Yesterday Offstumped took a serious view of the parochial water war that has errupted in Karnataka over the Hogenakkal project.? Offstumped’s criticism of the Karnataka BJP fanning the fires has not been receieved with equal enthusiasm with some of Offstumped’s regular readers.
The Hogenakkal issue may have a history here that needs to be factored. The TN Government’s position notwithstanding even if Karnataka has legitimate issues this is not a topic for street politics. It is a subject to be resolved behind closed doors between the respective Governments and relevant tribunals.
Street politics will neither resolve the issue nor solve the underlying water problems. All it does instead is to give legitimacy to mischief mongers masquerading as so called “Kannada activists”. If anyone has done more damage to the Kannada cause it is these self professed “Kannada activists” who have projected a distorted picture of the Kannadiga as parochial narrow minded when in fact Karnataka has been the most open in welcoming migrants from other states and has been extremely successful in harnessing their innovative and entrepreneurial energies to its benefit.
Every fire parochial fire stoked by the BJP in one state will only come back to hurt and haunt it in the neighboring. That in itself should be reason enough for the Karnataka state unit to tone the rhetoric and denounce the anti-tamil fires being stoked by a few mischief mongers. It is nobody’s business to either announce a ban or enforce a ban on Tamil channels or movies.
By not denouncing the anti-tamil hue to the Hogenakkal protests openly and unequivocally the BJP in Karnataka does grave disservice to itself while undermining its nationalist credentials.
Yesterday’s post also raised some questions on the need for populism. Here is a great story from Karnataka which should open eyes and give some perspective to those regular Offstumped readers who have attempted to rationalize populism as a necessary evil.
The scheme, titled Bhagyada Bandi-Yatthu Yojane, envisaged a 50% subsidy to small and marginal farmers, which was limited to Rs 10,000 for a pair of bullocks or a bullock cart. An allocation of Rs 20 crore was made to benefit 20,000 farmers.
?’In the open market, a quality wooden-wheel cart is priced between Rs 16,000 and 18,000 and a rubber-tyres fitted cart Rs 25,000-28,000. Farmers at several places obtained the subsidy by showing bullocks they already owned. In some regions, carts that were rolled out developed cracks due to poor quality,”
Taking note of the shortcomings, the government altered the scheme by stopping cart-distribution in mid-2007, but decided to go ahead with the distribution of bullocks. It planned to distribute 50,000 bullocks per year to farmers and earmarked Rs 50 crore for the scheme.
Now, funds earmarked for the scheme have been diverted towards mechanisation of agriculture?
Offstumped Bottomline: From pumpsets to loan waivers, experience tells us that populism almost always fails to deliver. It encourages corruption and nepotism while incentivising the undeserving at the expense of the State. For a State that has come to symbolize the new India in the Knowledge Era, Bullock Cart populism is a disgrace and ought to be a lesson for the BJP to chart a new course.
Filed under: Karnataka Polls 2008
[...] Offstumped Bottomline: From pumpsets to loan waivers, experience tells us that populism almost always fails to deliver. It encourages corruption and nepotism while incentivising the undeserving at the expense of the State. For a State that has come to symbolize the new India in the Knowledge Era, Bullock Cart populism is a disgrace and ought to be a lesson for the BJP to chart a new course. [...]
[...] the rest of this great post here Author: Time: Tuesday, April 1st, 2008 at 3:17 pm Category: karnataka Comments: You can [...]
Yes, we need new India as karnataka has shown us through IT driven industry. In the same time we have to subsidize bullock cart to poor people. BJP did the mistakes in 2004 through its India shining canpaign, where they forgot to highlight the announced scheeme for welfare of people, which may be bullock cart or good rural infrustructure.
So it is not that scheme was flawed or populism, rather related to the problem of half thought planning and implementation. So the main line of thinking of BJP to differenciate from Congress is the quality of governance, which is shown by Mr. Modi in Gujarat.
BJP should adopt this line though some promise for wellfare of poor as well as tough decesion to encourage IT driven industry which will help to reduced the role of populist measure in long term. Yes, they should bring emotional issue, like Cavery issue, in forefront since it can not be suitable for national party.
