The Great FDI Push

The Great FDI Push

Recent announcements about foreign direct investment (FDI) targets being doubled to $50 billion for the coming fiscal, along with 100 per cent FDI being permitted, and encouraged, in Defence Production, the Indian Railways, and large Infrastructure projects, are welcome boosts to the moribund state of the nation’s GDP, languishing at a poor 4. 5 percent.

Other reports that state many large projects, stuck for lack of Government clearance, are about to be given the go ahead. Collectively, they account for tens of thousands of crores in investment, many involving some FDI component, and should in turn boost the economy, provide jobs, help modernisation.

Public Sector Banks holding large non-performing asset (NPAs) portfolios, due partially to long-term lending to stuck infrastructure projects, are heaving a sigh of relief. This new thinking will turn some of these ‘bad debts’ into good, in anticipation of better times ahead.

And the rise in foreign exchange reserves of some $11 billion since March has eased the liquidity position as well. The hawkish stance in the Reserve Bank Of India (RBI), with regard to inflation and consequent high interest rates is also starting to change, with a likely pause in further raising of rates, and a number of quiet concessions to growth implemented already. These include an easing of controls on gold imports and the lifting of restrictions on annual foreign exchange transmissions abroad of up to $200,000 per individual citizen.

But while policy announcements welcoming FDI do not tantamount to actual flows of foreign exchange into the country, the Modi Government’s  prompt announcements in this regard signal a marked shift in stance. FDI is now being regarded as a nation-building tool. The areas in which it is being robustly encouraged call for billions, even trillions of dollars, and are all long-term and strategic in nature.

Defence Production in particular, can transform the fiscal situation. India currently imports,$8 billion worth of defence equipment annually. Again, even though the defence forces are starved of  the latest equipment, the defence budget has been growing, partly due to inflation, at an average of 13.4 per cent annually since 2006. Still, we spend much less on our defence needs in proportion to our GDP, than either Pakistan or China.

But with nearly 70 per cent of our defence requirements imported, including practically all the high value and high tech items, India could benefit enormously from indigenous production of weaponry.  Even the 30 per cent produced in our ordnance and other defence production facilities, have a large amount of foreign componentry.

The boldness of inviting the weapons manufacturers of the world to set up shop in India on a 100 per cent FDI basis in chosen instances, will also get us away from the dismal performance both in terms of original research, and adhering to time frames, of outfits like the DRDO.

There is little point in reinventing the wheel when we are so far behind, and when the latest high technology exists  with various countries/vendors abroad, and could, with the right amount of Indian Government determination, go swiftly to operationalise our armed forces with the latest equipment. India has leapfrogged from primitive cars locally produced, to the world’s latest and best, locally assembled, and gradually indigenised, by a similar change in policy.

We should however take for granted that we will not get the best cooperation, or terms, from the US, most Europeans barring the French, or even the Russians, but will do well with the Chinese, the Japanese and the Israelis.

The West is reluctant to hand over its latest technology and has even made a dog’s breakfast of  operationalising the Civilian Nuclear Deal. Still, with the global geo-political and economic shifts in the balance of power going deeper into the 21^st century, they may be persuaded to change their minds.

Meanwhile India has built its own nuclear submarine, after many cost overruns and delays, and it is in the process of undergoing final stage trials.  India has also partially built its own aircraft carrier and given the budgets necessary to complete the project, could be one of just 5 of 6 countries capable of making its own aircraft carriers.

China, of course, already makes its aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines, its military aircraft, its nuclear warheads and missiles and so forth. We make our nuclear capable missiles too, stealth frigates for the Navy, smaller ships for the Coast Guard, but have been struggling to make a proper battle tank or a fighter for decades.

We are indeed miles away from being self-sufficient in military software and hardware today, but with a sea-change of attitude, a realistic appraisal of our true position, much is possible.  With mutually sustainable and beneficial joint ventures with foreign companies, private sector participation, and yes, 100 per cent foreign owned defence production facilities here in India, there is nothing conceptually to hold us back. 

For the moment, FDI will become, in Narendra Modi’s first term, a key instrument to revive our shattered economy and provide new jobs. But implemented soon, with multiple projects on the ground, it could, along with similar bold leaps in the Railways and Infrastructure projects, also become a strategic tool to leverage India into the topmost ranks of nations in the coming decades of the 21^st century.    

(888 words)

May 31^st, 2014

Gautam Mukherjee

That Superannuated Article 370

That Superannuated Article 370

The votes that the NDA needs to change the status of Article 370 applied to J&K reside in the Lok Sabha. This is based on the principle that any Indian constitutional position can be superceded, revoked/changed, either by a new resolution duly voted in, or perhaps by constitutional amendment, if called for.

That would, presently, involve 362 votes out of 543, two-thirds, calculating it on the absolute full strength of the lower house, rather than the members present. The figure is approximately 30 votes greater than the strength of the NDA as it stands in this 16^th Lok Sabha.

With some good floor management in the Lok Sabha using, for example, the additional support of Tamil Nadu’s  Madame Jayalalithaa, and perhaps a smidgen of votes from Navin Patnaik’s Orissa. The winning vote, at the end of the debate, could go very well if the NDA plus is on the same page. And if a joint session of parliament is called, it could go through on a majority overall, with a clear two-thirds in the Lok Sabha included.

The ‘consent’ of J&K itself can be obtained in a number of ways, including a ‘sense of the house’ in the J&K Assembly, combined with a sense of the street, which, it must be emphasised, includes Jammu and Ladakh. These regions and their people would like to see a demographic shift, more ‘Indians’ in the state, able to own property, and invest freely. None of this is possible while Article 370 subsists, except, of course, by proxy and using local sponsors.

Both of these regions have felt seriously short-changed by the State Government for ages. It is a long-standing sense of discrimination and neglect. Then there is the resentment of the Pandits from the Valley, who have been more or less expelled to a man, rendering them stateless, with their property ruthlessly usurped.

This ‘ethnic cleansing’ of Pandits is not only criminal, a violation of their human rights, unconstitutional, morally wrong, brutally majoritarian to boot, but absolutely nothing has been done by the State Government to coax them back or compensate them in any way. This despite the fact that the J&K Government and people live on Union of India funding, as  the state earns very little money on its own, from tourism, handicrafts and the like.

The inordinate prickliness emanating from the Kashmir Valley all the time normally ends up obscuring this fact, and lends some credence to the notion that the main beneficiaries of the Article in question are the Abdullah family running the National Conference, and the Saeed family running the rival PDP. They could be the Cabots and the Lodges running post robber-baron Boston, if one goes by their outraged sense of entitlement alone. And how quick they have been to condemn the idea of even a discussion to revoke Article 370!

Electorally, BJP and its allies have done well this time in Jammu and in Ladakh, and must deal with the sense of unfairness and grievance these regions suffer from. So, this is not quite the open and shut case we are being asked to accept, with an apparent veto in the hands of Chief Minister Omar Abdullah. Constitutional experts and legal beagles outside J&K have very different views from the ones Omar Abdullah is espousing as the only given one.

