NEW DELHI: The former Prime Minister, Chandra Shekhar, charged the Narasimha Rao govt with “mortgaging” the country’s interests to the World Bank under the pretext of economic reforms.

Denouncing the devaluation of the rupee and other measures recently announced by the govt, in the Lok Sabha, the former Prime Minister said they were a “leap in the dark” and calculated to make Indian economy totally dependent on U.S. markets. “The saddest part is that the full implications of what is being done in the name of setting the economy right are not being realized by the Congress govt. The so-called economic reforms would not only undermine economic independence but also seek to transform our culture as had happened with Thailand, Philippines and South Korea Chandra Shekhar said.

ROW OVER WB REPORT: he former Prime Minister kicked up a row over deliberate withholding of an important World Bank communication from him by some senior officials while he was heading the govt. He said the communication had been received in November last and now to his horror he had found that it contained the blueprint of the economic measures currently introduced by the govt. He demanded a probe as to why the document had not been shown to his govt.

Chandra Shekhar’s accusation that the current economic reforms were strictly on the lines of what had been recommended by the World Bank made the Union finance minister. Dr. Manmohan Singh rise up in protest and intervene, He said: That is not true. We had ourselves worked the entire package of reforms. This caused the Shekhar to flaunt in the House a document which he said was a copy of the World Bank recommendations and its very language, substance and tone were what had been announced by the Union commerce minister while making proposals for deregulation of trade recently.

I D E N T I CAL THINKING: Chandra Shekhar said while he did not doubt the sincerity of the finance minister he could not help noticing that his thinking was identical to the thinking of the World Bank experts. It was hard to imagine such a case of coincidence where a member of the govt was articulating what was being said in Washington or New York.

 The SJP leader recalled that sometime in the early eighties a World Bank publication had clearly stated that loans from his agency would be available only to those countries which agreed to promote US interests.

Article extracted from this publication >> July 26, 1991