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D. Murali

THIS is the time for the yearly ritual of post-Budget carnival, when opinions go about bare as in a Samba dance. There is so much for the ears and, if you are glued to the TV, eyes too, where people toss about numbers and do crystal gazing to state whether what Jaswant did was good, bad or ugly.

With a mike thrust before them, and a question posed asking for a comment on the Budget, most people should be having real fun answering with a terse "excellent", "not bad" and so on, unless they are imaginative enough to prattle phrases such as "it is not for the common man", "he is not looking at employment generation" and so on. Instant opinion could run riot on Web sites that do polls on the fly.

One would only be reminded of John Godfrey Saxe's (1816-1887) version of the famous Indian legend, The Blind Men and the Elephant. "It was six men of Indostan/To learning much inclined/Who went to see the Elephant (Though all of them were blind)/That each by observation/ Might satisfy his mind," he begins. The story goes on to say how one found it as a wall, while the rest had their own views about it being a fan, spear, snake, tree and rope. When commentators approach the Budget with their own specialisations, the situation is no different. For instance, while theoretically infrastructure projects generate employment, critics point out that massive investment in roads and mega projects may not be labour intensive.

At the current level of building technology, when even small neighbourhood constructions depend on ready-mix concrete, it would be futile to expect queues of labourers waiting with head-loads of cement and stone cocktail to pour into giant pillars, or achieve kilometres of asphalt within tight deadlines despite carrying the social baggage of job generation.

Budgets are no magic wand and if policies create the right environment for the nation to move up a few notches, the FM can be graduated from being a probationer to a tenure post.

More honestly, when war clouds refuse to disperse, contributing much to the uncertainty in the air, and businesses are yet to shake off the slowdown syndrome, one expected the FM to impose more taxes or surcharge by harping on national security.

The Kelkar report was like the pre-surgical preparation and when people waited for the B-Day, with bated breath, there was the resigned acceptance that knife would be placed at last, though feeble hopes wished the operation to be painless.

As an anti-climax, however, Mr Jaswant Singh seemed to giving with both hands, rather than peeling of everybody's shirt. Praise is muted though; perhaps more out of the fear whether when it is time to take stock of the actual position of numbers next year round, there could be shocks.

Contrary to his predecessor Mr Yashwant Sihna, Jaswant-ji does not look like a rollback man. But there are apprehensions that some of his proposals will have starting trouble.

The much-hyped VAT may be in incubator after the V-Day of April 1, it is stated. Debt-swaps do not seem to make a dent in expenditure reduction, experts point out. There is not much to cheer the bourses, sceptics whine.

The poet Saxe would put it this way: "And so these men of Indostan/Disputed loud and long/Each in his own opinion/Exceeding stiff and strong/Though each was partly in the right/And all were in the wrong!"

That could be harsh to most of our commentators to whom many look up to for words of wisdom about Budget. Yet, the truth is that it requires great courage on the part of a Finance Minister to want to move from "a suspicion-ridden, harassment generating, coercion-inclined regime to a trust-based, `green channel' system" of taxation. So, why not turn the traffic lights from red to amber and let him `bridge the divide'?

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