These days many people in India, opinion leaders particularly, are terribly exercised about vote-bank politics ; to wit, the tendency on the part of the governments (both state and central) to play to the gallery by handing out doles in every which direction they feel like, unmindful of the long-term consequences for this great nation of ours. At a time when the elephant, unshackled by that far-sighted Narasimha Rao is on a majestic trot and is about to break into an even more glorious run, outpacing   the neighbouring dragon, thanks to the equally far-sighted Manmohan Singh (who incidentally was Rao's Finance Minister), wretched vote-bank politics is playing spoilsport and derailing all the well-laid plans of Ahluwalias and Chidambarams. Oh what a pity!

Clearly they are convinced that the World Bank prescriptions do wonders. You show them the example of the African or Latin American countries where reforms exploded in the face of the governments, they would sagaciously point out the governments there did not have it in them to grit their teeth and stay the course. If only they had, things would be different now. Different yes, but better or worse? And better for whom and worse for which sections?

That is exactly the rub.

Poet Bharati had thundered even if one person were to be denied food the entire world had better be destroyed. And in a passage not quoted often, that otherwise perfectly middle class moralist Thiruvalluvar has said if anyone were to live by begging, may the Creator himself be damned!

Such poetic outbursts apart, I still think it stands to reason that we devise some scheme that ensures everyone is assured of some basic comforts.

Communism may have failed, for reasons we cant go into here, but that is no reason why anyone should be denied a decent existence. Now even hardened capitalists do not deny the need for a comfortable living for all, only they say let not the government do anything about it. Leave it to the market forces, leave it to the entrepreneurial spirit, everything will be O.K., of course over a period of time. But then the question is how long? In the long run we are all dead anyway. Does or does not any government has a responsibility to ensure people's welfare? Proponents of liberalisation argue that it could do so only by progressively withdrawing from every sphere, except that of internal and external security.

When employment guarantee scheme is introduced, when support prices for agricultural produce are announced, when noon meals scheme is implemented, when rice is sold at less than market prices or when land is distributed free, there are howls of protest, many of them well meaning of course.

By doling out like this you are taking away precious resources that could otherwise have gone into the creation of infrastructure that could, in turn, give a big boost to the industry – the development of which would usher in all-round prosperity, through a trickle-down
process. Indeed the ill-conceived doles only delay the process of liberation of poor. There is no free lunch, please. No shortcut to success, you see.

That is all well said. On the face of it, it seems irrefutable indeed.

Thanks to her well thought out measures, Britain became more unequal than ever before, analysts concede. So much so that the Conservatives were voted out, Thatcher's depredations hanging like an albatross around John Major who succeeded her.

Now to the all important war cry of the Thatcher-Reagan era. What are the no-work-shirkers saying? Obviously you have to earn your bread. Living on government doles is demeaning and certainly not good economics.

But then what about the Lords, Baronesses, the feudal lords, the ruling elite everywhere? How come they are to be allowed to enjoy the fruits of the alleged labour of their fathers and forefathers? Fairness demands that everyone is made to work and no one is allowed
to enjoy unearned income. Hence a genuine implementation of the no-free-lunch policy would logically lead to Communism, yeah, appropriation of all private property by the community!

Scoring points apart, anyone born to poverty needs help, and only the
government, representing the community as it does, could do it in an organized way. Targeted subsidies, so long as it is sensibly done, rooting out corruption in bureaucracy, ensuring the greedy politician is kept at an arm's length, all these are a must to ensure that doles do work, no problem, but there is no escape from subsidies.

Subsidising fertilizer companies has certainly resulted in gold-plating (showing excess production in order to get government funds), it is irrational, but the alternative is not to stop it altogether. We should explore ways and means of reaching out to farmers directly. Otherwise these unfortunate citizens who, a shame on us, are still monsoon-dependent for survival, would suffer more heavily. See the lack of a meaningful credit delivery system s
leading to such terrible deaths in Vidharba.

The World Bank, which initially frowned on AIADMK founder MGR's noon meal scheme in Tamil Nadu, subsequently conceded that it led to greater enrolment in schools.

One can go on citing more examples. There has to be a lot of caveats certainly. Karunanidhi government's free CTV for rural households (now being implemented) is certainly a very stupid idea. It is perhaps a devious way of promoting his own family interests, and has to be squarely denounced, but free land scheme is not or for that matter the subsidized rice scheme. The kind of poverty still prevalent in our country cannot be wished away by a magic wand or by the market.