Reforms with human face

One important aspect of any public debate on reforms is inbuilt bias against reforms.
There is no doubt that strictly on merit reforms are the unambiguous winner. Unfortunately however, debates in political space have less to do with merit, and more to do with the emotional rhetoric. And this is where status quoist (favouring government intervention and largess) dominate.

Socialists accomplishes this by framing the reference of debate. Hence instead of debate about being how socialist policies, in particular government intervention and central planning have been abysmal failure, a specious argument is put forwards that since reforms (or whatever goes for it) have not accomplished poverty alleviation during last decade, hence they have also failed, thus establishing a moral equivalency. This absurdity is sustained by long winded rhetoric about impoverished with random statistics thrown.

Voluble prose, in which these "feel-gooders" excel, is employed in order to evoke compassion, and what can only be called psychological masterstroke, guilt. And it is here that the supporters of market are floored. Because markets can not bring about prosperity within short term.
This implies even with open and deregulated economy, extreme poverty will persist, at least for few decades. This leaves the field open for progressive left to push their agenda, aided by narratives and visuals of misery, which of course sets back the agenda of reform. The fact, that supported of reforms are more or less on back foot, doesn't help either.

The way out of this most pernicious dilemma is to employ the humane angle along with statistics and economic arguments, in other words to spread the good news. The strategy should be to stress the fact that reform has changed lives of millions for good, to emphasize that "common man" is indeed the beneficiary. This ranges from the graduates who employed in IT and ITES are able to earn amount unheard of previously, to the humble driver or gardener or maid, who can afford a better life style due to rising wages and affordable consumer goods, to the farmers who benefits from rising land prices and can afford to get out from a stagnant agricultural sector.

(Following paragraph is update with inputs from Rohit)

To emphasize the point, the "horrors" of license permit rule must be made known, and stressed to younger (post 91) as well the previous generation. How there was waiting period of years for something as common as gas connection or scooter or even telephone and to press the point, that the only reason for the lost decades, the unrealized potential, and the chronic poverty is nehruvian penalty


I have no doubts that it is more than enough to counter nattering nabobs of negativism. There is more to it. Since media is always hungry for human angle, this kind of strategy can help remove the misconception that reforms are essentially elitist, with nothing to offer to poor.
With this, it is possible to form an opinion among masses in favour of reforms, ultimately forming a core, not necessarily electorally decisive, but vocal. This is essential in order that reforms and market can have electoral legitimacy, for the bitter truth is that so far in India reforms are far from a political platform, instead whatever progress has taken place is either because reforms were shoved down our collective throat by world bank in 1991, or by stealth under leadership of P. V. Narsimha Rao and A. B. Vajpayee.

"India Shining" campaign was a step in right direction. Where it faltered however was by going overboard in "veneration" of then Prime Minister and altering the platform from merit of reforms to rhetoric and "hero worship".

We do not really need a "free market Gandhi", what we need is "a few good men".