They, other legal opinions, jointly and severally, can throw up quite a few interesting ways to revoke Article 370.  The Article was, historically, a fairly typical Nehruvian folly in the first place, and intended to be ‘temporary’ in his own write, and as remembered on his recent 50^th death anniversary on the 27^th.

But after six decades going on seven, this sense of ‘intended’ transience is probably to be viewed in the broadest philosophical sense. But what is undeniable is that the excesses caused by the restraints of this pesky Article are costing the Union of India a lot of money to little purpose, and over the spending and usage of which it has little control. To add insult to injury, the separatists in the Valley, the terrorist sympathisers and helpers, are treated with kid gloves by the state administration.

In addition, the Indian Armed and Paramilitary Forces, the Intelligence Agencies, have been kept busy securing the border state at enormous expense while being blamed for ‘excesses’ and ‘false encounters’. They have, in fact, suffered more casualties in ‘peace-time’ J&K postings, than in all the wars this country has fought since 1947.

As for the process itself, there is as little to prevent it, given enough support for it, apart from political noise from NC and PDP.  It will be recalled that when Mrs Indira Gandhi revoked the privy purses of hundreds of hereditary ‘princes’, granted to them by solemn, irrevocable, sovereign guaranteed treaty; what could they do about it?

The private banks on their part definitely did not enjoy it when the self-same Mrs. Gandhi nationalised them either.

So, while changing the status of J&K has important security implications vis a vis the separatists, Pakistan, possibly China, Russia, and even the West, just how much fuss should the Union of India really tolerate from the highly subsidised state apparatus out of Srinagar?  

(866 words)

May 28^th, 2014

Gautam Mukherjee

Red Carpet Not Red Tape

Red Carpet Not Red Tape

Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a promise on the campaign trail, citing his track record as Chief Minister of Gujarat for proof, that he would create an atmosphere nationally, where business and industry, both domestic and foreign, could expect a red carpet welcome. This, in place of the customary Indian red tape, that sinks all but the most determined initiatives.

The number of captains of business and industry seen at his and the BJP/NDA swearing in on the 26^th of May bear witness to Modi’s popularity and credibility with this class. Also, it underlines his capacity to understand the needs of this vital component towards both job creation and national prosperity.

But now, it is time to take and launch this vision and dynamism nationally.  The Government of India must, to put it simply, learn the Modi way of doing business with business, and fast. The economy, languishing at around 4 per cent growth in GDP, cannot afford to waste time.

Modi’s prompt action of streamlining 17 ministries into a clubbed together 7, headed by like-minded ministers tasked to implement his economic vision, is a great and swift step in the right direction. More of the same, is reportedly in the pipeline, buttressed by the energy of a relatively younger crop of ministers. Of course, the negative culture of pushing files in a dilatory manner, creating obstacles, mangling priorities, causing cost over runs etc. will have to change drastically to suit. Not only politicians but the masses of officialdom must be held responsible for timely and effective implementation.

Notorious and persistent Indian red tape has been endemic, some would call it a temperamental weakness in the national character. We seem to have a love of a multiplicity of permits and sanctions, ponderous bureaucracy, antiquated operations and methods, willful subversion of one department by another, changing of the goal posts half way through the match, promised terms reneged upon, retrospective sanctions, naked graft, deliberate extortion etc.. All this has traditionally made India a very difficult place to do business in.

Independent India has created a government and governance model that has stood apart from the people in a neo-colonial avatar. And with its own selfish logic of officiousness subsuming every action and inaction based on vested interest, it is indeed very difficult to find the nationalism and patriotism we so badly need today to revive our fortunes. Modi is an outsider to this venal way of doing things, a monkish prime minister devoted to the nation, and therefore a very good catalyst for change of this sort.

India is compared to Egypt when it comes to red tape because both countries have legions of unsackable government servants though the political dispensations differ. And the joke goes that the British proclivity for indulging in semantics, fused with the rough and ready Western style education of the Indians and Egyptians, has combined to turn out hybrids of the most obdurate and opaque babus on earth.

This red tape is like a religion unto itself.  And despite the sub-continent’s obvious potential of being amongst the biggest economies in the world, with massive existing and future markets to tap. Compounded with corruption at every level and stage, intractable infrastructure bottle-necks, interminable delays, many is the foreign company that rues the day it set foot in India. Others, overwhelmed by the plethora of red tape, simply give up. This, after incurring massive losses and delays, preferring to do business in other countries, smaller, with more modest prospects perhaps, but with a more welcoming and winning attitude. Yet others, many of which are multi-national companies established decades ago, are made of sterner stuff. They not only stay, but expand, having learnt the Indian way to get over road blocks, and turning it to their advantage.

But none of the welcoming spiel is as per the advertisement or the assurances given when ministers  and senior functionaries go to Davos or to the West and East to drum up foreign investment. Then it is dulcet promises of ‘single window clearances’, prompt and swift land allocation, ample utilities, connectivity, infrastructure, professionalism, educated work force etc. The reality has been, often, if not always, a rude shock. ‘Incredible India’ has been anything but, and more akin to a waking nightmare. It is no wonder that many FDI projects are signed but never implemented and deprive the country of much needed growth. The buck-passing never ceases and no one is held accountable. The exception to this confidence trick of a rule has indeed been Gujarat over the last 12 years of Modi’s rule.

Domestic entrepreneurs without infinite patience and very deep pockets have tended to fight shy of industry altogether, and have launched into the service sector instead. Hence the massive middle class success of an Infosys, or the walking away from Soaps and Oils into IT of a Wipro, or indeed the massive success of TCS that has outstripped a clutch of venerable Tata manufacturing companies both in terms of turnover and profits.

Indeed the red tape may have a lot to answer for when it is seen that the Indian Service Sector contributes 56 per cent to GDP today, while the manufacturing sector accounts for just 20 per cent. And yet manufacturing must be boosted to take advantage of our demographic dividend and provide millions of new jobs, if the Modi promises are to be kept.

India is considered to be a potential manufacturing hub in replacement of other Asian theatre countries by the Japanese amongst others. But even though this is theoretically true, the progress on the Industrial corridor between New Delhi and Mumbai, for example, is far from satisfactory so far.

Almost every aspect of governance needs a radical shake up, and India must present itself very differently both to its voting public that has provided a massive and decisive mandate for change and progress, and to the investment community both at home and abroad. It is not so much the legal and administrative framework that is at fault. Some would argue is already far too elaborate, and so it is in the functioning of it that the swiftest changes can be effected.

The work culture must change. The alternative idea to socialism, always an unwritten apology for lack of efficiency and productivity, has to be replaced with alternative models of getting things done. A lot of it will no doubt come from Gujarat, particularly in the encouragemnent to manufacturing industry and the removal of infrastructure constraints, but other ideas could also come from Japan and China, because both countries have spectacularly reinvented themselves from low bases and turbulent times.

