How will India remember 2012?

What the recent presidential election shows is that when pushed to the wall, even the blind are able to see the light

It is June 15 and nearly half of an extraordinarily eventful 2012 is over. Sometime in 2013 and beyond, how will we remember 2012? Herewith some thoughts and speculation, levered with some reasoning!

It was on this very day that the volcano that is Mamata Banerjee allowed even the blind Congress to see the light. The spineless and leadership-less Congress party finally acted. Mamata dared the Congress, and much to her surprise, the Congress called her bluff. Historians will now investigate as to why Mamata has been on a politically suicidal mission for over a year now. Ever since her victory in 2011, Mamata has acted without reason, or logic, or shame. Why would you raise a challenge on a presidential nomination when all you have is your own party and an opportunistic meeting with UP leader, and former wrestler, Mulayam Singh? The Congress finally reacted, reached an agreement with Mulayam, and expelled the mercurial Mamata from the UPA. This bold act set in train several intended, and unintended, consequences. Consequences that benefited India, and the Congress party.

It pays to be bold, especially when one has nothing to lose. Boldness in action conveys confidence, something that the UPA had severely lacked in its nightmare avatar since 2009. Boldness can contain in it large elements of vision, about how the future should be. Which in a policymaker's hand can be a guiding light to action. And bold the UPA was. It replaced the office vacated by the new president, Pranab Mukherjee, by a reform-oriented finance minister. It did a genuine cabinet reshuffle, so ministers could implement policies without being saddled by the baggage from the past.

The much-needed, much-discussed, much-agreed-upon reforms followed. It was almost like the heady reform days of 1991. A plan to reduce diesel subsidies to zero over a period of time (till December 2013) was introduced. The land acquisition bill was passed, and FDI in multi-brand retail was announced. The much-delayed, and much-awaited, new direct and indirect tax codes, will now be part of the Indian tax code starting March 2013. Food policy, in the form of inefficient PDS, is slated to be reformed big time, and replaced by a combination of cash transfers and Aadhar targeting. This all happened in 2012, and much remains to be done in 2013.

... contd.

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