YSR’s legacy: Andhra as a lab for policy experiments

This blog is a die-hard fan (see here, here, and here) of the late Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy:  he delivered both development and electoral success for the Congress in Andhra Pradesh.  India Today has published an interesting piece analyzing the state of his legacy, in particular the numerous social programs he launched for the state’s farmers, women, and the poor.

The new chief minister, K. Rosaiah, has pruned these programs’ budgets but the cuts are not severe enough to dilute YSR’s legacy.  A more interesting insight from this article is the following:

The pioneering cashless health cover for the poor, the Rajiv Arogyasri Scheme, provides domiciliary health care, including expensive surgeries at state expense. Nearly 2.4 crore families have received medical benefits but given the nature of health problems and the expense, whatever is done remains inadequate.  While extending quality health care through the extended referral system, Rajiv Aryogyasri has inadvertently helped revive what seemed a dysfunctional primary health care system and raised some hope of deliverance from an increasingly unaffordable health regime for the poor.

The article goes on to highlight the cost control issues with the health policy but it is heartening to see the network effects of some of these policies.  Primary health care in India is in a dismal state and if Andhra’s experiment shows a way to revive it, YSR’s legacy will in time include the transformation of Andhra from a state known for its paddy fields, software engineers, and movie-crazed masses to the laboratory for policy experiments.  This is also a great story why politics is fascinating: it enables the creation and delivery of new ideas and YSR certainly had many of them.

Telengana: Royal bungle

The graphic in this article from Outlook reflects what a royal bungle the idea of creating Telengana is.

On YSR again

When P. Sainath — the only hack truly covering agriculture and poverty in India — writes, I read with attention. In his obit of YSR, Sainath catalogues the Chief Minister’s contributions. One knows that YSR was something when a journo like Sainath laments his passing.

Several readers have been surprised — given the country’s growing cynicism of politics — with the widespread grief, deep anguish, and mass turnout in Andhra Pradesh following YSR’s death.  This blog’s readers have asked why because such adulation has, in the past, been reserved for the Gandhi family or movie stars-turned-politicians.  Three reasons why YSR was so popular:

1.  YSR made governance inclusive …

When the urban media was portraying the laptop-toting, World Bank report-reading Chandrababu Naidu as the country’s model Chief Minister, YSR embarked on a 1,500-kilometre padayatra to understand the pain, needs, and aspirations of Andhra’s poor and reminded the world that India continued to live in its villages.  In his first term, YSR delivered free power to farmers for five years; subsidized rice, oil, lentils, and LPG cylinders for families below the poverty line; constructed free houses under the Indiramma program; implemented a state-wide microfinance program for women self-help groups (pavala vaddi); provided state-funded health insurance up to Rs. 2 lakh (arogyasri), enabled the “Dial 104″ rural mobile health units, and introduced a state-wide “Dial 108″ ambulance service (YSR would often begin his 2009 campaign meetings by mimicking the siren); and vigorously implemented the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (the UPA government’s singular achievement in its first term) and created the Rajiv Udyogasri plan to create 25 lakh jobs by 2013.  To continue this governance-focused agenda, YSR was on his way to Chittoor to launch his new Racchabanda program, when his helicopter crashed.

2.  … invested in infrastructure … 

Without the media hype so common during Naidu’s tenure, YSR enabled seminal public-private infrastructure projects.  These include the metro in Hyderabad; state-wide power and irrigation projects; ports at Vadarevu, Nizampatnam, Gangavaram, and Krishnapatnam; airports at Hyderabad and Vizag; over a 100 SEZ projects; the real estate boom across the state; and numerous other private investments totaling collectively Rs 225,000 crores (or $55 billion).  YSR achieved all these without resorting to any of Naidu’s gimmicky video conferences, World Bank meetings, and high-profile advisors.  There is an interesting anecdote in this regard.  Apparently Sam Pitroda was invited for a prestigious lecture in Andhra Pradesh and YSR was invited to preside and benefit from the technocrat’s advice.  YSR graciously offered the use of a helicopter to ferry Pitroda back and forth but politely refused the tête-à-tête saying something to the effect that facilitating development was not “rocket science.”

3.  … and retained touch with people. 