(1,102 words)

May 28^th, 2014

Gautam Mukherjee

Modi's Economics: Strengthening The Core

Modi’s Economics: Coal & Electricity

The passion that Narendra Modi brings to the task of nation building and engendering prosperity as prime minister elect is both extraordinary and formidable. He will build a modern India from the ground up, foundation to superstructure, so that it is built to last. Little information has leaked as to what exactly he is going to do as yet, whether it be in terms of the choice of his cabinet colleagues, or indeed, his economic initiatives.

The media space however is abuzz with suggestions and speculations. It is after all, so much easier to give gratuitous advice rather than actually execute a vision. But Modi must be used to it, receiving  torrents of advice and keeping his own counsel, both.

But there are clues. One is his abiding interest in providing 24x7 electricity to every nook and cranny in India. He has promised this many times during his election campaign. This electricity he promises is not only to provide domestic illumination, but drive the engines of commerce and industry in a failsafe manner. 

Something that has eluded the country as a whole throughout our history as an independent country, with even the capital New Delhi and the NCR suffering daily power cuts and ‘load shedding’. Gujarat however has ample power fuelling ample industry, and Modi wants to both keep it that way, and reach the remotest parts of the country too.

This is an activity to strengthen the core of the country. It means much more electricity generation must come about using India’s abundant, if substantially unmined reserves of inexpensive coal. PSU Coal India, under-capitalized, bureaucratically slow, lacking in expertise, has proved to be unequal to the task.

The Coalgate scandals of the UPA highlighted the incompetence with which some coal blocks were parceled out for a pittance to the highest bribe-givers from the private sector, but India continued to import massive quantities of expensive coal to keep generating electricity. The private coal blocks have not yielded any results either, because of other bottlenecks hampering and hindering the projects they were meant to fuel on a captive basis.

This scenario is due for a sea-change, probably with Modi personally driving it, and with the help of massive privatization cum modernisation of the mining processes. Modi will use tried and tested Indian private sector giants such as Tata, Reliance and Adani, amongst others, and the mining know-how supplied by their foreign collaborators.

If Modi decides to run the Coal Ministry himself he will certainly be able to deliver results in a time-bound manner. Reducing coal imports will reduce the burden on our foreign exchange reserves also and become a key component of increased GDP and reduced deficits. It might, with the generation of abundant electricity using cheaper coal, actually bring down the high costs of electricity at the retail level too.

The State Electricity Boards, many of them in a disgraceful state, will also have to be modernized and upgraded to cope with the extra electricity generated, and while they deal with their massive debts and inadequate infrastructure, their electricity subsidies to farmers in many instances, their political fall-outs etc. they may have to be supplemented by private, regionalized, even localized, electricity boards; to run in parallel in line with the American model. Privatised electricity, from generation to transmission to distribution, driven by efficiency and the profit motive, is definitely the shape of the future.

Gautam Adani, one of Modi’s favourite businessmen, famous for his success with the largely automated Mundra Port in the Rann  of Kutch, is  busy developing yet another private port in the East this time, recently bought over by him and being radically upgraded. Ports, roads, airports, telecommunications are all engines of growth, and linked to modern railways can transform the  possibilities in this country.

Railways then are another key thrust area to Modi’s economic vision, and may constitute another ministry he may have to keep to himself in the early part of his administration, long enough to initiate its massive reform into a modern transportation backbone fit for the 21^st century.

There are many other items that will be transformed by the Modi Government. Banking, for instance, crying out for capitalization and consolidation, groaning under serious bad-debt burdens. The national debt is crippling in itself and must be both curtailed and put to far more effective use.

But for the GDP to grow and ease the task, the enablers must be supported and set free first of all. This, through all the noise, may be at the nub of Modi’s economic thinking.

(756 words)

May 24^th, 2014

Gautam Mukherjee

Modi Revives The Idea Of SAARC

Modi Revives The Idea Of SAARC

Modi’s initiative to revive SAARC, fallen into disuse, by extending invitations to his swearing in as Prime Minister on the 26^th of May, pointedly, to both Sri Lanka and Pakistan, alongside Nepal, Bhutan, Afghanistan, the Maldives and Bangladesh, is a typically optimistic and bold move from him.

When they come, even the composition of their delegations will speak volumes.  Sri Lanka’s President Rajapaksha for example, is reported to be bringing along his Chief Minister from the Northern Province,that would have been Eelam.

 If Nawaz Sharif comes, he will be daring the Pakistan Taliban and other groups that do not want any rapprochement with India, and need the tacit approval of his all-powerful Army/ISI formations. And if he doesn’t or omits to send a delegation in his place, the Pakistanis will have denied themselves an opportunity in the full glare of international witness. Afghanistan is making new linkages after Obama’s troop pullout, both with India and its friend Iran. And perhaps tiny Maldives, included for once, will think twice before insulting India the next time the opportunity presents itself.

Modi, on his part, is sending a message to both India’s domestic and international audience. It says the NDA is about to form a substantial majority Government for the first time in 30 years, free of the crippling coalition pressures that had this country in its thrall for decades.

Now, Modi can afford to speak out, and is determined to speak clearly to India’s neighbours on matters of bilateral and multilateral interest. The doves with regard to Pakistan and Sri Lanka have been outflanked, and so have the hawks. India is also taking a lead as the largest country in SAARC, a responsibility it has long neglected.

China, the strongest power in Asia, and amongst the top powers in the world both militarily and economically, our neighbour on many sides, is not a part of SAARC; but happily, President Xi is due to be amongst the very first State Visitors in June. Modi has been to China five times and has been treated with great respect there, and the Chinese media have welcomed his victory and called him ‘India’s Nixon’ with the great expectations it implies.

But for the moment, if SAARC amounts to anything once more, it will be because Modi has seized the first available moment to make it so. Beyond the token carping from the Tamils in Tamil Nadu, used to getting their way with the weak UPA government, and the obdurate people who don’t want to deal with Pakistan at all, everyone else thinks it makes a great deal of sense.

The gesture also undercuts and undermines the poison of those who expected Modi to be belligerent with Pakistan without reason, and thanks the Muslims who voted for the BJP. It also demonstrates friendship and goodwill, long missing from our neighbourhood. The Kashmiri separatists, deftly outclassed, were quick to acknowledge the master stroke that cuts the ground from beneath their feet.

The Liberal-Left intellectuals here and abroad are also knocked off course and trying to regroup. And perhaps the Sri Lankans and Pakistanis will stop hauling off our fishermen. Bangladesh will get its Teesta River Water Accord whether Mamata Banerjee of TMC likes it or not, along with India’s ample thanks for putting a spoke in the wheel of terrorist activity out of Bangladesh.

