Greed and fear are often held up as the two main emotions of the stockmarket. In testy times, these get magnified-making non-participants wonder whether market participants need what youngsters call a 'chill-pill'.

For now, a return to the balance of reason would do just fine. Take corporate India's performance. The fourth quarter of 2003-04 has seen a surge-of around 47 per cent, year-on-year, by one estimate-in aggregate net profit for a large swathe of listed companies. Enhanced cost-consciousness, traced all the way back to the last big recessionary phase, has certainly helped matters on the efficiency front. But the big story is the topline buoyancy gained over the last year or so.

The G-word, growth, is back. So is talk of investment in new capacities. With business looking up, corporate optimism has gone on the ascendant. It is in the air. And it has filtered through to anyone who keeps even vaguely in touch with corporate success. India doesn't just boast of a trio of billion-dollar software exporters in the form of TCS, Infosys and Wipro, it even has its first billion-dollar-profit-maker in Reliance. To those who remember Microsoft as a billion-dollar firm, that packs quite some bite...

...and somebody had to go spoil it all by spooking stockmarket participants with this statistical device called the 'exit poll'.

The funny part is that they actually got spooked. Not that the device is an old Halloween-style trick every grown-up should see through (that's a separate debate). Instead, their fear reveals a poor appreciation of the primary point of economic reforms-to free business of the vagaries of politics. To turn profit into a function of market need fulfilment, that is, rather than a function of cosiness with legislative authority. To allow law-abiding citizens to choose how they make their living, untangled by red tape and undaunted by stick-wielders.

If freedom is what corporate India operates under, why should most punters be so nervous about the outcome of the ongoing elections to the 14th Lok Sabha? Is Indian business performance really so fragile?

A moment's reflection would, of course, throw up much to chew on. As some of the talking heads on television have said, re-said, iterated and reiterated, the barometer of India's transition from a semi-command to a market economy is the progress being made on privatisation of public sector units (PSUs). This, they worry, could be jeopardised by a decline in parliamentary commitment to the process.

That privatisation should be the be-all and end-all of reforms is, in itself, a case of myopia-and even if you operate on this view, there's little reason to equate a process reformulation with a complete process reversal.

That corporate India's business prospects should be vulnerable to political shifts is, worse, a case of brushing aside the reforms the country has undertaken over the past two decades. And here too, a change in the agents of governance would not be the equivalent of some violent overthrow of Capitalism. So why panic?

Stability? The Indian Constitution remains the same, growth is perky, competition is high and the country is closer than ever to a broad nationwide consensus on the direction of reforms-towards market freedom. And gently so, with minimal shocks and democratic approval. This is stability. The stability that the world's other emerging markets envy so.

There are worries, for sure, and grave ones too. But these relate to issues of stability more fundamental than the sort stock traders have been jerking their knees to. Monsoon-dependence, for instance, continues to haunt economy watchers, especially the few who get sweaty over the fisc. Those need redressal. For now, though, greed and fear need to be disentangled from the exercising of free choice at polling booths.