Little did one imagine that UPA, returning to power in May 2009 with what looked like a safer margin for survival, and a swagger that went into some ministerial heads, would come to grief so early in its second innings. The fault-lines are so clear to every one except for the glossy eyes. This is essentially due to its getting increasingly out of touch with ground realities - political, economic and social - let alone a series of failures and missteps. Self-righteous assumptions dominate, as in pushing the prolonged food price inflation under the carpet, no matter hundreds of millions paid the price for it.

In Parliament, the Finance Minister Mr Pranab Mukherjee had sought to make dubious distinction between 'inflation” and “price” for political escape from responsibility for letting high food prices untamed, with all the “steps” he claimed to have been taken by Government. No less a person than the Chairman of PM's Economic Advisory Council Chairman had been calling for substantial Government stocks being unloaded in the market to exert pressures on the wholesale trade. That millions of tonnes of foodgrains were lost to rains and rats is an undisputed phenomenon.

The brutal fact is prices of cereals, pulses and edible oils have not come down for the vast mass of the people, as conveniently inferred from fluctuations in the primary articles index, whatever may be the supplies made through the dysfunctional public distribution system, mainly designed for the poorer sections. Our poverty ratio has also gone up meanwhile pari passu with the status we have coveted as a major fast growing economy on way to becoming a global power. Now, exercises are on for a Food Security Act with a melodramatic ring about it. The best minds on the National Advisory Council have spoken on what all needs to be done for sustainable farming and food security for farmers and the mass of the people.

While we may gloat that for three years we achieved 9 per cent growth pre-crisis and would catch it next year, India has the highest inflation among countries of the world at present. Inflation will persist through the current fiscal and UPA Government, while occasionally expressing “concern” over food prices, began to recognise inflation as such when it had spread to non-food sectors showed up in double-digit WPI. But the job is still squarely left to RBI to contain liquidity and demand pressures which raise inflationary expectations. RBI has carefully and diligently calibrated monetary policy from the onset of the global financial crisis and recession.

India quickly recovered thanks to its safeguarded financial system as also buttressed by Government's fiscal stimulus but the big hole in public finance was mostly due to generous pay scales for central government employees in 2008 along with the debt waiver for farmers, which was welcomed but seen more as a pre-election ploy. Government creditably is now trying to restore fiscal consolidation, thanks to some one-off windfalls, but what would be needed is quality of public expenditure which lack norms for productivity.

Talking of missteps, Government needlessly made a foray into the autonomy, however circumscribed, of our central bank, to the chagrin of not only the present but past Governors of RBI. It has since modified its approach to accommodate the concerns of the central bank. There are other signs that the Finance Ministry wants to be the arbiter setting limits to the ambit of monetary policy. Former Finance Minister Mr Chidambaram used to call bank chiefs before and after monetary policy announcements to ensure that banks kept lending rates easy for the corporate sector, which has a big voice in Government and incidentally for other sectors of the economy. Mr Mukherjee is also cautioning from time to time against rise in interest rates, in the interest of growth, though he acknowledges RBI has to keep inflation as a major concern in formulating monetary policy.

Six years of UPA have not brought about any agricultural transformation though the 11th plan assumed a 4 per cent annual growth and Government is content to ride on the back of manufacturing and services as the drivers of growth of the economy. The result is that we remain largely in a state of under-development affecting over two-thirds of the one billion plus population. Let alone any striking progress in addressing the basic livelihood concerns and effectively advancing human development indicators, especially education and health, the state is unable to enforce law and order, a vital public good.

Essentially it is the responsibility of states in the areas of maintenance of law and order, agriculture or social development. In the case of prices, Mr Mukherjee pinned primary responsibility on states. But governance overall is judged by how the Centre and the States move in tandem to achieve the desired goals. Most states have failed even as annually the plan allocations are routinely increased. The Planning Commission is content to point out that it cannot enforce implementation. The Centre is no longer strong to ensure that constitutional obligations are met by all entities for orderly governance and effective implementation of social development programmes for which it provides huge grants year to year.

The Centre is attracted for outbreak of lawlessness when high speed trains could easily be derailed and passengers looted and killed and maximum damage inflicted on public property. It has a Railway Minister whose principal objective is to capture power in West Bengal and is prepared to rub shoulders with Maoists and Naxalites who have been behind recent train disasters. Left extremism consolidated itself during UPA-I and it was not taken serious notice of. UPA-2 has hardly come up as yet a credible strategy combining force with development of the tribal areas and winning hearts of the adivasis to wean them away from Naxalites/ Maoists running a parallel government from their hide-outs.

The long promised political package having been sidelined by the Centre, for some reason or other, the situation in Kashmir has become highly explosive with the latest round of violence claiming over 50 lives, mostly young. Governments, whatever their political hue, do not seem to wake up unless calamity strikes. The delays make matters worse because of failure to strike an accord when the going is good. The commitment to a political dialogue with all sections in the embattled state has now been revived.

As a rule, strong arm of the law gets precedence over conciliatory approaches and whether Naxalites or Kashmir, conflicting signals go out from time to time from the seats of power. In UPA-2, we have the spectacle of Ministers belonging to the leading party, speaking at variance on policy matters, and quarrelling in public. Ruling UPA's strength is already fragile, given the undependable support of parties outside, which set the terms on a number of issues and invariably Government yields ground.(IPA Service)