SAARC, the South Asian block of countries forming a large chunk of the erstwhile British India, even as it excludes Myanmar and the then British Indian administered parts of the Gulf, has fallen on bad days. With the continuous rise of China, even ASEAN, much better configured once, in the era of the ‘Asian Tigers’, is not what it used to be. Trade blocs and regional groupings are subject to such flux throughout history, and revival signals a resurgence of one or more of its constituents afresh.

The G-8, presently truncated to G-7, with the temporary ousting of Putin ruled Russia, and the more commodious G-20 in which India plays a minor part; BRICS with several of its component countries economically tarnished, are also floundering on a sea of  economic woes and competing vested interests.

Almost as irrelevant in today’s world of diplomacy is the hoary Commonwealth. Today it features obscure Pacific Islanders in a reminder of just how extensively Britannia once ruled the waves, and how it has fallen in stature in what were its more substantial holdings.

But reviving SAARC is a signal to the world that India itself is on a path of growth and revival, ready to shun insularity and shrug off weakness, and do its bit as a regional and global player.

(773 words)

May 23^rd, 2014

Gautam Mukherjee

The Advent Of Modi Heralds Prosperity For India

The Advent Of Modi Heralds Prosperity For India

 Picking himself up by the bootstraps is a life-long habit for Narendra Modi from his early days in Vadnagar. He has come from poor boy to the prime ministership on the strength of his will, supreme administrative ability, and charisma. Narendra Modi’s great and proven skill is in generating a tremendous output from whatever present circumstances he has been given to work with.

In his first parliamentary address, he averred that he was an optimist and did not understand hopelessness. He saw his water glass as half full of water and half full of air. He declared that his government would deliver. There is absolutely no cause to disbelieve him. This, after all is his strongest suit.

Modi had actually better be believed; his followers and admirers know it, and his detractors are destined to  gag on their  ongoing disbelief. It is their misfortune to not recognize a man of destiny when he comes amongst them and instead revile him with filthy name-calling and rancour.

Modi’s recent election campaign took all the tools available to his competition, melded them together to great and potent effect, 3D campaigning, three aircraft movements, relentless and soaring oratory, humour, energy, earthiness, that in the end, produced a gob-smacking result.

So to bring in economic prosperity, Modi cannot first  go in for a long-winded overhaul and modernization of the Government machinery if he is not to squander his honeymoon period and give his craven and beaten enemies a chance to get back into the fight.

He must make soaring,  all encompassing, visionary, economy boosting announcements, days after being sworn in on the 26^th    in front of 3,000 invited guests, and weeks before his finance minister presents the first of five Modi Raj budgets to start with.

This coming budget too must be like no other this country has seen, less on the waffle and loaded with benefit and content. Modi must suppress spirit dampening caution and cast his fate and gauntlet on the altar of massive progress. Boldness has always rewarded Modi and this he must not forget.

The over-riding reason that Modii has won his spectacular victory is because millions of people bought into his exciting message of ‘vikas’ and ‘paribartan’ and ‘development’. They ignored the warning of vote bank politicos and put their faith in a man who is known to do what he promises. And he was believed because of the impressive results obtained over three successive terms in Gujarat.

BJP with its old Hindutva line and its unimaginative leadership after the departure of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, would have been restricted to numbers that would have made even a coalition government difficult, if not impossible to put together, as in 2004 and 2009.

But this time, despite strenuous efforts on the part of Congress, SP, BSP and TMC and the masses of Left-Liberals to brand Modi ‘communal’, and even a ‘butcher’, the voting public was not convinced. And this includes many Muslims, Christians, Dalits and others who saw the unfairness of not counting 1984, the Assam carnage, the Muzaffarnagar riots, and at least a dozen other major atrocities under Congress stewardship. They voted for him and made up his spectacular numbers.  

But Modi cannot let himself dawdle on the delivery. Sorting out our bloated government can wait. It will in any case not be easy to see what efficiencies even radical surgeries will engender, till months, even years, go by.

In the aftermath of Modi’s landslide win, the creaky   and conventional advice givers are asking for an urgent reorganization and consolidation of ministries towards efficiency; others are asking for tax breaks, reduction of interest rates, stimulus packages; the open letter writers are urging inclusiveness and a care for the poor and disadvantaged.

At least this last lot of petitioners are an improvement on the quixotic international pleas from eminent if short-sighted worthies of Indian origin asking for the public to ‘stop Modi’.

These people,  probably easily flattered by their tenuous toe-holds in the West, are the ultimate, if pathetic Uncle Toms given plentifully to every dispensation. Even India in imperial times was, after all, run by the might of bought out Indian muscle, positioned most ironically, against fellow Indians.

So post-election, desperately under-read and obscure, JNU educated, closet Communist writers, like Pankaj Mishra, a pal of both anarchist Arundhati Roy and wily Sonia loyalist Vinod Mehta, make bold to call Modi a ‘mass murderer’ in the Leftist  Guardian of the UK. This trio even thinks Kashmir should have its Pakistani crafted referendum, and that Maoists are aggrieved people who have been badly done by the Indian state.  

Even more pessimistic types are suggesting that it won’t be easy for Modi to deliver quick results in any direction, given the sorry state of the economy, and indeed the polity too. But these people are perversely pleased that it is going to be difficult for Modi, and secretly happy that Congress has left him such a mess to work with.

But it must be said to these many cooks wanting to dish up the community-made broth, reorganization, political rhetoric on caring for the poor, or tinkering with taxes or stimulus is not going to do the trick. This country has been sliding down for too long to be satisfied with hedge trimming and good intentions.

What Modi has to unleash, and very quickly at that, is a bold new world of economic reforms designed to catapult the country forward and astonish the world for its vision and reach.

(914 words)

May 22^nd, 2014

Gautam Mukherjee

Abundant Grain Hungry People

Abundant Grain Hungry People

India has now produced the greatest amount of food-grain ever, says a news report, accompanied by a photograph of loose grain, wheat, heaped like sand or garbage, probably in a government Food Corporation of India (FCI) godown. 

 Torn poly and gunny bags are piled helter-skelter, a picture of typical and cavalier neglect. The right hand procures, the left hand destroys. This is the primitive ‘don’t care’ sarkari storage for our expensive, minimum controlled priced ‘procured’ grain. The higher procurement prices, it is said, have apparently fuelled an uptick in rural consumption, even as high interest rates and suffering business and industry has reduced urban buying power and put up food prices.

Meanwhile, the abundant grain itself is unhyegenically stored, left to rot in the open or in rain swept godowns, rat infested, mostly unfit for human consumption. That is why it is sold eventually for a pittance to the makers of Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL),  that Modi referred to on the campaign trail. But nothing has been done about rectifying the state of affairs comprehensively and with thoroughness. Glut and shortage cohabit side by side in the administration of our agriculture and related issues.

The fruit and vegetables spoilage rate too is a shocking 58 per cent. Little or nothing is done about that either. Value-addition by way of juicing and dehydration for example, the making of jams, squashes, jellies, murabbas, their extensive marketing, ubiquitous cold storage,  supported by electricity and automated washing, sorting and packaging for retail  markets, distribution chains to shift the produce quickly, are all inadequate or non-existent, and in a primitive stage by world standards.

