The abuse of the C word
There is one 'C' word that is being tossed around likesmall boats in strong winds: Courage. Every small thing that people do is being
marketed as being a decision of courage.
Take a look at what the Prime Minister of India Dr
Manmohan Singh said after his beleaguered coalition government announced some
major economic decisions on the FDI front. Dr Singh asserted
that it would take “courage and some risks” to break the policy logjam
while strongly arguing in favour of higher FDI and FII inflows. Justifying the
economic need for the hike in diesel price, he pointed out that rational energy
pricing was critical especially when “our energy prices are out of line with
world prices.”
I wonder where Dr Singh’s courage was all these years
when the economy was floundering. If the UPA government (read Sonia Gandhi and
Dr Singh) took risks today, in making these major FDI decisions, why did they
rollback the same decision on FDI in multi-brand retail last year?
Where was
their courage then?
Can they be deemed cowards because Mamta Bannerjee and her
ilk threatened to withdraw support and pull out from the coalition and hence on
risk of losing her support, they rolled back such major decisions?
The Congress and its coalition partners should
remember that they were elected to govern the country and take it on the road
to prosperity through good governance. Good governance is what is sorely
lacking today, especially after political expediency and fears of survival have
become the guiding lights of the UPA government.
Dr Singh clearly forgot that the policy logjam was the result of his government's dithering on major economic issues. India's economic growth has slowed down from 9% to about 5%, less a result of external forces (like eurozone crisis) and more a consequence of lack of effective governance.
Preventing corruption and punishing the corrupt, even if they are your colleagues, Dr Singh, requires courage.
In fact, another famous person also used the ‘courage’
word on the same day, albeit in a different sense; Arjun Rampal cheekily remarked
that “[It] takes so much courage
to get on the ramp in a bikini. [...] I have been in the industry for 15 years
now, but haven’t still mustered the courage to don a bikini.”
We would not miss anything even if Arjun Rampal does not wear a bikini; but we, as a nation, stand to lose much if Dr Singh and his government fails to govern efficiently.
So much for Dr Singh’s courage!
