Time to scale up!

Time to scale up!


Ma Durga, believers aver, “arrived” this year on a celestial swing, a dolna, depicted in all the puja pandals by chains descending from the heavens on either side of the idols. And the clear implication of this, to a troubled and much harried world, is that she would waft our troubles away by the displacement caused by that heavenly swinging motion.

And to cement the image of impending good times, on Dussehra/ Vijaya Dashami 2009, she also “departs” grandly, on elephant back. And this elephant or gaja as her vehicle/ Vahan, symbolises an ushering in of prosperity.

For us Indians perpetually under the yoke, prosperity generally means a lessening of our trials and tribulations as opposed to an out-and-out transformation. We are so used to living in the embrace of relative shades of grey that we dare not aspire to brazen upliftment!

So much so, that achievements and breakthroughs, such as ISRO finding hydroxyl and ice on the moon; and Leander Paes winning his 10th Tennis Grand Slam Doubles Title; have perforce to be regarded as exceptions rather than the rule.

Our own occasional stabs at greatness are in sharp contrast to the world view of the “can-do” Americans. They have a singular talent for thinking big.That they also routinely gather up the best human capital available globally, accounts for their other great characteristic-innovation; and what they themselves call “American ingenuity”.

It must be a matter of some pride that many of the individuals that make up the tapestry of American achievement are ethnic Indians. Of course, this luminescence comes from the export of our best and brightest and the only consolation is that out well of talent does, in fact, run deep.

That is how the success of Chandrayan I comes to pass. But this achievement, like Leander Paes’ consistency, or Pankaj Advani’s winning of every conceivable title in World Billiards, or Vishwanathan Anand’s long reign in International Chess, or the virtuosity of Sachin Tendulkar with a cricket bat; is still far less than we ought to aspire to as an ancient culture of a billion plus souls. But to do so, we need to learn from the experts without reservation and unleash our potential.

A crushed and humiliated Japan after WW II, was remade in the American image by General Douglas MacArthur. Japan accepted the challenge of its changed circumstances and worked its way back to economic prosperity, albeit in the fields of electronics, automobile and two-wheeler engineering/manufacturing in the main. But in these fields they have long been world-beaters, at least in volume and mass market terms and are now climbing the luxury charts too.

So much so, that in the Koreans, the Chinese, the Singaporeans, the Malays and the Thais, you find very able imitators of the original imitator, Japan, with suitable modifications that play to their individual strengths, but with that same export oriented will to prosperity. That they all serve the Americans and their market to an overwhelming degree, is a specific vulnerability of their model seen in 2009, but we know that already.

Here, in India, driven primarily by a large and under-serviced domestic market, we have huge possibilities begging to be addressed. But first, amongst a logjam of other pent up needs, we have to deliver cutting-edge technology for once! And this, along with quality, reliability and sufficient capacity - to get away, from our “shortage” psychosis left over from the Licence-Permit Raj. And we have to do so in manufacturing, infrastructure and services alike, to achieve that most necessary quantum leap into the desirable and state-of-the-art, rather than languishing forever in the land of jogar and make-do.

Japan with its initially tinny cars and low-end and unreliable electronics, was also once derided as the fountain of all that is “cheap and nasty,” and some of that low quality opprobrium, the dangerous corner-cutting, attaches to Chinese goods today.

But in time, it is repeatedly seen, such problems recede in the face of a national determination to excel. We might be the product of a resurgent neo-colonialism and its patronising pushing of “intermediate technology” solutions designed to facilitate the selling of imported high-end goods and services to us in perpetuity. We also flaunt a third-world exceptionism, sometimes cloaked in fashionable “green” raiments, but it is motivated local collaboration to keep us desiring, only “appropriate”, translation- second-rate, solutions.

We need to view such subversive theses and their spokesmen with suspicion. And subject them to the same scrutiny we presently reserve for all those mega initiatives that may actually catapult us into the big league. A case in point is the recent observations of the Vice-President of the French senate’s committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence Mr. Chevenement, also a former Defence and Home Minister of France, who stated it is not China that would give the thumbs down to India acquiring a permanent seat in the UNSC.

China apparently sees India as another welcome Asian addition to the Security Council. And alternative European collaborators in the high-technology stakes, Britain and France, are not opposed to India’s entry either. This leaves the US and Russia. And so, we must try to fathom why they would want to keep India out?!