Yet, there must be some co-relationship between this highest tonnage of grain produced revelation, the rotting grain in storage, and high food prices. Millions of people go hungry because they are too poor to buy this food, and the UPA Government sought to cover up this scandalous state of affairs with a massive free food scheme.

Reuters Columnist Andy Mukerjee wrote that the voters had not only rejected Congress but all its policies, welfarism in particular, included. But now that they are gone, the question is what is the Modi Government going to do about It? This sorry state of affairs in agriculture, highlighted by bumper crops being grown without any mind paid to how such God’s bounty will be used to benefit the people! If price rises and inflation was an election issue that touched more lives than anything else, then tackling rural poverty becomes the most effective remedy to the most pressing malaise.

The time has come for a massive and spectacular overhauling of agricultural policy and rural infrastructure to deliver 10 per cent growth all over the country. This will necessitate the tackling of all the planning, modernisation and administrative issues this throws up. Agriculture has fallen to less than 20 per cent of the GDP today from over 60 per cent once, but it still involves the maximum number of Indian people, and therefore a majority of voters.

Reforming the agricultural possibilities will result in a profound transformation, to shower over 600 million people with a measure of progress, modernity, dignity and social justice. Welfarism is patently not the answer, but productivity and modernisation is. Some of the work towards laying the groundwork for rural prosperity is indeed done, but in a lop-sided and non-beneficial way.

The Modi Government must replicate the success in agriculture achieved in Gujarat across the nation to ensure its re-election in state after state, time after time, and in the general elections to come. Many other issues such as the Indian Railways, national security and defence production domestically, kick-starting growth in India Inc. and so on, has much importance too; but tackling the needs of so many people should be given the top most priority.

This, even as it is very early days, and Narendra Modi goes to the President to stake his claim to form the first majority Government in 30 years.

(663 words)

May 20^th, 2014

Gautam Mukherjee

Modi Must Lay The Foundation For A Three-Term Prime-Ministership

Modi Must Lay The Foundation For A  Three-Term Prime-Ministership

As we take in the import of this invincible poll result in favour of the BJP and the NDA, we must possibly reflect on the most profound opportunities it has thrown up. It is not enough to see this win as a weakness of the other side, anti-incumbency, corruption, ineptitude, etc. undeniable as all this is, but a win born of the yearning of the young people of this country who think they have been short-changed for a very long time.

It is they who have voted in Narendra Damodar Modi, cutting across caste, creed, and religious divides, despite the acrimony of a so- called polarised election. The results show the minorities, concentrated in many constituencies, must have also voted for Modi in significant numbers, making this no majoritarian slugfest.

Our traditional post-MK Gandhi politicians, on both sides of the fence, steeped in socialist apology to a lesser or greater extent, have, in the past, sought to dampen expectations and claim virtue, make much of the difficulty of the tasks in hand. They have been wary of raising aspirations with confidence and ambition. They have characterised India as a poor, post-colonial country, and persisted with this victimhood for generations.

Modi on the stump has ignored this narrative, and repeatedly said he had worked within the same imperfect existing system, but delivered very good results in Gujarat. What it takes, he said, is  sincerity, executive will, and good governance.  

Old style Indian politicians from every party have been adept at explaining why it, meaning almost everything, was interminably delayed, never on budget, or never even got done. They have harped on poverty alleviation, inflation, subsidies and other measures to make less go around, without ever addressing how such  a great country endowed with such a wealth of natural and human resources, should yet be in this sorry predicament!

Modi, coming from a poor family, came up the ladder by dint of merit alone, became the country’s best known Chief Minister, and burst on the national scene with a three-term track record in Gujarat. He spoke of a bold new message of abundance, of unleashing the energies and ingenuity of the Indian people, of technology-friendliness and setting no limits on the progress possible for this nation. And he delivered it relentlessly, in unabashed ‘shock and awe’ fashion, crisscrossing the entire country for every campaign day available to him in seven to eight months.  

Not only did the nation, via an enhanced voters’ list and high percentage turn-outs, endorse Modi’s great vision for this country, but the true implications and expectations of this win must be clearly understood. Modi needs to achieve a grand target of turning India into a developed country second to none.

This accepted, the time-frame realistically needs to extend beyond the 60 months Modi has spoken of on the campaign trail, to perhaps a consecutive run of 180 months. A half or quarter-finished job will not suffice or satisfy.

BJP State Chief Ministers, three of them, in Gujarat, Chattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, with possibly a come-back skilled artist in Rajasthan that closely mimics it too, have demonstrated their ability to win multiple and consecutive terms. This despite, till lately, a fractious tendency to infight and cleave to privileges, that has benefitted an effete and corrupt Congress, blackmailing regional parties, rapacious independents. It lost the BJP the general elections in 2004, and more particularly in 2009. Nevertheless, on the plus side, an ability to overcome anti-incumbency to claim support from the voter to execute a development agenda is firmly in the DNA of the BJP at some subliminal level too.

Now that Narendra Modi has been blessed with this spectacular success, this invincible tally, he has the wherewithal to take India into the first rank of nations.

With a simple majority for BJP alone, Modi cannot be effectively sniped at by BJP party rivals who may resent his ascendancy and grudge him the magnitude and efficacy of his personal contribution. Though, it is also certain he achieved this result with the staunch support of the RSS, top brass as well as rank and file cadres, a strong and effective core team, an efficient and gifted backroom operation, brilliant campaign strategy and execution, a massive advertising campaign  etc.

As things stand, not only is India already the third biggest economy in the world on a purchasing power parity (PPP) basis, but it has the potential to become a top economy in absolute dollar terms as well. The key desire, easily understood by a Prime Minister who comes from poverty is to eliminate it. Modi has the possibility of removing the greatest bane of poverty for millions of the Indian people and becoming the greatest Prime Minister this country has ever known. He can, and probably will go down in history as the leader who eliminated poverty in this country. It is indeed a gargantuan task for a man who can dare shoulder such a massive ambition.  

But of course, it may well take more than a single term in office. So, from day one, Narendra Modi must lay the foundations, the groundwork, to ensure the winning of three consecutive terms. The Party apparatus cannot afford to go to sleep now that the battle is won, because the transformational war, as yet, awaits. Great lieutenants, such as the astonishingly successful Amit Shah, are probably integral to the electoral requirements going forward.

In fifteen years India can become either the biggest economy in the world, or certainly, giving the US, China and Japan  its due, amongst the top three or four, not in PPP, but in absolute terms.

It is too early, days before the new Government is even sworn in, to speak of the mechanics of such a great task.  But it is not too early to demand this of a great man of destiny, a moderniser, reformer, a doer, a secular, Kemal Ataturk style figure, adapted, of course, to a 21^st century milieu. 

Narendra Modi is on the threshold of a very unusual greater glory, bigger than even the prime ministership; it is to give the true meaning to the provisions of the greatest constitutional democracy on earth.

