It is the harsh reality that the people have voted in a certain manner. Why have they done so? Because they have gone through a process of expedience. What is the expedience? The expedience of economic reforms. I am a member of the joint Committee, which is at the moment examining the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill. A gentleman representing the Chamber of Commerce in a written text has stated that as a consequence of liberalisation, hoarding and black-marketing cannot any longer be considered to be a criminal offence. This is the mayhem that has been created in the country. You have the freedom of the city to mulct your/poor consumers and the Government will watch and encourage you from the sidelines. This is precisely what has happened with the onion price, potato price and the mustard oil tragedy that took place in Delhi. It is the economic reforms, the freedom to throttle the consumers that is responsible for it. That is the economic reforms that you export because somebody, some foreigner, must have told you that your domestic prices must be equated to the foreign price. That is what reform is. Why should the onion price in India not be at the same level as the onion price in the United States? The per capita income in India is one per cent of the per capita incomes in the United States of America. Yet, you expect the consumers in India to pay the same price. This is what has happened. If you say that this is all drama and had nothing to do with the economic reforms, I think, there could be no better trvesty of the fact.

In fact, the Finance Minister hit the nail on the head here last week. He said, "the economic policy has been a continuity and he fully approves this continuity". We have seen over the last four or five years, whoever be the Prime Minister and whatever be the political colour, the Congree, to our regret the United Front, and now the BJP-led Government, all the Prime Ministers, as soon as they have been sworn in, have rushed to say that the economic reforms are for ever and it is a great sin not to acknowledge the virtues of economic reforms. Let me say that wee have got seven-and-a-half years of economic reforms. What are the consequences. The Finance Minister is sitting here. I will ask him to protest if any of my facts are wrong. For the last seven-and-a-half years the rate of growth of the economy in the country is exactly half of what it was in the eighties. The rate of industrial growth is also only half of what it was in the eighties.

In the recent months, it has come down to two per cent or less. In agriculture our achievement over the last 7 1/2 years is that the rate of agriculture growth has fallen for the first time since Independence below the rate of population growth. Now our exports are negative and our balance of payment is threatening to run up to 12 billion dollars this year. What did we gain? Who has gained? Now they try to draw our attention to the national income growth, which is five per cent or six per cent or seven per cent. You concentrate on the material goods production. What is happening to the industrial sector? What is happening to the agriculture sector? Overall, in the industrial sector and the agricultural sector the rate of growth would not exceed 2.5 per cent. Then how do you derive this magical five per cent or six per cent rate of growth by showing that the services sector is booming? What is the services sector? It comprises hotels, banks, insurance, plane travel and all that. Let us say India is a poor country. We know what our per capita income is. It I organise 10 or 12 so-called world economic forums in different locations and fly people all over from different parts of the country, that expenditure on plane travel will be added to our national income. What a fat lot of good that will do to the people in the country! This is exactly what is happening in the country in the name of services sector, which is now supposed to be 40 per cent of the national income. You are showing an artificial increase in income from which the common people do not get any benefit. All right, what else have you got? The only thing that you can say is that we have 25 billion dollar foreign exchange reserves which were not there is June 1991. But then let one Mr. George Sores come in with one thousand billion dollars and overnight he can make it play houdini and all these 25 or 30 billion dollars would disappear. Just speculate, speculate and speculate against your currency and this money will disappear. So you are in a very vulnerable position, unless the Finance Minister could be persuaded to impose some restrictions on the short-term capital movements, again which we Leftists have been shouting for the last few years saying you don’t allow free movement of short-term capital, have a locking period, have a high rate of taxation on money that is being sought to be taken out of the country. This is the only way you can somehow protect yourself and you have to protect yourself. What else do you have on the agenda? One thing is very interesting. Last week, I asked of the Finance Minister how much of foreign capital has come in over the last 7 ˝ years. The answer I got is this. I asked, "How much long-term foreign capital has come in and what proportion of it has gone to the luxury sector and to the services sector?" This is the answer that I got from him. My question was, "Will the Finance Minister please state the total volume of long term foreign capital actually invested in the country in each of the years since 1991-92 and the proportion of aggregate investment going to the services sector and the luxury consumption sector". The answer was, "Information is being collected and it will be laid on the Table of the House. Even after 7 ˝ years, we do not know what has been the actual investment that has come in. We see everyday in the newspapers, stories about approvals, foreign investment approvals. But what has been the genuine investment on the basis of the Indian economy and which segments of the economy? Apparently, the Finance Minister is not aware of it. But he has a feeling. He knows that things are not going well. He knows that there is not enough capital.

