The UPA's performance is marked by four paradoxes. Under this prime minister, it had the dream economic team. Yet, the dream economic team was doing little more than dreaming. Apart from VAT reform, a major achievement, the government did not take a single significant reform measure. Some of the current slowdown and pessimism about the economy is due to global circumstances. But the blunt truth is the slowdown predates the global downturn while the government was asleep at the wheel.

The UPA's irresponsible management of government finances ensured it had little room for manoeuvre when the downturn came. The government is announcing package after stimulus package. But it is unable to spend the money it has sanctioned. Road construction—an activity central for jobs, inclusion and growth—slowed down because the government endlessly procrastinated over simple contracting issues.

The government wanted inclusive growth, yet it has done virtually nothing for small and medium enterprises and the informal sector, the real drivers of growth. Big industry could rely on captive power plants and special treatment, while small entrepreneurs had to bear the cost of bad public infrastructure. It spent all its political capital on subsiding big business, creating SEZs that are, to put it simply, the largest granting out of private diwani rights since the coming of the East India Company.

The second paradox has to do with its social programmes. NREGA was a well-intentioned programme for income support in rural areas. To a certain extent, it has succeeded. But the supreme irony is that the Congress itself does not seem to believe in its own programme. Except for Andhra, the best performing states under this programme are the BJP-ruled ones. More attention to agriculture was necessary, and the government has had partial success. In health, there is some innovation under various health insurance schemes and the rural health mission. But here, ironically, the states have been the sources of experimentation rather than the Centre.

The increased outlays on health were long overdue. But it is somewhat disappointing that even after five years we do not have much of a roadmap or architecture for what our health system looks like. The dream team has broken no new intellectual ground in the delivery of services. Education outlays and enrolments are up, but the quality indicators are abysmal. And higher education is one sector where there has been regress in terms of state control and further decline of public institutions.

The third paradox is that the UPA's main bedrock ideological claim is secularism. The government's focus on minorities and inclusion was laudable. But its social programmes, as in the past, are designed less to address the root causes of disempowerment than they are to send political signals to different communities. The fact that Narendra Modi would hijack the slogan that poverty has no religion suggests something of an intellectual bankruptcy with which this government approached social inclusion. To put it bluntly, it has tied social programmes to identity politics even more closely, and leaves the country nervous on caste, communal and regional issues.

The fourth paradox has to do with institutions and integrity. The prime minister's personal integrity has been much talked about. But it is impossible to make the case that this government has shown much integrity. Many ministries have acquired reputations for corruption, and our institutions look very fragile. The government has assaulted and weakened every single constitutional office: the Election Commission, through bad appointments; the office of governor through partisanship; Parliament, through opportunistic alliances. The PM had rated administrative reform as his number one priority. The government's single biggest initiative in this area was the Right to Information Act, a true landmark in governance reform. But on many other crucial areas of delivery of social services, identification, police reform, administrative reform, judicial reform, virtually nothing has moved.

Genuinely inclusive growth requires not just profligate spending, but thinking about the architecture of the economy as a whole. How can you have social inclusion when key ministries like power, telecom, education, roads, remain in serious disarray? Other than the Indo-US nuclear deal, the PM did not invest any political capital on issues that truly matter. Given the choices, we may still vote for it. But the UPA has left a serious power vacuum and we can only hope it does not get worse. The most appropriate indictment of this government is that they squandered the good times.

---

(The author is president, Centre for Policy Research)