(1,027 words)

May 16^th, 2014

Gautam Mukherjee

Prosperity Coming Up In Congress Mukt Bharat

Prosperity Coming Up In Congress Mukt Bharat

The Narendra Modi led election is all but won in spectacular fashion, except for the counting on May 16^th. A simple majority for the NDA seems assured, and some projections take the tally to over 300 seats. 

Several post-poll allies may emerge, and both UP poll architect and BJP General Secretary Amit Shah and prime ministerial candidate Modi himself are open to the prospect of additional supporters. Back-room talks are reported to be on with both BJD and AIADMK.  NCP too is apparently leaning towards the NDA, seeing the support of ‘stability’ at the centre as a virtue.

Modi set out to usher in a Congress Mukt Bharat those many months ago and he has done it. The planning and execution of a long campaign has been impeccable, and his team entrusted with the nuts and bolts work involved has delivered excellent results.

The Modi-led Government will be much stronger than the UPA Government it is replacing in terms of its numbers and stability in the Lok Sabha. In the Rajya Sabha as it stands, the BJP/NDA does not quite have 121 seats, the half-way mark, let alone more, and it will have to manage support from others to get new legislation passed.

But unlike the UPA fond of putting in new laws, the emphasis of the Modi Government will be on governance, toning up the administration of the country, within the ambit of the present thicket of laws.

This approach of getting on with the work has served Modi well in Gujarat and has every chance of showing noticeable results in a short time. Just generating more and more laws cannot substitute for results on the ground. In any case, they tend to have a long gestation period before the effects can be seen for better or for worse.

Besides, the Indian judiciary is crying out for decongestion, radical reform including the updating or scrapping of out-dated laws, appointment of many more judges and courts, and sanitising against incipient corruption too. Today many laws are observed only in the breach and fuel blackmail and graft.

But first, Modi will have to design and construct a Government of the same calibre as his campaign team. One that can deliver on his vision of governance. The architecture of the Government must involve people, politicians, bureaucrats, advisors, etc. that must be efficient and brisk in the execution.

Most people are expecting an emphasis on the economy in short order to revive the fortunes of the country. Reviving GDP growth will mean bold new reform measures, but also reviewing the monetary policy set by the RBI, reducing interest rates, and making more investment funds available to   business, industry and the consumers.

This would be a departure from the UPA’s failed attempt to control inflation and prices by bringing the economy to a near stand-still. Instead, there may be an attempt to balance the need for growth with the emphasis on controlling inflation. Particularly since many of the inflationary pressures are external and beyond our control. The price of petroleum, of which we import nearly 80 per cent of our needs, has a profound influence; as does the huge external liquidity situation in the US and the West, as their governments try to revive their economies post 2008.

The massive UPA welfare schemes funded through deficits will also need to be reviewed because many of them had the solitary purpose of bribing the poor in order to obtain their votes. What has become obvious is that they have not been effective in this objective, and probably need to be phased out in favour of new rural and urban growth strategies.

Modi’s plan to increase farmer incomes by 50 per cent actually messages an ambitious, transformational modernisation agenda for agriculture nationally. The aim will be to replicate Gujarat’s 10 per cent plus per annum agricultural growth rate instead of the dismal average of under 3 per cent nationally. This will vastly improve the lives of over 600 million agriculturists and others living in the rural areas. Our Planning Commission needs to be set on an entirely different path from the socialist tinkering of yester year.

Infrastructure, including railways, roads and electricity need urgent modernisation and involve massive investment, largely expected from abroad. China and Japan are expected to play a stellar role in this regard, while various other Western governments, Russia and the US are also expected to contribute.

Other areas such as law  and order, tax reform, internal and external security, health, education, and so on will need market-friendly transformation.  Modi is committed to developing the indigenous defence industry and this too has enormous potential once the ball is set rolling.

This poll verdict is indeed an opportunity to liberate the energies of the Indian people and take it far away from the dynastic politics riddled with vested interest it has known, not only in the Congress, but in many of the regional parties too.

The stock markets expect great things from the Modi Government and has  leaped to nearly  24,000 on the Sensex  even before the final results are declared. As far as the young voters are concerned, they expect progress and jobs. It will be incumbent on the new Government to deliver growth with jobs to fulfil the aspirations of the many people who rallied to Modi’s clarion call.

(887 words)

May 14^th, 2014

Gautam Mukherjee

Time To Look Forward With Joy And Hope

Time To Look Forward With Joy And Hope

Now that the Narendra Modi led BJP/NDA has won the general election in spectacular fashion, all except for the counting on Friday May 16^th  ; it is a time to look forward with joy and hope.

Every single exit poll gives the NDA the ability to form the next Government with the least projection in the region of 249 seats. But a majority of the polls indicate the numbers above the 272 half-way mark. BJP itself expects an NDA tally of over 300 seats, with the BJP component of it being about 260.

Every news channel is busy discussing the reasons behind such a showing. But nobody has the stuffing to challenge the efficacy of the Modi Wave and an NDA sweep any more.

The incoming Modi Government is likely to be tough on law and order and security. The Pakistani sponsored terrorism network around the country, and that of the Maoists, will have to be very cautious, because there will certainly be no Congress style tolerance shown. China will become a stronger partner in our development, but they will have to stop menacing us on the borders.

The 170 million plus Muslim population, the Christians, disadvantaged people such as the Tribals, have just as much reason to rejoice with this result, because Modi’s development agenda, the reason he has won, will definitely not exclude them! Now that the ugly Congress propaganda, designed to scare the minorities against Modi has fallen flat, it is time to experience why he has been elected so often in Gujarat. Modi himself has been quick to issue a statement post the last day of voting aimed at addressing and reassuring the variegated people of India.  

The stock market, surging on FII and HNI money, is confident of a stable and market-friendly NDA Government. The large and reputed foreign brokerages from around the world have long been expecting it, much to the chagrin of the UPA. Today, it is headed towards 25,000 on the top 30 stock Sensex. This represents a rise over 25 per cent in short order.

To make the revival more broad based and involve the retail investor, the Modi Government will need to take a few visionary and market-friendly economic initiatives. Irritants such as retrospective taxation are slated to be scrapped, but other specific market boosters will be necessary. Income Tax laws are also promised to be bettered.

The property market, over-leveraged and suffering, is also expected to perk up in tandem. This may also ease the pressure on the banks and their distressed loan portfolios.

Internationally, the United States, at last, is positioning itself to welcome a Modi Government. China and Japan, otherwise rivals, are ahead of the US in this, and are expected to become very important trading partners and collaborators in India’s progress.

The indigenous defence industry, with enormous potential for a country that is amongst the biggest arms purchasers in the world, long neglected because of various vested interests, is likely to receive an urgent fillip. This, involving billions in investment, will increase Indian strategic security and autonomy, improve technological prowess, and get us far better returns on resources invested.

