The most intriguing aspect of the Prime Minister’s ten commandments to businessmen last week was that if he made the same speech to his ministers and coalition partners it would make such a difference.

We might hope for real change, and the first sign of good governance in the remaining two years of the United Progressive Alliance’s rule if the Prime Minister’s colleagues listened to his advice. “India has made us,” the Prime Minister said, “we must make Bharat.” Nobody needs to be reminded of this more than Dr Manmohan Singh’s government.

Speaking to the CII (Confederation of Indian Industries) in Delhi last week, the Prime Minister said, “The time has come for the better off sections of our society to understand the need to make our growth process more inclusive; to eschew conspicuous consumption; to save more and waste less; to care for those who are less privileged and less well-off; to be role models of probity, moderation and charity.”

If I had been invited to the dinner party that celebrated the UPA government’s third anniversary last week and asked to explain the drubbing the Congress Party and its allies have taken in recent assembly elections I would have said the same thing in those very words.

What annoys the aam aadmi is not whether Ratan Tata or Mukesh Ambani fly around in private planes or whether Vijay Mallya likes buying fleets of yatchs. What annoys him is when he sees the man he elects to Parliament suddenly become a ‘vulgar’, conspicuous consumer with no known source of income. Barely does he enter the hallowed portals of the Lok Sabha that MP sahib begins to live like a tycoon.

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