Why Mr FM is Indias nerve centre

What the Prime Minister envisions, the Finance Minister gives shape. In making his maiden Budget, Arun Jaitley has successfully broken up into components the dream of Modi, and prudently allocated funds – which is what, broadly speaking, a good budget is about. Turning India into a Switzerland, the synonym for an ultra-modern welfare state, is what the Modi Budget, presented by Arun Jaitley aims at.       

Time was when your purse and the Finance Minister’s Budget was directly related. The word ‘life style’ did not exist then: there were very few cars on the road, and palatial houses with swimming pools and tennis courts were unheard of. Money supply was few and not many had money to carry with them. The only virtue everyone practised religiously was ‘save, save and save’.

The species of Finance Ministers were most feared, because they can upset your meal. Children were plenty, and eight to ten children were the norm. When FM taxed sugar, every mom would know how to prune the sweet dishes for festivals. Dad would walk back home covering five miles, if FM taxed petrol. Life then was one of sacrifice, to make the ends meet.

Things have changed dramatically in the last 50 years. India is no more a poor country, and affluence, real or pretended, is everywhere. Today the Finance Ministers are less feared; but taxmen are really feared.  

The first three Finance Ministers of India were reputed economists or academics; but the problem with economists was that they would resign at the drop of a hat. All the three Finance Ministers resigned for different reasons: and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru got the message. Finally, Nehru settled down for politicians who understand economics, and would not resign even if you ask them to.  

India’s first Finance Minister, R K Shanmukham Chetty, was pro-British, but Nehru appointed him overruling objections from his party men, because of his knowledge of economics. Chetty presented the country’s first Budget on November 26, 1947 – without proposing any tax – but quit office in two years.   

John Mathai who succeeded Chetty presented two budgets but resigned to protest against the growing power of the Planning Commission. He became Vice-Chancellor of Bombay University (1955-57) and later the University of Kerala (1957-59). His son Ravi Mathai was the pioneer of IIM, Ahmedabad; and his nephew Verghese Kurian was the father of White Revolution.   

The first Indian RBI Governor (1943), C D Deshmukh was the third Finance Minister. Unlike his predecessors, Deshmukh had a longer innings (1950-1956). But his Maharashtrian identity proved too strong to resist the temptation of resigning in 1956, when the Maharashtra Samyukta Samiti was demanding the creation of Maharashtra with Bombay as the capital. Prime Minister Nehru wanted Bombay to remain a bilingual state in spite of the linguistic reorganisation of states that year.

The next Finance Ministers, T T Krishamachari and Morarji Desai, were playing musical chairs between 1956 and 1965. Indira Gandhi’s Finance Ministers, Yashwantrao Chavan (1971-75) and C Subramaniam, always stayed on the conservation track.  

Two of the Finance Ministers – R Venkataraman and Pranab Mukherjee – rose to become Presidents; and three – V P Singh, Charan Singh and Manmohan Singh – rose to become Prime Ministers. Four Prime Ministers duplicated as Finance Ministers and presented their Budgets – Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Manmohan Singh.  

The most innovative of Finance Ministers was Dr Manmohan Singh, who opened up the foreign exchange-starved Indian economy, almost creating a deluge, for which he will be long remembered. The most erudite Finance Minister was the Harvard-educated P Chidambaram; in longevity, Morarjee Desai, Yeshwant Sinha, Chidambaram and, of course, Manmohan Singh have created records.  

Against this background stands Modi’s Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, perhaps challenging them all!