But intrinsically too, we are chronically suspicious of prosperity and power and thus easy to manipulate. It is a hangover of recent decades of failed socialism certainly, but also the ravages to the psyche suffered by a long subordinated people.

But the time may have come to put all this behind us. Dan Brown’s new million selling book on Masonic Symbols in Washington DC has put astrology back in fashion. Our own celebrity astrologer Bejan Daruwala has long predicted India will emerge as a “superpower” in the next few years after all.

Meanwhile, as per Vedic astrology, Saturn has recently moved from a most difficult placement in Leo to a much nicer berth in Virgo, where it will stay for the next two and half years. And coincidentally, India’s mahadasha has just changed from Venus to that of the Sun, associated almost always with growth and betterment. This mahadasha is only six years long, unlike the Venusian twenty; but if it provokes bold thinking and causes us to dare to scale up, it is time enough for the progress and prosperity we all so fervently pray for.

(1,051 words)

Vijaya Dashami
28th September, 2009
Gautam Mukherjee

Published as Op-Ed Leader in The Pioneer on September 30th, 2009 entitled "Time to raise the bar". Also published online at www.dailypioneer.com and is archived there under Columnists.

Three Coins In The Fountain

Three Coins In The Fountain


Romantics throw coins into wishing wells and fountains. The Trevi in Rome is a particular favourite. But such wishes as accompany those myriad coins, despite the illogic of it, are sometimes, some say always, answered. In the Indian context, there are at least three wishes and hopes that have caught the public’s fancy in recent days.

Number one would be the opposite of our woeful lack of military preparedness should China decide to push into Ladakh, Arunachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Sikkim. They have walked into, or fired, flown and littered in, all of the above lately, and found no one on our side to object.

Some, including the Prime Minister, the NSA, our Lah-di-Dah helmsmen at the MEA, and a section of the media, would have us believe this is nothing to worry about now that we are in 2009 and not 1962. But, as far as I know, the law of the jungle has not changed in the interim.

If one listens to what retiring service chiefs let slip routinely, coupled with nuclear scientists casting aspersions on our much vaunted nuclear deterrent, our level of preparedness to beat China back-is about the same as it was in 1962. Then too, Pandit Nehru and Defence Minister Krishna Menon were dismissive about the Chinese threat.

And let us not forget that in 2009 we have to reckon with China’s well documented encirclement policy too, using the Pakistanis, the Nepalis, the Bangladeshis, the Srilankans, the high seas, and even the Burmese!

And also note the insurrections they are fanning on the inside - in the North East, among the Maoists, via the Pakis and the Nepalis. Besides, the Khalistanis are reportedly active once again. And the Pakistani sponsored terrorism continues unabated.

We need to urgently beef up every law and order and national security force/agency from the police and intelligence to the para-military, the commando units, the armed forces and their support systems; and equip them with generous quantities of the best weaponry and logistics available. We also need to sharply upgrade our own defence/nuclear manufacturing facilities including those that can be developed faster and better by the private sector alongside.

This entails at least a doubling of the defence budget from present levels. China, an economy over three times as large as ours, currently spends 4.3% of its GDP on Defence and it would be silly to suggest it is doing so without purpose. India, on the other hand, spends less than 3% of its GDP, even after increasing it 34% in Budget 2009-10.

To gain any kind of parity with China, we need to enhance our spends to about 10% of GDP in short order, or about $ 100 billion annually. Most of the new money should go towards modernisation and expansion of armed strength of numbers as well as access and deployment oriented military roads, airports, harbours, surveillance equipment and other infrastructure; which will, coincidentally, also benefit civil society and commerce just for being built.

The Government could also introduce tax free Defence Bonds paying a competitive rate of interest. And such Defence Bonds should also welcome our unfathomable reserves of Black Money, including returning hawala money from abroad, no questions asked.

The second debate that is much in the news concerns the size of our government itself and its gargantuan expenditure. It has grown to truly worrisome proportions, and similar runaway but inefficient statism was partially responsible for the economic collapse of our erstwhile mentor, the USSR.

While token efforts to cut expenses under “austerity” drives are commendable, they are not nearly enough. To really bring down recurring costs we need to downsize government and privatise as many parts of it as possible. Many new initiatives in the core sector may still need initial government investment, though recent private sector successes in the fields of oil and gas and increasingly in steel and power seem to suggest otherwise.

