September 11, 2002
|
|
||
|
|
|
|
|
|
||
|
Home >
Money > Special September 11, 2002 |
Feedback
|
|
|
Arun Shourie's tactical errorsR Jagannathan After Saturday's Cabinet stalemate, it is now fairly certain that the government's divestment programme is severely wounded.
The divestment minister looks mauled, having had to eat humble pie. That's not actually too bad: eating humble pie is better than a starvation diet on reforms. It would be easy to see George Fernandes, Ram Naik and even Pramod Mahajan as villains in this drama. But that is actually too simplistic a view. Personally, I believe that this setback is as much the result of Arun Shourie's tactical errors as the ganging up on the other side. The fact is every single NDA minister with a public sector empire to lose, formally swears by divestment, but informally works toward a different agenda. This has been the reality even in earlier governments, including Narasimha Rao's. The key difference is minister after minister is now emerging from the woodwork to wreak havoc on the divestment programme. This has never happened before. Shourie was the catalyst that brought them out into the open. In part, this has happened because almost all ministers saw Shourie as the only winner in the divestment game - and his win could have come only at their cost. To make matters worse, Shourie's is not the kind of self-effacing personality that rubs no one the wrong way. He also made the mistake of believing that if your arguments are rational, you should be able to carry the majority with you. In real life, and particularly in politics, this is almost never the case. There are constituencies to appease, vested interests to neutralise, and alliances to be build before one can move forward on public policy.
He is right when he says that giving foreign (or private sector Indian companies) ownership of refineries and petrol pumps will not dilute national security in any way. What the country needs is a policy on energy security, not ownership of every entity with 'energy' written into its articles of association. So where else did Shourie go wrong? ** He made the mistake of taking on almost everyone in the government. Nobody, including Superman can fight a war on so many fronts. But Shourie, thanks to his public icon status in the media, managed to get under the skin of even the normally placid Ram Naik. Not to speak of Pramod Mahajan. He also failed to make allowances for people like George Fernandes, who were biding their time to pounce on the right issue to make their presence felt. Fernandes badly needed a comeback issue after the army coffins and Tehelka setbacks. ** He made the mistake of thinking that argument is more important than alliances. Completely wrong. As any organisational expert will tell you, strong arguments seldom win followers. It is the kind of networking you do, the kind of alliances you build and the kind of back-room deals you make that determines success. ** Worse, with the media crediting Shourie with all good work done on reforms, the other ministers in the NDA were made to look like impediments, or even fools. Once the situation became win-lose, Shourie was clearly on a sticky wicket. ** He put the cart before the horse. The most fundamental issue involving PSUs is ministerial interference. This is what makes them inefficient. If at all Shourie wanted to take an aggressive stance, his underlying agenda should have been to subtly focus on the issue of slowly delinking PSUs from their nodal ministries. This is, in fact, what he was trying to achieve by selling them off to strategic partners. There are several good ideas floating around. Former divestment commission chairman G V Ramakrishna's idea of putting all PSU holdings in a Trust is one of them. Jaswant Singh's AMC idea is also a good bet. These people need to be co-opted as allies. By focusing on divestment instead of ministerial interference, Shourie gave his detractors an opportunity to paint themselves as defenders of national interest. Shourie would do well to take the current setback as a pointer that he needs to change tactics. In reforms, especially given the fractured nature of Indian politics that he keeps referring to, direction is more important than pace. He needs to hang in there and fight - but differently this time. Two tips may be useful: He should argue in private and praise in public all ministers who handle PSUs. He should let the ministers claim all the credit for divestment and incorporate some of their less harmful suggestions into policy. When the Cabinet meets after three months, he should have the ministers rooting for divestment. He should take a back seat. Powered by ALSO READ:
|
ADVERTISEMENT |
||||||||||||
The empire has struck back, and having tasted blood, it is unlikely to roll over and play dead for the rest of this government's tenure.
In retrospect, one wonders where Shourie got the idea that he could pull it off on his own - with a mere nod from the PMO or the deputy PM. This is not to say that Shourie is wrong on divestment. Far from it. It does make more sense to rope in strategic partners instead of going in for IPOs. This gives the government better prices and ensures that PSUs will stop being run as PSUs.