Last sentence should be like this——–
“Yes, they should not bring emotional issue, like Cavery issue, in forefront since it can not be suitable for national party.” ‘not’ was missed
there are no inspirational leaders for bjp in karnataka
No doubt..BJP should keep quiet for some time in karnatka and abstain from Anti-Tamil chants….
Tommorrow…BJP will be able to rise in Tamil Nadu also….
Every insurgent political movement has to acknowledge the way things are, while aspiring and inspiring, itself and it’s constituency, to the way things should be.
There is no question, that the BJP cannot indulge in anti-tamil rhetoric in order to garner votes. Not only does it go against it’s core message of strident unified nationalism, but also will come back to bite the BJP when the tamils go to the polls.
Yossarin, has rightly pointed out the faults of populism as state policy, and nobody here is defending it. It is effectiveness of benign populism in winning elections that is being debated which is also questionable considering that Congress has lost most elections after the much touted uber-populist Rural Employment scheme.
Having said that, BJP has to have benign populism as one of the many weapons in it’s armory as it’s fighting an ideologically defunct opponent like Congress that will say and do anything to win elections. People will always vote their economic interests even in the wealthiest of nations. It is difficult to argue with a poor suicidical farmer, that a bag of rice or a bullock cart is not in his economic interests, especially if your opponent is promising it.
The last word lies with the cynical and smart Indian electorate, despite most being poor and some being illiterate, to see through every election ‘promise’ made to them.
bjp seriously has a great future in tamilnadu. i don’t know why they are not there yet with 90% hindu population. probably tamils see bjp as too much pro-hindi (the language). this misconception should go.
Yossarin,
I think issue here is whether populism helps getting vote or not. There is no doubt that populism is irrational and will always fail as state policy. If populism can get votes, it should be used intelligently. BJP’s strategy should be similar to fair & lovely beauty cream.
Gujjuman – you make a “fair” point. We are yet to see that intelligence in karnataka. From bullock carts to pumpsets its been pretty dumb.
With Regard to your Quote , I don’t understand how its a disgrace.
On one hand we have activists crying from the roof tops about how the huge vehicular population is leading to Global Warming and on the other hand, a Subsidy on Bullock Carts which are the main stay in the hinterland is seen as a compromise.
I am against any and every kind of subsidy, but that doesn’t mean that we take out subsidies which are available to the poor compared to the rich. Yes, there will be corruption, but over and above that, if a few families do end up with a good means of transport, does the greater good not offset the same. Corruption has to be tackled, but this method would be like cutting off the nose since one is having a running nose.
Cheers
With Regard to your Quote “Bullock Cart populism is a disgrace”, I don’t understand how its a disgrace.
On one hand we have activists crying from the roof tops about how the huge vehicular population is leading to Global Warming and on the other hand, a Subsidy on Bullock Carts which are the main stay in the hinterland is seen as a compromise.
I am against any and every kind of subsidy, but that doesn’t mean that we take out subsidies which are available to the poor compared to the rich. Yes, there will be corruption, but over and above that, if a few families do end up with a good means of transport, does the greater good not offset the same. Corruption has to be tackled, but this method would be like cutting off the nose since one is having a running nose.
Cheers
Prashanth – The bullock cart subsidy is a disgrace not becoz of the contrast to hi-tech but because it is so stupid and flawed in its conception. That a state with a high degree of information awareness and knowledge would conceieve a subsidy as dumb as that is what makes it a disgrace.
What exactly is the bullock cart subsidy meant to
address ?
If you look at the BPL data from my post yesterday the problem with the poorest of the poor (earning 500 rs or less a month) who make up the majority of the poor is that they are overwhelmingly illiterate, survive on casual labor and most would like to be self employed.
Prima facie this bullock cart subsidy is not targetting them. Even if it did it does little to either make them more literate or to improve their wage situation from casual labor to something more predictable and lucrative. Lastly it does little to empower them to be self employed.
For all of the above reasons this subsidy is simply flawed in its conception.