Take Shourie's remarks seriously

Former union minister Arun Shourie’s trenchant public criticism of the Narendra Modi government has found resonance in the country not only for the issues he has raised but also for his credentials to raise them. Shourie has long been associated with the BJP as a minister in the Vajpayee government, a thinker and a defender of the party’s policies. His views about the performance of the party’s government should therefore carry much greater weight than those of the opposition, whose duty it is to criticise the government, and of neutral observers who have no axe to grind. Shourie is not known to mince his words on matters that he considers important. He has spoken for all those who have been watching the government function and the insiders who are unable to speak out for fear of consequences. That is why his remarks should be taken seriously.

The main planks of Shourie’s criticism could not be more correct and valid. The NDA government came to power on the promise of faster development and good governance. But effective and decisive economic policy-making has been lacking in the government. Any improvement in the economy has been on account of accidental blessings like the fall in oil prices. Shourie’s view that the government has shown no direction and that it has resorted to only vacuous pronouncements and bluster would be shared by others. Major stake-holders like the industry have already expressed such views. Investment has not picked up, there is incoherence in policies, promises on black money still remain promises and business is still not easy to do. There is a deeper and dangerous social divide in the country with communal and sectarian rhetoric rising and programmes like ghar wapsi being advocated and supported. The government’s response to them has been far from right, and has even been seen as collusive. The claimed gains on the foreign policy front, where also critics like Shourie have found inconsistencies and weaknesses, do not make up for the lapses and failures on vital matters at home.

The reactions of the representatives of the government and the party to the criticism have been evasive and flippant. Shourie has been dubbed as a fair-weather friend and accused of harbouring a grouse because he did not get any position in the government. A convincing defence of the government on the issues raised by Shourie is yet to come. It is an old tactic to malign the person and ignore the message and the warning. But Shourie has done well to point out that the king has no clothes but only the monogrammed suit.