Hard times have fallen upon sections of our political class. The Congress party, for instance, has imposed austerity measures on its members. MPs and MLAs have taken a salary cut to assist the exchequer in this dire financial phase. Ministers are folding themselves into airline seats to fly — as one amongst their own joked — “cattle class” as an expression of solidarity with India’s crisis-stricken millions. And having shown that exemplary solidarity, it seems, they would like some company. So it is that Corporate Affairs Minister Salman Khursheed put it to Indian business that they should avoid “vulgar” salaries to senior staff.

Remuneration has been such a contested issue in the long year since the global financial crisis set in that the minister’s remark must be engaged with for more than the hypocrisy that sustains the edifice of the austerity debate — a connect between conspicuous austerity, without a political push to reform, and GDP growth is too suspect to be lingered on. The trouble with such political rhetoric — of politicians being divested of any entitlement that spells comfort and of asking the private sector to put ceilings on salaries — is that it breeds a culture of doublespeak, of “don’t show, don’t tell”.

Blaming the well-paid is not going to get India’s GDP growth to pre-crisis levels, nor is it going to free up credit flows to fuel the business cycle and create jobs. And a country still rectifying issues of corporate governance — by getting companies to clean up their account books and be accountable to their shareholders — should be wary of incentivising hidden salary structures. It also smothers the nuance in the wider global debate about how to clean executive remuneration of clear conflicts of interest.