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A look at the myth of
Mr. Naidu is key to grasping a lot of things. Including the gigantic crisis
crippling Andhra Pradesh today. On most indicators, he ran the worst performing
State in the south of India for nearly 10 years. Yet the more damage he did, the
more his media standing grew. The gap between his image and his record is
stunning
No other figure in
Indian politics got the kind of press that Mr. Naidu did. The ‘miracle man’. The
‘Generation-Next CM’ and of course, ‘The CEO of Andhra Pradesh.’ A larger than
life image held up by huge spending on self-publicity helped this along.
Ad-gurus from Mumbai flew in to foster it. Our media lapped it up. And
starry-eyed journalists from The New York Times, The Financial Times
and heaps of other places, weighed in with their bit.
Take 2002 for
instance. Top international journals were scripting the Naidu-namah.
Hyderabad was full of their hacks. One of them all but asked the Third World to
pray for leaders like Mr. Naidu. That his regime had just chalked up poor growth
in agriculture seemed hardly to matter. The image was the thing. When the media
dealt with Mr. Naidu, facts were irrelevant. As the founder of Private Eye
once said: "Never let the truth stand in the way of a good story."
That was the editor of a satirical journal speaking half in jest. Our own
editors applied that dictum with real zest and no trace of humour.
In quite a few years
after coming to power it became clear that the policies driven by enthusiasm
were disastrous for millions of poor people in his State. However, the more he
disconnected from the poor, the more the corporate world loved him. He was now
the champion of ‘the reforms.’ The darling of international donors.
Endorsements from the
World Bank, Bill Gates, Bill Clinton and assorted other billionaires further
puffed his image — that of a selfless CEO slaving through sleepless nights to
lead his dumb masses to enlightenment. All the evidence to the contrary seemed
not to shake this. A few thousand farmers taking their own lives did fray the
image for some. But mostly, as is now painfully clear, the media failed the
challenge of that issue. Again, a couple of such stories did make the front
pages outside the State — after the exit polls.
Even the stories that
did appear were shallow. Most reduced the suicides to solely an outcome of
drought. A lazy way of dodging the many factors behind them. On the whole, a
sloppy sycophancy affected media across the board.
A hard-headed
publication like The Financial Times fell in line. (May 2, 2003.) It had
no qualms about suggesting: "In a country where lower caste women are locked
out of decision-malting, the government of Andhra Pradesh is sponsoring a social
revolution." This was happening in "thousands of villages" in the State.
This, of Andhra Pradesh, where the panchayats were shut out and destroyed by Mr.
Naidu’s schemes. The FT correspondent even found a village where women "who
had for generations stayed indoors without voice or influence, now dominate the
village square."
The Wall Street
Journal saw him as "a model for fellow state leaders." Time
magazine declared him ‘South Asian of The Year’ as early as 1999. Newsweek
responded by crediting Mr. Naidu with a Ph.D. he does not have.
In the Indian media,
the breathless awe and wonder was over the top. Yelling "IT’ and "software"
often enough became a substitute for actual performance in those vital fields.
Andhra Pradesh did not lead the nation. But media audiences thought it did. The
State was not even in the top three. And was slipping in the ranks.
This is also a State
whose literacy levels are the worst in the south and lag behind the national
average. A glance at the (Tata) Statistical Outline of India would show
this: Even Cyberabad’s literacy is behind that of Patna, Ranchi, Bhopal, Indore,
Jabalpur and Jaipur. And that’s the rating of Mr. Naldu’s showpiece.
It’s a State where
millions of children are outside school. A State that has the largest number of
child labourers in the country. And one where close to 90 per cent of rural
workers are either illiterate or educated only up to the primary level.
Employment growth saw
a drastic decline in the Naidu era. In rural Andhra Pradesh, it was 2.40 per
cent per annum in the decade before him. It fell to 0.29 per cent during
1994-2000. This was a worse decline than that seen in the rest of India. The
rate of growth of real wages in rural areas fell sharply in the 1990s.
What the media fondly
called "one of the fastest-growing States" was really stumbling. The
growth of GDP was just around 5 per cent for 1994-2001. Lowest among the
southern States. Lower than the national average. Lower than what the same State
had posted during 1981-91. Economists C. Mahendra Dev and C. Ravi show that "in
the l980s, A.P. was one of the top performing states in terms of Gross State
Domestic Product (GSDP) growth. Only three states, Rajasthan, Haryana and
Maharashtra, showed higher growth than A.P. in the 1980s." However, this
rank sank from number four to eight in the next decade. "Seven states showed
higher growth than A.P. in the 1990s." The State was overtaken by Gujarat,
Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal.
This was the one
State in the south that showed no improvement in its Infant Mortality Rate (IMR)
between the first and second National Family Health Surveys. (Those came out in
the early and late 1990s.) Indeed, its IMR of 65 is slightly worse than Bihar
(62) on this count.
Small farmers did
badly everywhere in the country in the 1990s. But it was in Andhra Pradesh that
they committed suicide in thousands. The years of hostile policy still take a
toll. The suicides continue in the weeks after Mr. Naidu’s exit. And there is a
Kafkaesque touch to his standing up in the State Assembly demanding a decent
deal for the farmers.
Through it all, Naidu-worship
in the media only grew. With not an iota of scepticism. The media bias of Naidu
called him the son of a "poor agriculturist." Or of a "small farmer."
Or of a "modest farmer." How the modest farmer and his spouse came to be
worth Rs. 21 crores after nine years in power is a mystery no one wants to
solve. That’s the figure you’ll find in his poll-time declaration of assets. But
no questions. The king could do no wrong.
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