The thin bamboo screens will divide the two Indias. On one side is the one with highest growth rate, 30 crore prosperous middle classes, world's largest automobile exporter which is set to be the largest economy and a world super power by 2050. On the other is the Bharat at the bottom of the human development index, 30 per cent people below the poverty line and farmers in thousands committing suicide due to poverty. While one-fourth on the other side of the bamboo screen sleep on the pavements, at least two ministers of the aam aadmi cabinet paid Rs one lakh and Rs. 40,000 per day at five star hotels for three and a half months until the issue became a controversy.

Last week, an analyst succinctly bought out the contrast. While we are selling world class passenger cars at the cheapest prices, the aam aadmi's humble dal (toor dal at Rs. 92 kg) is the costliest in India. Items of elite consumption are at rock-bottom prices. But food items - cooking oil, atta, dal, vegetables, name any - on which the aam aadmi spends 60-80 per cent of income, go up every time he visits the shop. Sugar prices havr doubled.

Inflation is negative. And so the wholesale price index for about a year. However, for the aam aadmi, it is a cruel joke. Government's budget and fiscal policies are governed by the wholesale price index and inflation but what matters to the aam aadmi is consumer prices. During the past year, the consumer price index has gone up 11.9 per cent. The divide is so wide, and it bares a policy enigma.

The BJP had learned at a heavy political cost how elite-based growth and 'shine-india' type election campaign can lead to electoral doom. But for Sonia Gandhi's sharp sense of ground realities and the Left's 'obstructions', the UPA was spared a similar collapse. The Left had only put hurdles in the way of the classical reform measures. As against this, the PM is now being forced to sing the virtues of the aam aadmi programmes which he as finance minister had denounced as Nehruvian era largesse. In this changed discourse, subsidies are no more bad.

Narasimha Rao's finance minister had in the early euphoria sought to cut subsidies and scrap PDS. And his party got routed in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Then infrastructure was left to the privates, and we had the Enron fiasco. Vajpayee had to compensate for the heavy lags in roads construction through his 'quadrilateral'. This time the Congress chief has herself taken direct control of the aam admi programmes through trusted ministers, free of the reformist constraints. Pranab Mukherjee or Jairam Ramesh need not heed new Yojana Bhawan's homilies.

And then we have those dreams gone sour. Self-sufficiency was lampooned as a vestige of the licence era. At the peak of the software surge, we were advised to ignore the 'brick and mortar' industry as India could do better in 'knowledge' industry. It did not take much to realize the importance of basic industries like manufacturing even while software and other outsourcing could boost trade balance. Similar has been the argument of those who had ridiculed self-sufficiency in food.

Now suddenly, 'food security' - same as 'socialist' era's 'self-sufficiency' - is an officially accepted concept. It is a version of the west's 'energy' security. PM has also begun stressing the food security theme following the party's pressure. Even two years back, the theme song was freeing agriculture from Nehru-era constraints like FCI procurement and buffer stocks. Globalisation has turned it a Jurassic Park. And hence purchases by private giants, many of them multinational, at farms were allowed along with futures trading.

Market forces, we were told, will themselves correct the prices, and there will not be any need for wasteful buffer stocks or FIC purchases. If some states fear shortages, they could buy grains on their own in the free market. And then came the sudden food grain shortage. Global dealers hiked the price and India had to buy grains at rates higher than domestic prices. As the market forces and globalization again let us down, the Congress establishment asserted itself. This time sugar is the victims of such misplaced trust in market.

Last month, the PM asked the states to take strong dehoarding measures to stop profiteering by the traders. Most of us have overlooked this doctrinaire shift in the most ardent believer of liberalisation. Apparently, due to the pressure of virtual reality. For, hoarding, i.e. buying when prices are low and selling when high, is the raison d'etre of wholesale food grain operations. That is why there was so much opposition to commodity market and futures trading. Are we back to the permit raj?

Privatisation has done wonders in tele-communication and electronic media. But what about other areas? Delhi's power distribution was handed over to two of India's best corporate houses. Six years, two to three times tariff hikes and inflated bills, residents are on streets (burning busses) protesting against power cuts. Many are asking for return of the old DESU. And to sustain the doctrine of private efficiency, the Delhi government still pays a subsidy of Rs. 300 crores to the private operators. Just this week, in neighbouring Punjab, two farmers died in protests against privatisation of state SEB.

Last month, a world-class terminal worth Rs. 500 crore built at Delhi airport by a global firm collapsed. Shoddy work has been the reason for denying the work to the government agencies. And surveys say this is the costliest airport. Now we see another fallen idol of liberalisation. When private airlines flourished with their cheap fares, more flights and prompt services, it was hailed as market miracle. We revelled in cracking jokes at the inefficiency of IA and AI.

But soon we had another realisation - that private efficiency is also governed by market principles. Two-third fuel price cuts and tax concessions could not salvage the private players from the huge accumulated loss and strikes and closure threats. The harsh truth is that those who blame Nehru-Indira model for all our ills, should know that their own borrowed doctrines are also subject to the play of economic forces in a democratic matrix. (IPA Service)