Nikita Khrushchev once remarked, “Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river.” It’s interesting that such a comment came from the man who led, for 11 years, the Soviet Union, a nation that was no democracy and had, therefore, no real taste of politicians. But it was a nation that was, nonetheless, obsessed with drawing up grandiose plans and flamboyant projects that were often ill devised and inefficiently implemented. There were exorbitant space exploration programmes, colossal dams, power projects and heavy industry, even when a disproportionate mass of the country suffered from immense poverty. Some would say that the nomenklatura was building bridges for the sake of grandeur, even at places where there was no river to cross.
But, then, Khrushchev was the non-conformist leader of this tightly controlled country, presiding over a rigorous de-Stalinisation programme, his leadership marked by an opening up of Soviet society. His was a departure from the gloomy days of oppressive gulags, and there was, at least, some relaxation of state control.
It seems that Khrushchev’s remarks on politics and big government are now being echoed in some of the recent criticism that has been directed at the social welfare programmes being implemented by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in India.
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