Rahul Gandhi's pulling a Kejriwal on PM Modi: It is time for a strategic retreat on Land Bill

From all appearances, the odds are even that neither the GST Bill nor the Land Acquisition Bill will clear the opposition roadblock in the current session of parliament. The Congress party, rejuvenated by the return of its prodigal son, is in no mood to give the government an easy time on GST. As for the land bill, it is simply no-go; the government has painted itself into a corner through bad strategy, dollops of unexpected bad luck and by misreading the Rahul Gandhi political challenge. The Gajendra Singh made-for-TV “suicide” - which is as likely to have been an accident as suicide - has completely changed the optics and media narratives around the land bill. The unconnected issues of farmer suicides and land acquisition are now being conflated to give the impression that the government is anti-farmer and pro-industry. Rahul Gandhi’s entry into this scene as the Farm Messiah has wrongly been interpreted by his own party and the BJP as a direct targeting of Modi, which is why the BJP is reacting strongly to this and offering no compromise. But the bald truth is that Rahul Gandhi is actually trying to steal Arvind Kejriwal’s clothes in order to reclaim the political space ceded to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) recently. He is using Kejriwal’s current internal distractions to push the Congress centrestage. Both Congress and AAP are targeting the same political positioning; one can thrive only at the expense of the other. (Of which more later) [caption id=“attachment_2220268” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] PTI image[/caption] The trilemma before Narendra Modi – and his strategists, assuming there are some - is this: should he soldier on and embrace possible defeat, or seek a compromise on both bills by watering them down beyond recognition, or searching for a Plan C, a completely new initiative which also harnesses the subterranean Kejriwal-Rahul battle for supremacy in order to make gains for his own party and government? The way out is to make a strategic retreat, rework strategy and attack the opposition after thinking through both bills. A strategic retreat is not a defeat; it is a breather you allow yourself in order to take the fight to the enemy camp at a time and place of your choosing. Between the two, I personally believe that the land bill is more important in the near future, even though GST also has the potential to revolutionise the economy over the long term. The problem with the GST bill as it now stands is that it is a moth-eaten one, a pale shadow of its original radical intent, as AK Bhattacharya argues convincingly in this Business Standard article. There are now so many exclusions from the ambit of GST (alcohol, tobacco, petro-goods, all big revenue generators) and terrible inclusions (a new tax on inter-state movement of goods to appease manufacturing states) that the proposed changeover looks like too much hassle for too little gain. However, it is still worth having a half-loaf instead of the whole loaf in GST, but an additional three-month delay to get the Congress on board cannot be a deal-breaker. Who knows, if the Congress can claim credit for the GST, we may even get something better (but I wouldn’t bet on it). So, the Modi government should certainly agree to a Congress proposal to re-examine the bill and suggest final changes for passing in the monsoon session of parliament. However, on the land bill it has to fight an aggressive campaign, but not on the opposition’s chosen turf and terms, where the dialogue is about suicide and confiscation of land. The NDA government must make a tactical withdrawal from the current bill, look sufficiently chastened in public, pay the usual homage to farmers, offer wider political consultations and create an all-new bill with a different name and purpose beyond just land acquisition. What Modi needs to do is reposition the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act (which makes the farmer sound like a victim who needs rescue) as the Rejuvenation of Farms and Improvement in Rural Incomes Bill. Land acquisition for public purposes has to be a vital part of it, but portrayed as a solution to issues of farm distress rather than as a further attack on hapless farmers. The key elements of the new bill should be the following: One, it should facilitate the consolidation of uneconomic farms into larger chunks so that banks can finance land purchases by capable farmers who can then improve productivity through higher investments in mechanisation, seeds, and crop mix. In this scenario, the relatively bigger farmers - now ranged against the government but firing from the shoulders of small farmers - will see opportunity rather than problems in land acquisition. They will become acquirers of land, and not just sellers. Two, compulsory land acquisitions for public purposes should give marginal and small farmers a choice of three kinds of compensation - or a mixture of all three: a) An above-market price plus an annuity that is clearly greater than the current incomes generated by farming on small pieces of land; b) A long lease of the land plus rising annuity incomes for the farmer over, say, a 20-year period; and c) Four times market price, plus jobs or a share in future profits from land development. In all three cases, farmers and those impacted by land acquisitions must be given free skill-building packages and investment advice to enable them to earn a living even without the land. Investments and research in higher-yielding seeds, including GM seeds, ought to be a priority for government and private sector labs. Funds will not be the problem. Between existing NREGA outlays and food and fertiliser subsidy rationalisation, the government will have more than Rs 1,00,000-1,50,000 crore to play around with for this purpose. NREGA can be improved and extended, and skill-building can be a part of it. The UPA’s Land Act can be scrapped and its compulsory acquisition provisions subsumed in the new pro-rural bill, after suitable renaming. Modi’s strategists have made the mistake of failing to work around the politics of the land bill, which was evolved by the UPA to perpetuate its feudal hold on the rural masses, use poor farmers to strengthen bigger rural landlords, most of whom have political clout, and, of course, scorch the earth for the NDA which was sure to come to power in 2014. The UPA ensured that the NDA would have a tough time reviving growth with its growth-retarding land bill and enormous fiscal subsidies. Luck, however, favoured Modi in 2014, which enabled him to avoid this trap last year – thanks to falling oil prices. But Lady Luck is now siding with Rahul Gandhi in 2015. After facing defeat after defeat, especially in Delhi, at the hands of the BJP and Arvind Kejriwal, Rahul now sees an opening in Kejriwal’s internal party woes. He is thus trying to do a Kejriwal on Kejriwal and retrieve lost ground. Consider how much like Kejriwal Rahul now sounds. In 2013-14, Kejriwal shifted strategy from targeting the Congress to Modi, the rising power. He also positioned himself as pro-aam aadmi by becoming decidedly anti-big business in his pronouncements. This is exactly what Rahul is doing today: targeting Modi, and painting business as rapacious and anti-poor, anti-farmer. His trip to Kedarnath was intended to reassure Hindus that he is not anti-majority. Kejriwal took a dip in the Ganga at Varanasi to emphasise the same point. The truth is the Aam Aadmi Party and the Congress share the same political space. One can gain only at the cost of the other. One of them has to knock the other one out. This is where Modi and the BJP have an opportunity. A small accretion to Congress strength is a plus for the BJP in a first-past-the-post electoral system. If AAP and Congress divide the anti-BJP vote, the BJP will gain. When one of them loses comprehensively - as the Congress did in Delhi - the other gains disproportionately (as AAP did in February). Rahul Gandhi is trying to take advantage of the AAP’s fall from grace and preoccupation with internal issues to rebuild the Congress and reclaim its old space. It won’t happen easily, for Kejriwal is no pushover. He may be down, but certainly not out. Modi would benefit politically by letting Rahul savour a temporary victory on the Land Bill and then counter-attack with the Rejuvenation of Farms and Improvement of Rural Incomes Bill in the monsoon session of parliament. He should have got the allies on his side by then, not to speak of a few of the frenemies (BJD, AIADMK, etc). A strategic retreat is called for to conserve enough political capital for the next assault.