But it is seen that several older government owned core sector behemoths are now doing well. They need to be offloaded to public investment and listing on the bourses. Many that have already gone public are showing good results and far greater management accountability.

The third issue creating a buzz is the disbelieving optimism arising out of a “V” shaped recovery on the bourses that has confounded many expert doom merchants. And an FII influx of USD 9 billion so far this year is also nothing to sniff at. But the big question is, will it last?

No one can tell you about day to day fluctuations with certainty, but the point to be understood is that this next decade is going to be the decade of infrastructure and modernisation in India. And this transforming endeavour will suck in enormous investment that cannot but help boost the economy and keep it growing at a healthy clip of anywhere between 6 to 9 per cent per annum.

So as things stand in the world, India’s is a growth story second only to China. And some argue that is why China will not upset the applecart with war. That might turn out to be right and yet needs to be seen as cold comfort. Because China seems determined to pressurise all our bilateral negotiations and contain India’s aspirations in a multilateral context as well.

Meanwhile, the UN General Assembly is about to hold its annual summit in New York. The world’s leaders and diplomats will assemble to make and listen to speeches. They will discuss the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the apparent inability of the world to stop it.

Iran, the latest designated bad boy will be there. China will be there to protect North Korea and Pakistan. China will also side with Iran, and Russia will concur. Libya will be there to underscore its reformed status. Political correctness will rule the roost. Everyone will avoid remarks that are liable to sharpen the North-South Divide.

The Security Council will also be there. So what if it is reduced to a checkmated chess game.

India will be a non-presence as usual, perfect at being there in a manner as good as not being there. But then New York in the autumn can be very pleasant, and one might just find a wishing well and a coin to drop into it.

(1,052 words)

19th September 2009
Gautam Mukherjee


Published as OP-Ed Page Leader on 21st September 2009 entitled "Enter the dragon". Also published online at www.dailypioneer.com and archived there under Columnists.

Definitions and Usage

Roy Lictenstein-Fear2

Definitions and Usage


McCarthyism is Americanism with its sleeves rolled-up.

Joseph McCarthy

Definitions and usage change with time. This is evident in language, with so called shudh Hindi sounding odd, archaic and difficult to understand. Ditto for the languages spoken and written around the globe, otherwise one wouldn’t need an interpreter to understand Shakespeare, billed as he is as the greatest dramatist and poet of all time.

Similarly, ideological content too changes with time, sometimes entirely, with a veneer of the original subject matter used as a wrapper, like old buildings in Rome totally transformed on the inside. That is also why the name-plate on the door often remains the same and why dead icons are not removed from plain sight.

Communism, as the most ambitious 20th century alternative, has changed beyond recognition in practice. At least in the hands of its more successful practitioners. China today has acquired mercantilist, imperial, militarist and arch-capitalist overtones. These are now menacing the world, let alone India. And this belligerence, however inscrutably disguised, is a far cry from the People’s Revolution of the Long March with ragged millions in tunics and cloth caps.

And this turnabout is all the more ironic for the fact that China has suffered true humiliation, far greater than India, at the hands of imperial powers. They not only destroyed the “Middle Kingdom” with opium and conquered it with ease, but carved up the supine country into “spheres of influence” to do with as they pleased. But then, it is a truism that the brutalised do tend to take after their oppressors in a kind of Stockholm Syndrome.

Some of the ideological revision, the hardening of hearts and diplomatic stances, the power-play, the crushing of insurgencies, the expansionist forward policies, comes about because of increased confidence. It is based on prosperity and the desire to upgrade status in the comity of nations. The other part is a simple manifestation of the corruption of all power.

And unfortunately, apart from cultural influence that seeps into areas and psyches unseen, most alpha assertion demands a show of strength. And, it raises some very interesting questions about the value of ideology in the ultimate struggle for raw power.

Ideology on this escalator is like a guest that has outstayed its welcome. But this is true only if there is great success. There is very little ideological deviation, except as a tool for dissidence, when things are static or not going well. Cuba hasn’t changed its ways that much. Neither has Burma except for changing its name to Myanmar. And the hatred and animosity we face from a crumbling Pakistan is as fresh as the first blood drawn in the wounds of partition.

