In JFK’s time, the White House was known as Camelot and those three years were known as Camelot years, a reference to a young charismatic president (and his wife) and the message of change. The allusion was to King Arthur’s Camelot. There are limited parallels with India in 2009, since the country has voted for status quo, not change. The landslide win for the UPA has no single explanation, and state-level factors explain a lot. West Bengal is the only state where there has been a clear vote for change. However, in the Congress-BJP face-off relevant in north and central India, the BJP came across as old and jaded and the Congress as young and forward-looking. Beyond rural (NREGA, farmers’ debt relief) and social sectors, it is not very obvious the Congress has a vision. But in the BJP’s lack of vision, or inability to sell it, the Congress seems to have a grand design for economic revival and there has been talk of 100-day plans. Those 100 days may be a take-off from NREGA, though Arthur’s Round Table is also commonly believed to have had 100 knights. But note that only Percival could see the Holy Grail, since the others weren’t pure of heart. This has a bearing on reform prospects under UPA-II.

The popular hypothesis is the following. Under UPA-I, reforms got stuck because of the Left. With the Left out of the way, there will now be a liberalisation blitzkrieg — disinvestment, pensions, insurance, telecom, aviation, retail, labour market, APM (administered price mechanism), power sector, land acquisition.

... contd.