Book review
Yashwant Sinha was finance minister for four years, until 2002, and presented five budgets. In Confessions of a Swadeshi Reformer he gives us the inside story of how the framework for the growth that has taken place subsequently was laid in that time. From the reforms that were initiated to the politics that threatened all initiative, the opposition from within the party as also outside it, which tried to derail the process, Sinha pulls no punches in this candid memoir. In the popular eye, the finance minister is often seen as a taxing machine, a man entrusted, with a certain amount of misery which is his duty to distribute as fairly as he can. This may perhaps be true, but, as this memoir shows, the finance minister can also bestow a few pleasant surprises. The Author: Born in Patna, Yashwant Sinha was educated there, and received his master’s in political science in 1958. He joined IAS in 1960. After taking voluntary retirement from IAS in 1984, he joined active politics as a member of the Janata Party. He was elected to the Rajya Sabha in 1988. His first tenure as Minister of Finance, from 1990 to 1991, was in the Chandra Shekhar cabinet. He again held the same portfolio from March 1998 to July 2002 in the Vajpayee government, and then served as external affairs minister. He lives in New Delhi with his wife Nilima and three children. EXCERPT: I presented a better budget in 1999. I had learnt my lessons from the 1998 budget and was able to avoid the mistakes I had made then. This budget was also received much more favourably. In fact, when political developments forced an election, Advani said that we would go to the polls with the slogan of ‘Three Bs’. The first was the good budget; the second was Bihar, because we had imposed President’s rule there, though we could not carry it through the Rajya Sabha. The third B, of course, was the ‘bomb’ the nuclear tests.The first part of the budget session passed without any mishap. But, during the parliamentary recess Jayalalitha decided to withdraw her support to the government. This created a doubt about our majority in the Lok Sabha. The opposition parties started demanding that the government seek a vote of confidence, as soon as Parliament met. The President also suggested to the prime minister that he seek a vote of confidence. To ask a government to seek a vote of confidence in a budget session was a very unusual request to make, because during the budget session the government’s majority is on test almost on a daily basis in the Lok Sabha through some financial business or the other. Under our system, if the government loses the vote on any financial business, it has to resign. As directed by the President, however, we sought a vote of confidence. There was a day-long debate followed by the vote. We lost that vote of confidence by just one vote. Giridhar Gomango, who was the chief minister of Orissa, was technically still a member of the Lok Sabha. He was asked by the Congress party to come to the House that day and vote against us. Many felt that it was morally not correct for him to do so. But politics and morality do not often go together.