America, at the height of the Cold War, encouraged an infamous witchfinder-general called Joseph McCarthy, a right-wing Republican, of the type now extinct. He rose to prominence in 1950, heading an inquisition called The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. This was a sub-set of The House Committee on Un-American Activities of the House of Representatives. Its mandate was to root out Communist infiltrators and sympathisers from positions of power.

Not only was McCarthyism emblematic of the insecurity of the times, post WW II, when people doubted the efficacy and survivability of “The American Way”, but it led to much intemperate smearing of decent people and attempts at thought control.

McCarthy, who died in 1957, at the age of 48, of alcoholism, used to say things like: "You are seeing today an all out attempt to marshal the forces of the opposition, using not merely the communists, or their fellow travellers-the deluded liberals, the eggheads, and some of my good friends in both the Democratic and Republican Parties who can become heroes overnight in the eyes of the left-wing press if they will just join with the jackal pack".

But the abiding fact is, where people vote, in democracies, such as the biggest, namely America, or the most populous, being India, most voters, says New York Times contributor Sam Tanenhaus, discussing his new book The Death of Conservatism, are “not ideological”. And besides, says Tanenhaus, “the tonal difference between a Joe McCarthy in 1950 and a Reagan in 1980 is enormous.”

India, in search of a new birth for the Right, and its own survivability in the face of internal and external threat, may have to look at what former US Ambassador to India, Daniel Patrick Moynihan called “the politics of stability”.

The USSR spent decades being decried, blocked and mocked for its politics of confrontation rather than engagement, and present day Russia is in some danger of reverting to the old stance under Prime Minister Putin and Premier Medvedev. But this, clearly, is not the road to influence.

For India, the Right Wing may have to change the abrasive edges of Hindutva, particularly its antipathy to Muslims, left over from the lead up to, and fact of, partition, in recognition of today’s successful multi-religious ethos.

This is how it can hope to gain the support of the majority community, particularly the young and the middle classes currently lost to it, let alone the trust and respect of the minorities.

But this shift in definition and usage need not be looked at as a betrayal of its core beliefs. Instead, it must be viewed in the context of politics being “a theater of ideas” that cannot afford to stagnate into dogma. As Tanenhaus puts it, it must be, “a place where intellectuals now and again exert some visible influence.”

The Americans, after all, are no longer afraid of Communist subversion, not after Reagan’s great success in dissolving the Iron Curtain and bringing down the USSR. And not even after the grave economic crisis it has faced over the last two years.

But this doesn’t stop Right-Wing ideologues like Rush Limbaugh calling President Obama a Socialist. They called President Herbert Hoover similar names as he undertook massive government spending to pull America out of the Great Depression.

But today’s Limbaugh is no McCarthy. So what should the Indian Right do to reinvent itself? And though Ahimsa is laudable, Nehru did underplay it and sideline many of Gandhi’s ideas. India will have to check the ambitions of a resurgent China in the South Asian theatre sooner than it realises. And to do so effectively, it has to stop being a house divided against itself.


(1,057 words)

10th September 2009
Gautam Mukherjee


Published in The Pioneer as OP-ED Page Leader on September 16th, 2009 entitled "Communist belligerence". Ditto online at www.dailypioneer.com and is archived there under Columnists.

Clarion Call For A New Right

Clarion Call For A “New Right”


The recent overt prominence of the RSS in BJP matters is providing its detractors a good opportunity to raise a bogey about the future direction of the Party. This despite protestations of being merely “advisory” from new RSS Sarsangchalak Dr. Mohanrao Bhagwat.

Meanwhile, the right-wing voter and sympathiser is experiencing a degree of existential crisis as he watches his already defeated party’s electoral prospects diminish further into an unseemly morass of factionalism and infighting.

Even the prospect of a generational change at the helm might not be enough to remedy matters. What is necessary, additionally, is a re-evaluation and modernisation of the party’s ideological core in concert with the RSS.

Any modernisation in the BJP cannot be convincing without concomitant change also in the RSS. This is because the RSS is largely viewed as the marching legs of the BJP. It is further perceived to espouse a mishmash of anachronistic and quixotic views, intolerance
and communalism, notwithstanding the relatively progressive stance of the current sarsangchalak.

