File photo of Gita Gopinath. ReutersThis was expected. The apparatchiks, smarting about how a progressive chief minister is working silently but steadily to align the communist movement in Kerala to modern and progressive development goals, were waiting for an opportunity.
Pinarayi Vijayan's selection of Harvard professor Gita Gopinath as his economic adviser has now given some regressive elements in the Left a platform to snipe at the chief minister.
Gopinath is an accomplished economist and Pinarayi's move is widely seen as an attempt to tap into Kerala's great overseas talent for the state's development. But the whisper campaign started in the communist camp and the left-leaning press picked it up almost immediately. What will a macro economist do in Kerala? Her expertise is in currency markets; how will that help Kerala? Her neo-liberal credentials will align the LDF government's economic goals with that of prime minister Narendra Modi's, and that is apocalypse. How will she bring in foreign investment?
Harvard prof Gita Gopinath is Pinarayi Vijayan's financial adviser
And then there was this little gem from a bureaucrat in the Kerala government: "Kerala's treasury can be managed by an under secretary. What will she do here?"
Prabhat Patnaik, the veteran Marxist economist long loved by the conservative Marxist faction in Kerala and the press, has now joined the bandwagon. He says Keralites' development vision cannot be destroyed by advice from such persons.
One question I have here is, how does an academic like Patnaik know Keralites' development vision better than an elected chief minister? And Patnaik, who still belts out as communist gospel what Lenin said in Zurich during the Bolshevik era, is strangely silent on China, and how the communist government there has turned the country into a global economic powerhouse. The Chinese model has delivered, and is now being followed by prime minister Modi and Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan. In contrast, the development and employment-generation record of Kerala when Patnaik headed the planning board was abysmal -- to say the least. Shouldn't the current chief minister be lauded for the courage to hew new paths more in tune with the times?
Will Kerala reject Gita Gopinath's neo-liberal policies? This Marxist economist says yes
Patnaik recently wrote in an article: “the Indian communists, despite being opposed to globalization and associated neo-liberal policies, have not charted a concrete alternative development strategy."
Yes, sir, you have hit the nail on its head. But the difference between you and the chief minister of Kerala is that he is wise and smart enough to realize this lack of alternatives as the crux of the problem facing communist governments in India and is taking steps to address it, while you continue to talk doctrinaire drivel. In plain words, you, sir, lack people-connect, especially with the younger generation, while Pinarayi has loads of it.
One needn't look far to see the cause of Patnaik's disaffection. He was widely expected to adorn the state planning board chair when the LDF came back to power. But Pinarayi Vijayan knows how to walk his talk, and he knows better than anyone else that giving Patnaik the job will be tantamount to going back to the stagnant days of the previous Achuthanandan-led LDF government.
This chief minister understands the value of brands. Gita Gopinath is an international brand, unlike the likes of Patnaik, whose fame is confined to Kerala, West Bengal, the Delhi press and probably Cuba. Gopinath may not bring direct investment; her talents may not be necessary to manage Kerala's treasury and debt burden, and she may be a macro economist whose skills could not be of much use in a micro setting. But then there is something called brand rub-off. Her appointment has headline value. And that will send the right signals to the investors out there about the intentions of this government. It will show them unequivocally that Pinarayi Vijayan and his team mean business and they are willing to throw ideological straitjackets into the dustbin for that. It shows that they have jettisoned the Achuthanandan model that had cost Kerala precious 5 years in its development journey.
But the people who are making a noise in the bush about Gopinath's appointment hardly know these things. They only understand Achuthanandan's destructive politics, his regressive ideology and doctrinaire approach.
Look at it from the chief minister's side: allowing people such as Patnaik, who have little other than academic papers to showcase, would have risked Pinarayi getting a status similar to that of Buddhadev Bhattacharjee in Marxist history. The poor man is widely credited with ending CPM rule in West Bengal, although much of that blame should have gone to veteran Marxist Jyoti Basu's long reign.
Allowing the likes of Patnaik to continue to influence policy would have meant the sins of the Castro of Kerala would have been foisted on Pinarayi's head by history writers. Pinarayi is more pragmatic than that, and way smarter than the wily old man.
It is more like a case of sour grapes for these elements who have been banished from the limelight by the strongman chief minister. This chief minister has shown the guts to step out of the narrow, doctrinaire path that has been leading Kerala to economic destruction. And in doing so, he has shown that he has got his finger on the pulse of the people.
