By – Amar Yumnam
Imphal, Jan 27:
The first information relating to Telengana in the World Economic Forum happenings at Davos 2025 is the agreement with the Sun Petrochemicals for investment of Rs. 45,500 crore. This information made me feel immediately that more would be coming. Since there is huge presence of investors at Davos, any information of a significant investment by anyone on anywhere would induce and facilitate a faster decision by others for investment in the same destination; the economic logic of risk and risk analysis come here. Ultimately the Telengana Team headed by the Chief Minister has been successful in attracting an investment of ¹ 1.78 lakh crore.
Since the committed investment amount is significant by any yardstick, this necessarily attracts everybody’s attention. Since I am a Manipuri in Hyderabad, I do feel some strong feelings and feel should be put in the public domain. Though I had visited the city many times earlier for short visits, yet this time I have been here for the last three years; this continuous stay has aroused a strong liking for the city and the people. As the continuous stay has been in a social science research institute, God has been kind to enhance the depth and the width of my capability to appreciate social happenings. It is in this background that the big news has come from Davos.
The outcome from the Davos visit has aroused in me both a feeling of jealousy and happiness. The feeling of jealousy does not relate to the amount of investment but to the qualities of political leadership and looking at it from the angle of what all have been happening in Manipur since May 2023. The killings, displacements and other disturbances in Manipur have failed to invite engagement of mind to evolve policies for resolving the social crisis in the political leadership at both federal and provincial levels. While there is no sign of evolving any policy, many unrelated utterances for tit-bit events are continuously made by the political leadership in Manipur with threats on the public. While the major crisis remains without fully attended to as visible from the lackadaisical mental engagement for evolving policy at both the federal and provincial political leaderships coupled by the lacklustre field performance of the Indian security forces. In a way very different from these, the Telengana Chief Minister must have gone to the Davos 2025 with his homework fully done, and this is why he could attract the investment to the scale now seen.
In their 2023 book titled Breaking The Mould: Reimagining India’s Economic Future, Raghuram Rajan and Rohit Lamba have emphasised the need for critical revisions in India’s development strategy:
“Despite impediments to manufacturing, India has had a number of areas of success, where it produces competitively for the world…….. But the broader environment that is required to make manufacturing the base of growth never fully materialized in India.”
When the macro objectives have to be dynamic and critically alive to the times, the importance of a political leader more or less fully conversant with the micro behaviourisms of the people and economy for moving towards achieving the objectives need not be overemphasised. This is exactly where the present CM of Telengana comes to the scene with behavioural manifestations proving his leadership qualities. The focused-emphasis on physical infrastructure during the last few months is very important. The endogenous regional development model founded on robust rural-urban interrelationships being emphasised at this stage of growth of Telengana would certainly appeal to any investor. It is in this context that the strong Davos push becomes very relevant. This push also establishes beyond doubt that he is fully aware of how the Punjab development story got stunted and the State failed in the transformation. While pushing for strengthening the macro-foundations in Telengana for ensuring the transformation process robust enough to fully participate in the global digital race, he is pushing for collective participation in the push. This is important for the people need to be inspired to share the mid-term as well as long vision the CM is holding to ensure micro commitment to the macro-objectives. To put it another way, the significance of the goals being envisaged by the political leader lies in mobilising and carrying the people along such that the internal (domestic) dimensions of his goals are being properly taken cared of.
While addressing the imperatives of internal component of his goals, the CM has also shown adequate awareness of the necessity of addressing the external dimensions of his goals. There is a very lovely perspective he has got here. The elaboration of his vision for competition with Singapore and Tokyo and level up with the Chinese development trajectory are important reflections of his understanding on the external dimensions Hyderabad should be conscious of in the development process and which can certainly inspire his people. Now the envisaged investment would certainly lead to agglomeration on a scale which has not yet been encountered and needing enhancement of social sector capacity to take care of the perceived new demands. Here too the proposal for funding investment from the Centre for investment in these areas go absolutely in tune with the requirements.
Thus the Telengana CM has certainly attended to the contemporary responsibility of the political leadership to take care of the socio-economic needs of society besides the traditional law and order issues. The elaboration of a clear long-term goal for development and attraction of international investment have made the liking in me for Hyderabad now doubling up by love as well. I am happy with this.
Now coming to Manipur, we have a case where the political leadership has just not bothered to be mentally occupied by the serious social crisis for nearly two years now; the incoherent statements and behavioural mannerisms establish this beyond doubt. It is a case where the political leadership has not only failed to address the traditional law and order responsibilities of the state, but has also not attempted to digest the contemporary and contextual socio-economic challenges with internal and external components. The prolonged social crisis has certainly affected in an adverse way in three key areas – (a) the production and production process; (b) deepening and widening the already complex socio-economic inequality; (c) knowledge spread and acquisition process. In a non-industrialised region like Manipur, the weakening happening in these areas would certainly involve a long-term generalised social cost. In a more fearful way, the interplay of these negative dynamics can have the effect of causing social instability. In any case, the political leadership should set the agenda and spell out the policies and pursue them to attain the objectives contained therein. Sporadic bursts and incoherent statements do not by any means constitute the adorable qualities of a performing political leader.