Anna Movement: Government messed it up by its poor engagement with the middle class

By Jai Mrug

It was a busy morning on 22 August. I was late to office and had hailed an auto-rickshaw on the way. I was accosted by an unusual question by the rickshaw driver: Did I attend the latest rally in support of Anna?

I wondered  why he had asked me about it, when he explained his involvement. Apparently, he had been one of the principal organisers of a candle-light march the previous evening and his gathering had attracted the people from the apartments nearby as well.

Now here was a movement that most TV channels and the intelligentsia had branded as elitist or middle class-centric. Some of its prominent spokespersons were PLUs (People Like Us). How, then, did it generate a following, as well as some organic leadership, at the subaltern level? How did an allegedly middle class revolution become all pervasive?

In an economy like ours, the poor are presumed to be preoccupied with making ends meet. Participating in agitations is thus a luxury that few can afford. The rich, with their minimalistic dependence on government, may not bother much to change the fundamentals of legislation. So who powered the quick-silver movement that sprouted all over the country almost overnight?

Never before have we sought to define and understand the term ‘political economy’ as much are we are doing today. Rising income levels – our per capita income was projected to grow 11 percent in 2011 over 2010 – and a growing global exposure have created a threshold momentum for the middle class, putting a premium on political freedom and legislative participation.

Though it may be electorally docile, its activation could prove disastrous for the government as it has the ability to craft  the message and set the symbols of communication for several other sections of society. The middle class has the ability to articulate causes, ensure the adoption of ubiquitous symbols, and drive mobilisation that can severely alter political constructs.

Supporters of Anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare wave the Indian national flag as they celebrate near the India Gate. AFP

Should the strength of the middle class be judged simply by what fraction of the population it constitutes? Not quite. How can they be engaged  meaningfully, if at all?

Though the pet issues of the middle class appear pertinent only to them, the trickle-down effects of flawed policies help the other sections of society relate to the symptoms. The middle class then puts in the intellectual bulwark to connect the dots and helps them connect the symptoms to the root cause by way of ubiquitous symbols and slogans.

Thus, they now have a larger constituency that spans virtually all segments of the electorate – and therein lies the danger of not engaging the middle class. It is not that flawed policies or corruption did not touch other sections of society earlier, but the middle class did not have unlimited access to media, and an unfettered liberty to exaggerate things the way it does now.

This is why the chaperones of the Anna movement came from the middle class, while the support came from all sections. This is what explains the auto-rickshaw driver’s commitment to the Anna cause. The government messed it up by its poor engagement with the middle class.

Not engaging the middle class can do any party or government the same damage that lack of a lobbyist may do to a business in a foreign nation. A lobbyist may not necessarily succeed in his endeavour, but he or she can certainly nullify or reduce the negative impact of any environmental factors.

Similarly, cultivating the middle class may not necessarily yield dividends at the hustings, but it will prevent negative articulation of some obvious chinks in your armour, which you may take long to correct or which the political class may have no will to correct at all.

Given the relentless technological tools at their disposal and increasing incomes, they will take the first available opportunity to set the agenda for the rest of the electorate. That is exactly what happened in the case of Anna Hazare’s agitation. And, that is precisely the reason why the BJP has a more volatile base than the Congress. Its growth was driven by the middle class.

So how does the government appease this fast growing beast?

Let’s look at an obvious bugbear for the middle class: service tax. A widespread service tax net was created in the name of infrastructure development without a single high-speed railway line coming up. Potholed roads are not the symbols of governance any government should want this constituency to look at. After all, it was the government which, at one point, branded service tax as the prince of all taxes meant for infrastructure development.

This is where the crafting of deliverables by a government is far more complex today than it would have been even a decade ago. Most policy goals cannot be achieved without ministries working in tandem with an enforced business plan.

The example of the Indian Railways tells us what a business plan can do. Before the Sixth Pay Commission bled the organisation, the railways had reported quite a healthy annual surplus of Rs 20,000 crore or more. Now even if Rs 10,000 crore had been invested in capacity augmentation it would have meant building 2,500 km of high quality railway line, perhaps with electrification.

That’s almost a double railway line on the Mumbai-Delhi sector (approximately 2,800 km) – one complete arm of the much-touted freight corridor. Now if only the pace of land acquisition had been as agile as when BC Khanduri was surface transport minister in the NDA government. A combination of such skills and execution would have ensured the completion of more than half the dedicated freight corridor by now.

Clearly, a business plan and coordination between various ministries is required. Setting up food storage and processing units within the hinterland of this railway line would have drastically enhanced the efficiency of the food supply chain. Several thousand tonnes of wheat were declared unusable in 2008-10 due to spoilage, but 98 percent of this was due to unscientific storage.

India can drastically cut down post-harvest losses by systematically integrating the development of storage complexes along railway lines, which will further help the timely evacuation of stored foodgrains and food produce.

This can impact inflation positively and also increase the revenue yield for farmers. It is when ministries work in tandem on a business plan that a real tangible good is produced and it can be felt by the common man, too.

Coordinated business plans between ministries would lead to creating relevant returns on investment for this increasingly aware audience. The future of governance and effective voter engagement thus lies in a business plan approach.

Tax reliefs, increased entitlements, and greater subsidies may no longer be sufficient to ensure a handsome return at the ballot box. Those techniques have reached the production possibility frontier, as economist Paul  Samuelson would have put it. As we move forward their returns will diminish sooner rather than later.

A developing economy has complex problems which call for coordinated solutions. Business plans are essential to deal with a fast-growing economy where an increasingly articulate number of voters see democratically elected governments as giving them the least return on their buck.

A NREGA without a coordinated effort from other ministries and greater transparency may, therefore, not help much. Any failure on coordinated growth will fuel civil society movements and they will always attempt to set the agenda for governments they deem as failures. With new media and a threshold mass readily available to them, the rules of the game have just changed.

Jai Mrug is a political commentator and a close watcher of the election scene in India.