But even for the foot soldier of both organisations, the present pass is disheartening. His Hindutva ideology consisting of an “Integral Humanism” or Ekatma Manaveeyate, as outlined, a little windily, by Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya, is outdated today.

Even updated and relaunched as “dynamic humanism”, it remains a little suspect because of the undisturbed underlying assumptions. These include several positions which can be regarded as obscurantist, communal, and even misogynistic. Even the justificatory peg of “Bharatiya Culture”, as described by Mr. Upadhyaya is hopelessly out of date.

The ideology also suffers from non-synchronisation with the gains of technology and real-time information transmissions. We are well into the 21st century, with its many enablers and conveniences, and there are even more startling advances waiting in the wings. At this time, the need for adaptation to the future is far more urgent than looking in the rear-view mirror for ideological cues that have become largely obsolete.

After all, if “Bharatiya” and “Hindutva” have mutated in meaning from the pre-independence era, into near pejoratives that denote backward looking thinking, then something needs to be done and as soon as possible.

But even as we wait for reform, these terms are now understood to represent a world view that is suppressive, communal and oppressive in intent, cloaked under a vacuous, high-falutin’ if wide-angled humanism.

And the antics of fringe groups such as the Ram Sene and others that attack women, pubs, painters and paintings, all in the name of Hindutva and said Bharatiya Culture, trivial as such activities may seem in the greater scheme of things, do not help the cause.

The other, more exclusivist, majoritartian and communal interpretation given to Hindutva is viewed by many as heartlessly reactionary, emanating from incipient fascism, unmoved by pogroms and riots, and in conflict with the Gandhian ethos of tolerance and non-violence, seen by most Indians as India’s best suit.

In short, the Right is experiencing a crying need for updation, in which the root and branch of its ideology, as practiced by the RSS and the BJP, must be modernised for the times.

If this is not done, it is clear that the BJP, invested with the business of electoral politics and supported by the RSS cadres, might find itself in greater trouble further down the road. Today it is, even in its reduced numbers, the largest Opposition Party in the Lok Sabha and ruler of eight states. So all is by no means lost!

But perhaps the answer for the future lies in adopting a page from the “New Right” of other countries. It has come to country after country in Europe and to the US, changed irrevocably through the two World Wars and the Industrial Revolution. The old age of land, aristocracy, privileges of birth, monarchy, class and creed is largely gone. And with the demise of the agrarian lords-and-serfs equations of the 19th century, old-fashioned conservative political ideologies also bit the dust.

In Britain, always an inspiration to India, the old monarchist, lordist and arch conservative Tory party of the Empire has been lapsed, little by little, through long years out-of-power since WWII, into the successful New Right policies of the eighties, a much changed thing.

It reasserted family values gone awry under Labour, emphasised greater access to quality private education to set right the ills of the state run schools, a toughening up against crime and deviance and trade unions that had paralysed commerce and industry. But it got away from its assumptions of natural superiority based on privilege.

This New Right also favoured policies designed to make shareholders of the masses, privatised state run enterprises, and set about creating a nation of property owners instead of the Labour proclivity for promoting millions of “wards of the state”. The Margaret Thatcher/John Major years left an indelible mark, even on the Opposition Labour Party,reflected in the Centrist policies of New Labour under Tony Blair and now, Gordon Brown.

And a similar scenario of “neo-liberalism” played out in the same period in the US. It went from the “caring” conservatism and prosperity of the Republican Ronald Reagan years through to the centrist and even more prosperous years under Democrat Bill Clinton.

Key policies on both sides of the Atlantic included deregulation of business, a dismantling of the welfare state, privatisation, downsizing government, reducing strangle-hold of labour unions and reforming company laws for greater flexibility in an increasingly global market.

India since 1991 has been on its own reformist path that has brought it the only prosperity it has ever known. So much so, that no government, of whichever hue, has ever dared to roll back the reform process. At best, some did not further them followed by others that pressed on.

It is clear that reforms enjoy broad multi-party consensus. What is now called for is a more centrist move in terms of ideology too, featuring only calibrated difference of approach and degree to the same issues.

This will provide our demanding electorate with a set of viable choices. It is this recognition of the writing on the wall that will renew the BJP and the RSS and free it of its confusion. It is this, or a sad return to one party rule and a drift Leftwards, in the absence of any viable opposition from the Right.

(1,049 words)

5th September, 2009
Gautam Mukherjee