three years later you come back and make a speech about your own Mission's poor performance. What else will you from now on?))
"The contours of internal security have changed fundamentally over the years, and the basic character of threats has become greatly enlarged and also more complicated. A question that is often posed is whether the police have adequately upgraded their skills, have an indepth understanding of to-day's security problems, are technologically qualified, and have honed their abilities in every direction."
((They clearly don't, Mr Prime Minister. So what do you actually plan to do?))
Addressing Indian Mountaineering Federation 26 November 2008:
"It is a matter of deep concern that the Himalayas are being threatened by climate change...We need to develop more expertise and capabilities in Himalayan glaciology. But even the threat of environmental damage should spur our nation to action. We must take all precautionary measures so that the danger which lurks in the background does not materialize....We must mobilize all our resources to protect the Himalayas."
((So, Mr Prime Minister, why don't you mobilize all our resources?))
Address To The Nation 27 November, 17 hours after Mumbai terrorist attacks started:
"(1) Instruments like the National Security Act will be employed to deal with situations of this kind. (2) Existing laws will be tightened to ensure that there are no loopholes available to terrorists to escape the clutches of the law. (3) Most importantly, it is essential to immediately set up a Federal Investigation Agency to go into terrorist crimes of this kind and ensure that the guilty are brought to book. (4) We will take up strongly with our neighbours that the use of their territory for launching attacks on us will not be tolerated, and that there would be a cost if suitable measures are not taken by them. (5) We will take a number of measures to strengthen the hands of our police and intelligence authorities. We will curb the flow of funds to suspect organizations. (6) We will restrict the entry of suspects into the country. (7) We will go after these individuals and organizations and make sure that every perpetrator, organizer and supporter of terror, whatever his affiliation or religion may be, pays a heavy price for these cowardly and horrific acts against our people."
((So, what are you waiting for, Mr. Prime Minister?))