Man of the masses or man of corruption?

Hyderabad: A comparison of late Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy and Robin Hood may be a little farfetched, but what of those who call him a modern-day Godman?

Two years after the man who brought the Congress to power twice in Andhra Pradesh died in a horrible helicopter crash, the legacy of YSR is the subject of a raging debate. Was he a saint of the poor or patriarch of a clique that plundered the state at its will and pleasure?

The answer, perhaps, is both.

In the first months after Rajasekhara Reddy's ascent to power in 2004, there used to be a tale told of two almirahs in his office: one containing files pertaining to individuals or companies which met 'all requirements' and the other with files marked 'pending.' The latter would not be touched until 'requirements' were met, upon which the file got transferred to the other almirah.

Hundreds of files pertaining to regularisation of prime lands in and around the state capital, kept pending during the TDP regime, got cleared within no time. Simutaneously, government lands worth thousands of crore rupees were sold to companies.

The trend continued for the rest of his tenure, be it the sanction of contracts for irrigation projects, allotment of special economic zones (SEZs), power plants or ports. This was one face of the leader.

But ask Anjaneyulu, a farmer from Rudraram mandal of Medak district how he remembers the late chief minister, and he has a different take: 'We are not bothered about how much money YSR or his son made. What I remember is that the moment he signed the free power file after he became chief minister, electricity officials returned to us all the pumpsets they had taken away from our farms during the TDP regime citing nonpayment of bills.'

That YSR is seen as a saviour of the poor notwithstanding the evidence of arbitrary governance dredged up by the ongoing Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the assets of his son Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy might sound odd in the context of the 'Anna Hazare movement.'

It is only the upper middle class and the educated IT crowd that is attracted to anti-corruption movements. The ordinary man is unconcerned. A villager is happy if a road is laid to his village and really doesn't care if the contractor took Rs 10 lakh for what could have been done in Rs 1 lakh,' says social scientist N Venugopal.

In essence, what YSR did was to implement a neo-liberal economic agenda where a small section became stinking rich overnight, even as he doled out freebies to the majority. Like the Aarogyasri scheme under which the poor were given health insurance and treatment in private hospitals.

The state's primary health centres and hospitals were starved of funds even as the government spent hundreds of crores on the scheme. It did not matter that the insurance scheme was managed by an agency close to the powers that be. It also did not matter that private hospitals made a killing by inflating bills for treating ordinary ailments. Ordinary doctors made enough money to buy Audis and other such luxuries.

It was the same story with the fee reimbursement scheme for students. Private engineering colleges which had mushroomed in the hundreds sans infrastructure and faculty were finding it difficult to attract students. Most are run by politicians or their cronies.

The fee reimbursement solved their problem as well as that of students. The colleges got the government to pay the fee (a total of Rs 2,000 crore a year) while the students got degrees. Teachers were lured away from government institutes by fat pay cheques from private colleges.

That most of the students from these colleges did not acquire job-oriented skills is an issue that hardly comes up in any discourse. That primary schools in villages and towns still lack basic facilities such as toilets for girl students is another question. There is no money there and no one is interested.

R V Prasad, a retired teacher from Kadapa district, is intelligent enough to see that both Arogyasri and fee reimbursement were cleverly camouflaged as welfare schemes. But Somasekhar, a small-time employee in Nellore, is happy that his brother got an engineering degree thanks to fee reimbursement while K Venkataiah, a hamali (load carrier) from Karimnagar remembers Arogyasri as a scheme that helped one of his family members get treated in a corporate hospital.

'It is difficult for people to understand the dynamics of a neoliberal economy. The educated sections will understand if Anna Hazare says we need a Lokpal Bill. But the poor pensioner is happy if he gets Rs 200 in the first week of every month,' says Prof G Haragopal, a retired academic from the University of Hyderabad.

That's where YSR succeeded. Pensions were promptly remitted to the bank accounts of beneficiaries; women's self-help groups got financial assistance at low interest rates; and farmers could use as much power as they wanted.

The welfare party lasted the whole of YSR's first term, 2004- 09. But at the beginning of his second term, things stood poised for change. In the last year of his first term, the real estate boom went bust; there were no takers for government lands up for sale. And the global economic downturn hit tax inflows.

Feeling the pinch in his second term, YSR set about repairing the damage by ordering cancellation of fake ration cards, which had become a passport to all the welfare schemes he had instituted. He didn't live to see the backlash of his spendthrift first term. In death, he went down as a messiah of the poor.

Old-timers recall how YSR sold away his lands and even his house in Hyderabad while in the Opposition to fund his political activity. Ahead of the 2004 elections, he incurred debts and was finding it difficult to get a good vehicle for his long campaign.

'He did not get into politics to make money though he may have made money to remain in politics,' is how one of his close aides describes him. But if the CBI's initial findings are to be believed, he allowed his son, willingly or unwillingly, to profit at the expense of public interest.

YSR's old associates also recall how he felt uneasy while seeing huge portraits of his son coming up at different places in the state while he was in power.