So, give some more concessions! From 26 per cent of foreign investment, you jump to 49 per cent; /from 49 per cent to 51 per cent, from 51 per cent to 74 per cent; and from 74 per cent, you jump to 100 per cent – 100 per cent equity to the foreigners. Initially, there was a screen that foreign capital should not be allowed to enter the small-scale sector. That screen has also been lifted. It was felt that foreign capital would stay away from the defense sector. Now, you say that even in selective defense areas, foreigners can come. They don’t come. The situation is a little bit like the case of Radha in our classics pining for Lord Krishna – He comes, he comes: He never comes. In this pining of heart, we have lost all initiative. Now, we are leaving everything to the foreigners. When I was young, our grandfathers, who were small land owners, would sit at their fields and young Englishmen would lecture to our grandfathers, grey-haired people. This, I say, was happening seventy or eighty years ago. This is what is happening again now. Young American graduates, at the early age of 25-27, come here. We collect all our representatives of industry and business, our Ministers, and we reverentially here all the scrap that these so-called experts dispense.

Why don’t you, for a change, listen to some of our own experts? It is a huge country, a country of more than 90 crores of people. We have large spate of scientific manpower, economists, sociologists, etc., who can dispense. Why don’t you, for a change, just turn your mind and heart from what the foriegners have to say? What else have you on the agenda? You must revive the share market! This again is a foreign prescription that if you have a vibrant foreign market, that will lead to economic growth. Now we know what they have done in Russia. In the name of creating a vibrant foreign market, the Russian market is taken over by a group of mafias. I was a little hurt when our Finance Minister made a comment last week that we should not say something in the House which would hurt the sentiments of the share market. What have you done – by ‘you’, I don’t mean you, personally – it continues from my friend, Mr. Manmohan Singh, all the way down to Mr. Yashwant Sinha – with the Unit Trust of India. I think you ought not have the temerity to suggest to the Members of Parliament that we should restrain ourselves. But I remember that in this House, we had remonstrated several times with the Ministry of Finance as to why there is private placement by the Unit Trust of India. And nobody is consulted. One does not know --- when you make private placements whether there are also some other shady practices involved. Whether you can draw a perfectly 100 per cent corelationship between the waning fortune of the UTI and the zooming fortune of the Bombay or the Ahmedabad-based industrial family. These are the things which we ought to admit ourselves. You allow the UTI reserves to be trifled away and we watch. Again, I don’t blame the present Finance Minister. It is a continuing thing.

So, faithfully, he is following the code of behaviour that has been laid down earlier. Even in the case of prices also, I think Dr. Manmohan Singh was very unfair when he drew the attention of the House to the fact that the present Government is not passing on the benefits to the consumers on account of the lowering of petroleum prices in the world. It is a continuity. Mr. Yaswant Singh has merely followed Dr. Manmohan Singh. Did Dr. Manmohan Singh ever lower the prices of petroleum products when the world prices declined? No. The Oil Pool Account is because the surplus was not passed on the consumers by way of subsidy. Now, we are following; and we are following a blind man’s path. We cannot really admit ourselves that the word, "economic reforms" the so-called economic reforms, is outdated; it is not going to lead us anywhere. But we have been told that foreigners come and say that we must dismantle our public undertakings. I made a quick estimate. I did mention it in one of the meetings of the Consultative Committee that the total value of the capital stock that we have invested over the first 35 years of our independence in the public sector undertakings add upto something like million dollars. At the rate at which the long-term foreign investment is coming to our country, it will take a minimum of 50 years to replace them. So, shall we? It is easy to destroy. Shall we destroy our public sector undertakings because the foreigners think that it is a wonderful thing?

Then, everything becomes a vacuum. It is not only that. In the meanwhile, you have also sent instructions to the banks that the public sector undertakings, which are in economic difficulties, should not be mollycoddled, should not be allowed working capital funds. So, let them go to the wall! Now, there is one element of the situation which, perhaps, the Finance Minister has himself to realise. For historical reasons, most of the public sector undertakings are located in the eastern part of the country. The workers in the public sector undertakings are not responsible for the shift in economic policies. You said, "all right." Efficiency, efficiency efficiency! So, get rid of these people. Where do they go? Do you, at all, realise the social and political implications?