The Modi Government is also likely to overhaul the country’s agricultural policies and infrastructure to replicate Gujarat’s 10 per cent growth rate. This will fortunately affect over 60 per cent of the Indian population, and go a long way to alleviate the poverty of millions. Modi has enigmatically spoken of increasing farmer incomes by over 50 per cent without elaborating on his plans. Perhaps it is a volume game he has in mind.

Certainly, if output is increased and wastage cut, if modern  material handling facilities are built, if high yield crops are grown more extensively, cold chains built, more mechanisation  is introduced, extensive internet based linking and better roads and rail connectivity is put in, dramatic improvements can indeed come about in agricultural efficiency. Vajpayee’s dream of linking more rivers implemented comprehensively, will prevent flood, drought, provide irrigation where it is needed, etc.. The only one doing it presently is Shivraj Chauhan in Madhya Pradesh.

Many young people have particularly voted for Modi because they expect him to deliver progress for business and industry and a robust job market to ensue. This will have to be followed through very quickly to meet expectations and deliver in abundance.

A major area of emphasis, already being targeted by FIIs is the area of India’s antiquated and bottle-necked infrastructure. Not only can it absorb massive investment by way of FDI, provide millions of jobs, and greatly contribute to the modernisation and the competitiveness of this country, we are hugely backlogged, for example, in the area of electrical power.

After the whole daisy chain of initiatives to awaken and put this nation to work is introduced, our GDP is expected to rise sharply as the accompanying investment stimulates the economy, starting something of a virtuous cycle.

But for the moment, this decisive result will, as desired, make for a strong and stable Government. In Modi, the people of India will have a prime minister with a stellar track record in governance, and with a Government able to take unfettered decisions.

The Congress tactic of trying to corner the Muslim vote as a way to stop Modi appears to have failed, with a surge in voter turnout and the splitting of the minority vote between various contenders including the BJP. Toxic talk of anticipated micro-management from the RSS in Nagpur and the hard-core Hindutva agenda being reasserted is overblown, because it the RSS that threw its weight behind a strong development oriented leader like Modi in the first place, choosing him over various alternatives.

In fact, another major plank of the long-term Congress strategy  of pitting themselves as ‘secular’ and ‘inclusive’, to the B JP’s ‘communalism’ and ‘divisive’, has patently not worked. The Modi counter-punch of pointing out the blatant ‘vote-bank’ and ‘pseudo-secular’ politics of Congress has found much greater resonance.

The Congress Party, on its part, could well be in terminal decline, and possible self-destruction mode. This is principally because of its insistence on cleaving to the Gandhis who have an outdated socialist vision and cannot seem to win elections any more. Are Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi fit to lead the country today and tomorrow with nothing to say beyond their illustrious legacy? Can they hold the party together in the Opposition? Do they have the interest and stomach for day to day stewarding?

Post Sonia Gandhi, these may become important questions that Congress is loathe to answer. But, the BJP and the NDA can probably look forward to an ineffective Opposition as a bonus.

(1,105 words)

May 13^th, 2014

Gautam Mukherjee

MODINAMA

Modinama

Narendra Modi in the Arnab Goswami interview displayed a presence and subtlety reminiscent of the post Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) first season Amitabh Bachchan. Modi on Times Now  quickly received some 17 crore  hits on Twitter and made a ‘trending’ record on the social media.  

Looking back at the resurrection of the Big B ,that fateful turn on the small screen brokered by then Samajwadi General Secretary Amar Singh and Subrata Roy of Sahara,  revived Bachchan’s career, refilled his empty coffers, and relaunched him as an A list Bollywood actor. It was an improbable comeback, in his sixties, into his lost superstar status.

Modi may well become the Amitabh Bachchan of politics, with his lyrical stylistic flourishes, growing in popularity and the people’s affection, as he reaches out beyond Gujarat to the national stage and the international arena.  His reasons for contesting from Varanasi because Ganga had called him is a case in point.

From the Arnab Goswami interview, Pakistan too, can be expected, with the advent of an NDA Government, to review its export of terror to India policies. This, even if the typical Pakistani bluster prevents them from admitting it in plainly. They know future outrages won’t go unpunished and also that Modi may get on very well with their big boss China.

On the caste front, always important in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, when Modi turned the tables on Neech Jati and Neech Soch slurs from the Gandhis, the Congress decided to try the opposite tack. Next Congress made strenuous attempts to call him an upper caste Vaishya Ganchi-Teli. who fiddled his own OBC caste status as CM!

This comes as a desperate, reactive, Congress ploy, just before the last tranche of voting, completely tripping over the fact of insertion of Modi’s caste status in the OBC  list by the Congress State Government in 1994, when Modi himself was still  in considerable obscurity.

Coming after their earlier contemptuous ‘chai-walla’ attempts to denigrate Modi, and the ongoing sneering on caste, character, and indeed Modi’s capability, understanding of governance, truthfulness, diplomacy etc.  it is not going at all well for Congress in terms of public perception. Considering the hysterically personal remarks Congress has been making throughout they should not be surprised and bewildered at none of it hitting their target.

Besides, 17 crore twitter hits or not, what a contrast between Rahul Gandhi’s schoolboyish interview with Goswami, smirking and firmly in charge, accused soon after of ‘child molestation’ by journalist Swapan Dasgupta, and this one. This time, the same  Arnab Goswami, famous for his bullying and hectoring ways, was obviously over-awed into good behavior.

Meanwhile, it is rumoured that Retuning Officer/District Magistrate Yadav of Varanasi is a close relative of Samajwadi Supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav, who is, of course, a close Congress ally, by compulsion as well as design, with not a little ambition in the third front context.

No wonder the EC top brass led by a Mr. Sampat is scared of moving him out of Varanasi, even as it certifies itself ‘unafraid’. But the entire controversy of the state machinery and the EC working in a partisan manner is likely to benefit Modi and his election at Varanasi, as well as nationally.

In the East, Mamata Banerjee has been put on the spot with news that the CBI will take on the Saradha Chit Fund Scam investigation being handled softly-softly by the West Bengal Police thus far. This may well persuade the TMC Chief to see the wisdom in supporting the Modi led BJP/NDA formation post polls because quite a few  prominent TMC people are allegedly entwined with the Saradha Scam. This until the ‘caged parrot’ reputation of the CBI changes into a more autonomous avatar.

And then there is the financial ‘package’ for West Bengal alluded to several times by BJP President Rajnath Singh. Bluster apart, West Bengal is bankrupt, wiped out by its lack of growth and industry over four decades, and its crushing accumulated debt. Similar considerations, both in terms of cases against them and need of money for their states will be playing on the minds of madames Mayawati of the BSP and Jayalalithaa of Tamil Nadu.

Lalu Prasad Yadav in Bihar is relentless in his bufoonery-laced abuse of Modi and the BJP. His DNA as a Congress pet are now too prominent to be erased by any attempted cross over. This has not prevented a number of his key aides from joining the Bihar BJP however. But Lalu, banned from standing for elections himself, has no choice but to go down with the sinking Congress ship. Prasad has decided to go down, grimly fighting his corner, spouting yesterday’s tarnished Lohiaite and anti-BJP rhetoric that gave him prominence in the nineties.

