Leftists of modern times have lost their power of rational,objective analysis. They are seldom realistic or pragmatic. There is a lot of grey area but these gentlemen view in only black or white, their vision clouded by their ideology.

There are two totally different types of working class in modern India.The majority (about 80 percent ) are of the unorganized sector( farming, contract labourers, domestic workers,construction,etc.)They are unorganized, have no union or identity or awareness about their rights. They are the silent and invisible majority,exploited and under paid with no protection or benefits.

The other type is the organized sector ;unionized and militant, recognized and used by all political parties(including the Marxists).The leftists work only for these pampered elite at the cost of the silent majority.Worst among these are the government employees ( all PSUs and govt. departments).They constitute less than 2 percent of the population, but the government spends a major portion of its budget on them.

We Indians have developed, over the socialist decades,a double standard regarding work ethics. Any Indian will work sincerely while being employed by any private organization (otherwise he will be sacked). The same chap, if he is employed by the government will become lazy, inefficient and corrupt, but demand very high salary,perks and paid holidays.( there are ,of course, exceptions). Only in India are the bureaucrats so arrogant and corrupt.The job-for-life rule with no mechanism for monitoring and correcting inefficiency has made our government the biggest employer in the whole world.

Most of the PSUs and government departments are overstaffed and underworked. Worse, all of them are top heavy.Too many officers and bureaucrats.There is no pyramidal structure in any department.Posts are sanctioned and created with scant regard for cost effectiveness and need.

If any private company (say like Reliance or Tisco),is staffed and run like a government department(say Home Ministry), it would have gone bankrupt in no time.But the government is unable to downsize its ministries.As a result fiscal deficit is growing dangerously fuelling inflation and poverty.About half of the government income is used for interest payments alone.Salary for government employees and defense budget swallows a large portion and finally a meager amount is left for capital expenditure and welfare. Is this socialism?

Less and less money is allotted for vital areas like education, health and drinking water schemes while the salary bill bloats.To top it all, the loss making PSUs are maintained at any cost to the exchequer. (for e.g Air India and Indian Airlines could have been privatized long back avoiding a lot of loss and trouble) The money poured to maintain them could have been used for more useful activites.

Most people don't realise that less government interference promotes enormous growth.The IT industry and synthetic fibre industries are good examples. There is negligible government control or interference in these sectors and no government owned PSUs in these sectors ;only private initiative and enterprise. Hence the enormous growth and employment opportunities.

To contrast the striking difference between government inefficiency and private sector initiative,consider public sector road transport corporations.While there is a crying need for more buses, the loss making government owned corporations are unable to expand fleets or maintain the existing buses in good conditions(mainly due corruption, inefficiency and over staffing of top management)The private buses are generally better maintened and less accident prone.The licenses for the routes are sold (in the black market) for tens of lakhs of rupees.Licenses for bus routes can be decontrolled (like lorry transport sector) to end all these troubles.But there are vested interests (consisting of transport ministers, bureaucrats,existing private bus operators and trade unions) who prevent this so that their monopoly and graft can continue as ever.This is nothing but crony capitalism masquerading as socialism. Fortunately the lorry transport sector is totally in private domain and hence efficient and cost effective. All other infrastructure sectors(like power, telecom, ports and airports) are plagued by similar problems, arresting growth and development of the economy.

Private banks were nationalized in 1969 by Smt.Indira Gandhi (for purely populist and selfish reasons).The leftists and the intelligentsia applauded the foolish action. Look at the result. The NPAs (bad debts) are astronomical and most government banks(like Indian Bank, UCO Bank)are almost bankrupt.Only budgetary support and government protection keeps them alive.The private banks(like the Karur Vysya Bank, The Vysya Bank, TMB, etc) are healthy and growing. All banks operate under similar rules and regulations (including social sector lending obligations ). One must contemplate the reasons for the decay of only the nationalized banks, while private banks are healthy.

Kerala is a classical victim of this socialistic farce.There is abundandant water,ports and a skilled and efficient workforce in Kerala.The banks are awash with deposits.But due to fear of labour militancy and anti-capital government policy,industrialists are reluctant to start industries there.As a result highly educated and skilled Keralites are forced to migrate all over India and abroad in search of employment opportunities.

The leftistists condemn IMF and the World Bank as stooges of western capitalism.But without their timely support we would have gone bankrupt. USA, in the fifties, afforded us technology,capital and aid to develop our industries like steel, infrastructure,etc.We ignored them, while nations like Japan and Malasia utilised the offer and prospered.

Rajaji, a visionary leader, fought against this licence,permit,quota raj all his life. He was for 'lazzie faire' way of economy.Unfortunately his plea fell on deaf ears.Only in 1991 when we were dangerously short of foreign exchange did we realise our folly and began liberalisation and privatisation.

The leftists must be realistic and analyse the perils of Indian brand of socialism that is still plaguing us.

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