Thousands and thousands of industrial workers are thrown out of their jobs. What will they do? It is no use talking in terms of efficiency. You may make a particular unit efficient, but, for the economy as a whole, for the polity as a whole, you have to spend money on the defence forces, on law and order, in order to quell the disturbance which will be unleashed when these people are thrown out of their jobs. Now, these are things which a narrow, so-called, classical economist, who is only worried about his little firm, will not take into account.

But if you are doing the accounts on behalf of the nation, you must say, "All right, what is the cost to the nation?" Not the cost to the particular unit, but to the nation as a whole. Who has told you that all foreigners are efficient? I will give you two instances. For the last six or seven years, every year, we have been allowing more and more exploration blocks to foreign companies in the petroleum Sector.

What has been happening? The rate of growth of petroleum production in the country has fallen consistently over these six or seven years. And what has been the performance of these foreigners? Negative, I would say. Now, take the automobile sector. Huge investment in building this luxury car that is known as cadillac! I am told that over the past twelve months, they have sold exactly eleven cadillac? Maybe, two hundred fifty or three hundred crores of rupees. And two hundred fifty or three hundred crores, which is wasted, you may say, is foreign money. No, Sir. It is not just foreign money. They have used our land. They have used our other natural resources in order to set up this plant. Where do you go from here? I could have added on and on and on. But it is not really necessary. It is a question of the entire nation resolving to say that this is a path we should not have taken. We have been taken for a ride for seven-and-a-half years and we have got nothing. There are no objective criteria on the basis of which you van say that the economic reforms are a success. You cannot. Even this amount of twenty-five billion dollars that you have is fragile. But should we persist? Should we persist in opening up the insurance sector? I would request my colleagues to have a look at the so-called Malhotra Committee’s report. It is a report consisting of 150 pages. Out of these 150 pages. Out of these 150 pages, exactly one-and-a-half pages are devoted to the issue of opening up the insurance sector. The rest of the thing is nothing but paeans of praise of what wonderful work the LIC and the GIC have done. In the one-and-a-half pages, they are very apologetic; for example, "You know, since there is liberalisation taking place, it would not look good if we don’t open up the insurance sector". That’s all. An issue of aesthetics, " It would not look good if we don’t open up the insurance sector"! Now, kindly read the literature that we have on the insurance industry, specially in America. It is the most exploitative of the industries that have been set up anywhere. For example, in the name of medical insurance, see how they harass people. I find wild statements like, if we open up, 80 billion dollars of foreign capital would come in. The gentlemen who write up such stuff should have their heads examined. Even wildness has crossed the limits. Why should they put in these eighty billion dollars? They are interested in taking the money out, not in putting the money into India.

Finally, let me talk about a little bit, for one-and-a-half minutes, on the Patens Bill. This is also something that has been hanging fire for a long time. The world economic situation has turned for the worse. Every nation is trying to be more rigidly protective. In a way, the United States Government is very honest. They say that as long as the US Trade Act is there, their Trade Act is supreme; they don’t care for the WTO. If there is a conflict between their Trade Act and the WTO, their Trade Act prevails. They have already stopped the import of shrimps from India. On what grounds? It is a fantastic ground, that in our operations for collecting shrimps we are endangering the life of whales, which is a indescribable crime. Therefore, stop imports from India. They are stopping the import of women’s garments from India because supposedly we did that, that we engaged the sweated labor of women and children. So, there will be any number of grounds.

There was a discussion on anti-dumping measures. We cannot stop them. Under any circumstances, they will clamp anti-dumping measures here, there and everywhere, and they would not stand on ceremonies. What did they do? You see, even in the WTO, there is a provision on that. A poor country, a poor developing country, can continue to impose non-tariff restrictions on agricultural imports, and as long as the country does not, on its own, give up this particular provision, no foreigner can really persuade us to go along. What have you done a couple of years ago? I am not saying that our present Minister is responsible, but the fact has happened that the Ministry of Finance, on its own, wrote to the International Monetary Fund that we have excellent balance of payments. But what is the reality? Our exports are negative; our imports are jumping every month, our trade gap will be something like 12 billion dollars; yet the Ministry of Finance on its own, writes to the IMF and WTO, " you, gentleman, should now approach our Government so that this Government agrees to get rid of the non-tariff barriers on agricultural imports." This is where I would stop. After all, it is a question of realising what our national interests are. There is no question of any party barriers here. We are, after all, Indians. We have to save our country; we have to save our nation; we have to save our economy, and we can do so only when we do something to reinstall the marrow in our national system. We have lost the marrow, thanks to the continuity of the Governments over the past seven-and-a-half years.