These self-inflicted contradictions will continue to produce confused decisions and electoral setbacks, leading to disaster in 2009. You do not have to be an economist or a political pundit to see the perils of confusing the aam aadmi with the farmer, for example. The interests of those two are often in conflict. The farmer wants higher prices for his produce, the aam aadmi, or aurat, who comes out brandishing broom-sticks in anti-price rise protests, on the other hand, wants them to be low. That contradiction shows starkly in the funny games this government is playing this year with wheat procurement. It wants to deny the farmer his rightful free market price by banning forward trading, threatening him with zero-duty imports and also arm-twisting private companies to desist from buying until FCI has filled its godowns. Then, facing the prospect of farmer anger — and the real possibility of hoarding by richer farmers — it added a hundred-rupee bonus. This will please neither the farmer, nor the aam aadmi. Similarly, you may want to block organised retail to protect small grocers and middlemen. But the farmer will want the opposite, to be able to sell to large buyers and cut out the middle-man.

Such confused economics can only make for disastrous politics. And if the Congress hopes to win over the really poor by either its povertarian talk or NREGA, it is mistaken. Most of India’s really poor inhabit states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and Orissa, where the party has no stakes anyway!

... contd.