Following YSR’s death, the media is replete with stories of his smile, confidence, and desire to visit people and identify ways to meet their needs.  Several other tributes have talked about how hard he worked throughout his tenure.  Of greater significance was his principle-based political vision, in particular his steadfast refusal to support Telengana as a separate state.  We need to distinguish his statements, often driven by realpolitik and pressure from Delhi, from his actions which clearly marginalized the separatist movement.  Finally, he eliminated dissidence within the Congress party, developed a new generation of young leaders, and contributed to the party’s national success in the 2009 election as I have discussed elsewhere.

Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy vs. Chandrababu Naidu

‘Tis the season of post-election analysis.  Over lunch at the Green Park in Hyderabad, the city bureau chief of a respected newspaper drew a compelling distinction between the politics of the victorious Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy of the Congress, and the vanquished Telugu Desam Party chief, Chandrababu Naidu.

Naidu’s policies as Chief Minister emphasized IT industry-led urban development compelling the young in the villages to pursue jobs in the cities leaving their parents unattended in their golden years.  Reddy’s pro-agriculture and socialist policies allow free medical care for the old (arogyasri) besides incentivizing the young to build livelihoods in the villages.

India’s battleground states

This is what happens when your blog’s author is a non-resident Indian.  Drawing from the U.S. elections, here are India’s battleground states whose outcomes will decide who will form a government.

Battleground	Notes
Andhra Pradesh	Congress needs to retain seats
Gujarat	BJP will have to do well
Rajasthan	Congress will have to improve
Kerala	Congress will have to do well
Bihar	RJD upset could kill BJP’s chances
Uttar Pradesh	SP, BSP, or BJP upset will determine winner

Can Chiranjeevi repeat history in Andhra Pradesh?

Chiranjeevi is more to Telugu cinema than Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh, and Aamir Khan put together can ever be for Bollywood.  This election will test if Chiranjeevi’s popularity will translate to votes for his Praja Rajyam Party (PRP) but the growing consensus is that his party will end up in the third place with 15-20 assembly and 0-2 parliamentary seats.  Disabused of illusions, Chiranjeevi himself is contesting from a second “safe” seat, Palakol in West Godavari district.

Palakol, near Chiranjeevi’s birth place, is where I spent numerous summers visiting my grandparents.  As children, my cousins and I would return from the late night shows excited by Chiranjeevi’s action thrillers while in recent times he has energized fans by attacking corruption in movies such as Stalin and Tagore.  In real life, Chiranjeevi has channeled his popularity to drive blood and organ donations so successfully that India Today included him on a recent list of 50 powerful Indians.

This compelling legacy is dangerously close to being destroyed by a carefully pondered but poorly implemented political entry.  Electoral success these days needs more than mass hysteria.  It needs a coalescing political issue or vision; a thoughtful but dynamic strategy; and diligent implementation by a band of organizers, campaigners, and strategists at multiple levels. 

Chiranjeevei, however, was following the template N.T. Rama Rao (NTR) created 27 years ago in March 1982 when the latter cashed in his popularity as a Telugu movie superstar to form the Telugu Desam Party (TDP).  However, NTR leveraged two key issues to channel his mass following into a landslide two-thirds majority in January 1983.  One was Teluguvari Atmagauravam (“Telugu Pride”), which had been hurting from a broad range of slights by the Nehru-Gandhi family beginning decades ago from the agitation for a separate state (e.g., Nehru in a letter to C. Rajagopalachari: “Some kind of fast is going on for the Andhra Province ….  I am totally unmoved …”).  The other seminal coalescing issue NTR exploited was the promise to sell rice to the poor for two rupees a kilogram, creating precedence for the blatant political use of extreme populism.

This year, the TDP too is hard at work on destroying its “Telugu Pride” legacy by allying with the Telangana Rashtriya Samiti (TRS) whose sole political goal is the creation of the state of Telangana by breaking the region away from Andhra Pradesh.  This is, however, TRS’ second turn at the wheel.  It did well in 2004 by leveraging this issue and spent almost five years in power by participating in the Congress-led UPA government.  Why should the people of Telangana buy the TRS’ tired promises again is an open question?

In general, the Congress government’s performance over the past five years is viewed favorably.  It has certainly lost some ground in recent months and the high voter turnout may further impact its performance.  However, the TDP may not be the beneficiary because of caste polarization that has intensified further following PRP’s entry.  The kapu community typically aligns with the TDP but is expected to switch allegiance to PRP significantly impacting the TDP especially in the coastal districts.  Andhra will, most likely, see a Congress-PRP coalition government.