…I would like the citizens to examine if the recent Budget on Manipur is a budget with contemporary values or it is just a continuation of the global silliness of the 1960s and 1970s. For me I feel pain with both the Budget and the approaches of analysis being adopted by most.
Amar Yumnam
During the periods from the rise of Keynesian Economics (1950s to mid-1970s) and the subsequent period till about the mid-1980s, budget was fundamentally considered a document reflecting the Receipts and the Expenditures of the Government. It was during this period that huge debates were there on Balanced vis-à-vis Unbalanced Budgets; discussions were plenty on Deficit or otherwise of this.
But that perception of Budget is now gone for good. The subject of Economics is a very dynamic one. Starting from about the mid-1980s, the arrogance and the boastfulness in solitary approaches to issues of the public are no longer the qualities of the discipline; the subject now behaves in a very salutary way to the other disciplines of Social Sciences (including Anthropology and Ethics). During the earlier conception of budget, the ruling political party of the government could use the Budget approved by the Legislature as a medium for socio-political trap to utilise fiscal resources without questioning by others. In other words, the Budget was a wonderful medium for the persons in political authority to sustain their political survival with rising wealth without any stoicism.
In the process, the Budget has undergone a dynamic process of evolution from a more or less statement of Receipts and Expenditures to a very significant Policy Document. Now what is a Policy. A Policy is an Exercise of Collective Choice to decide on the social activities to be conducted with the resources the government has got. In the earlier period, the concern was mainly with allocation of government revenue. But as mentioned above, transformation is now such that the only concern with the economic one of Resources and Expenses has been replaced by Inclusive Social Concerns. Simultaneously the earlier targeting system now requires to have an inherent value system. “A policy value can be defined as the informing principle of collective action: it is both motivator and object. A public policy constructs a sense of reality by orientating both observers and participants in a kind of emotional space. The values it represents are the mechanisms of this orientation – sometimes explicit, sometimes implicit. Policy values are related to political values, but they are conceptually distinct from each other. Political values – such as freedom, democracy, equality – underpin the broad design principles of the governments of nation states and change very little over time. Policy values manifest themselves in particular areas of government action – such as in the design of health systems, or in the support given to regions – and change over time, usually slowly, but sometimes quite quickly.”
In the earlier periods, the different sectors were treated almost like independent. But today the values and dynamics of each sector should exhibit mechanisms for interdependent dynamics in the presentation of the Budget itself – this is one of the most important mechanisms to control utilisation of political trap as a means to utilise the resources without any consideration for the implicit or explicit value system and without worrying about the positive effects or otherwise on the society. This applies to every function the government performs.
Here I would certainly put the 1991 Budget of Dr. Manmohan Singh (a Highly Educated person in Economics and not in All Economics) as the Exemplar Budget India has had during the last thirty-five years. Let me mention here certain inherent qualities any budget should possess. First, the Budget should necessarily provide a straightforward presentation of what all have happened during the previous Decade or at least half a decade. Second, unlike the earlier Reports, any Report today should inevitably be Social (Economy today is only a part of the Society and not the only or dominant one). Third, any Budget today should explicitly or implicitly contain a perspective on the envisaged long-term intra-ethnic society if a single community or on inter-ethnic dynamics if a diverse community society. Fourth, even in the international relationships dimension, the Budget should necessarily give an implied direction on how the country is planning to move. Fifth, every Budget today should display the moral ethics underlying the activities being planned and the envisaged outcome in time terms. Sixth, interventions to achieve the feminist objectives should be explicit and the structural dynamics across interventions should be put in the open. Seventh, any Budget today should clearly spell the perspectives of the government in authority on the Federalism Principles and the perspective of the relationship between Federal Authority and the Federating Unit.
Now the imperative for being a Policy Document is all the more compelling in a particular context where the country or a federating unit has been experiencing unwanted social events for some time; the Budget is the most important foundation for functioning and performance in such contexts.
It is exactly here that I would like the citizens to examine if the recent Budget on Manipur is a budget with contemporary values or it is just a continuation of the global silliness of the 1960s and 1970s. For me I feel pain with both the Budget and the approaches of analysis being adopted by most.
(Professor Amar Yumnam is Visiting Professor, Centre for Economic and Social Studies (CESS), Nizamiah Observatory Campus, Begumpet, HYDERABAD, TELENGANA – 500016, India. He is also former Vice Chancellor (I/C), Manipur University, India.)