Both Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi have cast aspersions on “Ambani-Adani”. (Photos: X/@narendramodi, @RahulGandhi)
In 2008, a curious debate dominated and divided left-leaning students — “left-liberal”, then, was just a form of right-wing apologist. In the summer of that year, it was becoming increasingly clear that the communist parties of India, led by the CPM, were willing to withdraw support to the UPA government over the US-India civilian nuclear deal. And that mild-mannered Manmohan Singh was going to stand his ground. Was the Left going to squander its greatest-ever opportunity to affect, even determine policy? Some believed that working with the Congress and other regional parties was necessary, not least because the BJP was one of two major national political parties. The purists scoffed at this suggestion: To them, the BJP and Congress were two sides of the same coin. Their attitude to capital — big business — was the same, both had used religious identity and communal politics for electoral ends and both wanted to draw closer to the US, undermine labour protections and leave India’s poor to fend for themselves in a cruelly indifferent “market” society.
Sixteen years later, history has come half-circle, the left shoe is on the right hand and many other mixed metaphors besides. Both Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi have cast aspersions on “Ambani-Adani”. Contrary to the popular and leftist perception, though, it is not that Congress and the BJP are expressing confidence in and an affinity towards the private sector. Both have tried to villianise the businesses that have grown, “created jobs” and underpinned markets and entire sectors under their watch. The question is, why?
First, though, a step back. Two terms into the BJP’s single-party rule, few on either side of the political divide would suggest that it is a mirror of the Congress of the UPA years. The Congress and Rahul Gandhi point to “nafrat ka bazaar” and all that entails, the revelations from the electoral bonds, the “attacks” on institutions and the Constitution. The BJP and PM’s refrain has been that they have accomplished all that could not be done in the last 70 years, from Aadhaar-linked direct benefit transfers to the construction of the Ram Temple and a revival and strengthening of Hindu identity.
Yet, both seem to be converging, in an inexplicable way, in their attacks on plutocrats.
PM Modi’s rally in Telangana earlier this week began predictably enough, with attacks on Congress and Rahul Gandhi. As he brought up the latter’s obsession with business houses, it seemed that it was a prelude to — as in the past — a defence of entrepreneurship and “job creators”. “You would have seen that the Congress shahzada (referring to Rahul Gandhi), for the last five years, has been repeating this. Ever since his Rafale row was grounded, he started repeating this — first, he kept speaking of five industrialists, and then started saying Ambani-Adani, Ambani-Adani, Ambani-Adani,” he said. But in a twist, the PM almost echoed his bete noir: “The shahzada should declare — during these polls, how much have they taken from Ambani-Adani (kitna maal uthaaya hai)? How many sacks of black money have been taken? Have tempos full of notes reached the Congress? What’s the deal that’s been struck (kya sauda hua hai)?”
The PM is right when he says that Rahul Gandhi — from “suit-boot ki sarkar” jibes to “Adani-Ambani” slogans — has tried to paint capitalism as crony capitalism. He should have added that such campaigns have had little resonance with the electorate, that his party has won election after election when such a strategy has been deployed. In fact, that’s likely the reason that the Congress has slowly but surely moved away from this line of attack.
Political strategy and tactics aside, there are other — perhaps more important – reasons why both Congress and BJP need to recognise why trying to distance themselves from capital is not the best idea.
First, it reeks of hypocrisy. Neither the Congress nor BJP — the two dominant political parties in India since 1991 — are communist. If P V Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh ushered in liberalisation in the early 1990s, Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s government carried on and deepened that process. It pioneered the ministry for disinvestment, allowing businesses of adequate size to purchase and manage public assets. The Manmohan Singh years saw a dispersal and growth of business, along with high economic growth and an often expressed desire by the then PM and Deputy Chairperson of the Planning Commission to do away with a “planned” economy.
The Modi government, too, has followed that path: The (re)privatisation of Air India, was portrayed as a feather in its cap. In addition, some of its flagship programmes — Ayushman Bharat, and UDAN for example — require the private sector to participate, invest and implement the government’s vision.
Second, the statements by prominent leaders of the Opposition and, more importantly, the sitting PM must take into account more than just electoral prospects, even in the heat of the campaign. Is there a chance, even a remote one, that the two major parties and their leaders will get off the track that the Indian economy was set on in 1991? What will this do to investor sentiment, which has still not completely recovered after the pandemic? What will it mean for the government’s efforts to “crowd in” private capex, which is finally showing some signs of recovery?
Reports of corporate leaders being “surprised” (a euphemism for disappointment) at the PM’s statements are already emerging.
Finally, the simplistic attacks on big business seem to betray a lack of political imagination. The young voter of today does not see anything wrong in profit-making and even displays of wealth: If nothing else, the obsession with Anant Ambani’s pre-wedding or the enormous success of Shark Tank India bear testimony to that. Perhaps the popularity of this notion of aspiration is a result of the Left’s failure. But it is certainly something both Congress and BJP should count as a success — their governments, after all, have helped create and nurture the environment in which such a desire for wealth isn’t delusional.
Unfortunately, they seem to be campaigning against themselves.
aakash.joshi@expressindia.com
