Purring pussycats

BY darius| IN Opinion | 27/02/2005

This is what happens when a paper wants to be friendly to the government. The reader gets cheated.

You don`t say!

Darius Nakhoonwala

The Economic Survey for 2004-05, the rail Budget and the 12th Finance Commission`s report were presented on February 25 and 26 respectively.

When the government started publishing it in the early 1970s, as a separate document rather than as a section of the general Budget, its purpose was to showcase its achievements for the country. This practice continued until the mid-1990s.

But, since then, the Survey has become a document of dissent. Thus apart from containing the usual listings of dodgy achievements, it has also begun to express views on reform: what all should be done, but can`t (because much of it is not feasible, at least immediately). It has thus become an instrument for throwing up ideas for debate.

The latest Survey is no different, and this led The Hindu to call it "An Economists` Wish List". The Survey, says paper "marks a break from the traditional reticence of past surveys to present a five-point wish list that is virtuous on its own, but which for the moment seems to put aside political realities and compulsions." Then instead of giving the reader a critical analysis of the wish list, it goes on (government department style) and on and on to list them without comment. This is what happens when a paper wants to be friendly to the government. The reader gets cheated.

Amazingly enough, the Indian Express which used to be known for taking adversarial positions against governments, has also turned into a rather tame purring pussycat.  "The pro-FII stance of the Economic Survey is a slap on RBI`s face", said the strap line on the lead editorial. The vulgarity of the sentence was more like slap on the reader`s face.

After a few desultory remarks about this and that, the editorial returned to what has become a pet theme of the Express - the financial markets. So it has devoted a disproportional amount of space (211 out of 407 words) to the minor spat that took place between the finance ministry and the RBI over FII inflows. What`s worse, the edit misses the point and accuses the RBI of xenophobia. Surely such strong words are avoidable. S Venkitaramanan, the former finance secretary and RBI governor, put it much better in The Hindu. Putting blocks in the way of FIIs at this stage of India`s development "would be premature".

The Financial Express was also more cultured in its comments than the Express and got everything, including the balance, basically right. So did the Hindustan Times.

Where the rail Budget is concerned, only the Business Standard which came out with a special edition on Sunday - normally there is none - had an editorial. It may as well saved itself the trouble, as it got the general point wrong, namely, that this Budget held positive surprises. In its own way the paper seems to be anxious not to offend government.

As proof for this strange conclusion, that the rail Budget had positive elements in it, the paper pointed to the improvements in management practices that Budget was aiming at. It forgot that this is not what Budgets are supposed to do. They are supposed to raise money and invest it, both of which the rail Budget has failed to do. The rest is hot air designed to deceive.

And it also missed the point that nowhere in the Budget documents is there an explicit reference to the Rs 650 crore that is going to be raised. This is what the Railway Board is putting about. In any case, if this is true, what happened to the transparency that the prime minister talks about? But, to its credit, the paper also carried an editorial on the Finance Commission`s recommendations and managed to get that right.