OUR NEW TRYST WITH DESTINY

India must complement its great democratic processes and political independence with economic freedom. Ending employed poverty needs innovating at the intersection of jobs and skills education

- Manish Sabharwal

India's twin challenges of politics and economics involved two risky experiments in 1947. The political one-votes for everyone-has worked out spectacularly, with India creating the world's largest democracy on the infertile soil of the world's most hierarchical society. But the economic one-embodied in the Avadi resolution of 1955 where the Congress session adopted a socialist economic path-failed spectacularly because it sabotaged mass prosperity by confiscating the entrepreneurial freedom to create jobs. Consequently, our labour is handicapped without capital and our capital is handicapped without labour. Our unfinished journey from national independence to mass prosperity requires policy innovation at the intersection of jobs and skills. The recent budget has made a great start, but reforms must accelerate.

The Hitopadesha suggestion vidya dadati vinayam (knowledge brings humility) was ignored by knowledgeable romantics, elitists, welfarists, bureaucrats, educationists and trade unionists. Romantics unfairly view private employers as perpetual entities like the government. Elitists think private sector salaries are paid by shareholders rather than customers. Welfarists believe private employment can be substituted by government spending financed by debt. Bureaucrats think statutory employer benefits are financed outside salaries rather than from them. Educationists looked down at skills. And trade unionists believe job preservation is a form of job creation. All six worldviews suffer from inattention to detail; a bird's rather than a worm's eye view of the daily life of investors, employers, employees and job-seekers.

The following reforms need to be carried out to remedy the situation.

THE GIANT STEPS