We can now look forward to a new crop of final Opinion Polls after the 12^th of May and then the moment of truth and destiny on May 16^th.

(817 words)

May 9^th 2014

 Gautam Mukherjee

The Bandwagon Effect

The Bandwagon Effect

The election drama continues in a daily soap opera with its own quota of booth capturing, intimidation by political goons, fiddling with EVMs, entering voting booths without being authorised to do so. And now, even attempting to selectively ban political rallies/appearances/events.

The apparently partisan Election Commission Returning Officer at Varanasi, an obscurity named Pranjal Yadav, tried to stop the Modi Wave/ juggernaut citing law and order apprehensions. In the same breath, he saw no difficulty in allowing Rahul Gandhi addressing rallies, conducting road shows and meeting people in the same areas, at practically the same time. Perhaps he does not think Rahul will attract anywhere near the same degree of public interest.

Still, it is like an ant trying to stop the relentless march of destiny. Realising this perhaps at the EC head quarters, it allowed the Varanasi District Magistrate to give a last minute permission to 4 out of 5 of Modi’s rallies/appearances. The road show still stays banned.

The flip flop shows the EC up as partisan says Modi, while the EC denies the charge, and says security concerns are indeed real. The BJP, feeling harassed and disrupted in terms of its organisation of the events, will sit in protest  at Varanasi and Delhi, before having Modi visit.

Narendra Modi’s victory in Varanasi, and that of an NDA majority at Delhi, meanwhile, seems imminent. But it is precisely this perception that may be leading to some fanciful and bizarre attempts at collusion and subversion. Modi, it is seen, always gains strength and political support precisely from the inept and motivated attempts of his detractors.

This Varanasi blockage has happened in the midst of a sharp season of charges of  Neech jatiism and Neech sochism, tripping off the imperial tongues of the Gandhi siblings, followed by a  slew of semantic explanations to try and defuse the resulting outrage. A tea-seller cannot, it is felt, be tolerated as a presumptive prime minister by the high caste feudalists in the Congress Party, and certainly not by the Gandhis, with their overweening sense of entitlement.

Great German political theorist Hegel might have characterised the remarkable rise of Narendra Modi as illustrative of his famous ‘march of destiny’ theory. To Hegel, it is a beneficial process of taking the progress of mankind forward, in which different nations at different times, such as Imperial Rome, Catholic Spain, Protestant Great Britain etc., assist/lead the narrative.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, in the South, the bandwagon effect in favour of the NDA is growing, with YSR Congress chief Jaganmohan Reddy unequivocally declaring his ‘options are open’, interpreted as his willingness to join/support the new rulers in Delhi.  

But ironically, Chandrababu Naidu, the BJP’s official ally, is also targeting the chief ministership of Seemandra. In Telengana, the front runner, K Chandrasekhara Rao from Telengana Rashtra Samiti, will, it appears, also turn to the BJP for the support needed from the Centre.

Still, the real sense of injury may be much deeper, both for Jaganmohan and Chandrasekhar. Congress expelled YSR’s son, despite the father being an erstwhile pillar of the Congress in Andhra Pradesh, and caused Jagan to be put him in jail for alleged corruption. And theTRS knows just how treacherous Congress can be over the years of its struggle for the birth of Telengana.

This Barkis is willing stance from Jagan, ten odd days before the counting of votes, may mean that the key state politics rivals might both end up supporting the BJP/NDA coalition.  And perhaps this will provide a further momentum and template to would be joiners. Especially those from States in  dire need of financial ‘packages’ and concessions from the Centre.

Mahratta strongman Sharad Pawar’s NCP, is uncomfortable too. The NCP has decided to give a thumbs down to the crassness of trying to launch Snoopgate. The NCP could well become a late joiner. Besides Pawar thinks that Congress now suffers from a leadership vacuum. 

Another, an artful dodger of a political party, blow hot and cold communalist/separatist, blackmailing millions out of the central government, is the NC of Kashmir. Suddenly, it too did a volte face against Snoopgate at this last- gasp stage.

Over anxious Union Minister Anand Sharma, comic in his mofussil styled delivery, has been caught out by a report under the auspices of his own ministry. In it, Narendra Modi’s Gujarat has been cited as having the best, repeat best, land acquisition policy in the nation. This not only embarrasses his own pantomime thunder, but puts a spoke in Rahul Gandhi’s rally pitch, even as he screeches that Modi gave lots of land cheap to Gautam Adani.

That Adani set up, ports, power plants, industry on it is not mentioned, nor that has the further effrontery to employ lakhs of people. Rahul Gandhi calls this crony capitalism, but says nothing about the Vadra land scamming in his own family designed to benefit himself alone. Other election planks coming apart include the lack of development in his long held constituency at Amethi.

The propaganda against BJP General Secretary and Uttar Pradesh in charge Amit Shah in the CBI probe against him in the Ishrat  Jahan case, has also come to nought. All this tumbling out just before the last day of polling is probably bad news for the Congress. It seems to be utterly failing at its attempt to stop Modi at any cost.

Perhaps the Congress, and the now low  caliber remnants of the Gandhi family, has forgotten the adage that you can fool some of the people some of the time, but not all the people all of the time.

(929 words)

May 8^th, 2014

Gautam Mukherjee

Congress Provokes Ethnic Cleansing

Congress Provokes Ethnic Cleansing

Congress and BJP call each other communal, but in this election, now in its final stages, it is Congress, and not BJP, that seems to be hoisted on its own petard.   

It has been aggressively wooing the Muslim vote, reiterating, that it will implement a 4% Muslim quota within the 15%  for OBCs, promised some time ago. Not even the Muslims believe Congress promises, or that it can deliver justice anymore, and besides, everyone knows the Congress is unlikely to be in power come May the 16th.

In the last two phases of voting, the rumour mill is billowing thick and fast. One suggests Congress will engineer massive communal riots so that Muslims are scared into voting for them. But the Assam pogrom, in a staunchly Congress state, is definitely not what it had in mind.

This stratagem is designed to harm the BJP and vitiate the atmosphere during the process of Government formation after the polls. Another, more far- fetched rumour, says Congress will contrive some charge to have bête noir Narendra Modi arrested. If ‘Snoopgate’ was the latest secret weapon in this regard, it is doggedly refusing to get off the ground, the UPA allies are not on board, and time is running out.  

Hoping for riots to come to the rescue, makes two unjustified assumptions, one that Muslims will choose Congress, and not some other  independent alternative to BJP, and indeed not the businesslike BJP itself, cresting on a Modi Wave that is calling out to Muslims too.

The other hope against hope is that the BJP/NDA will not get a majority on its own, and will indeed need several post poll allies. The Congress riot-mongering theorists, thanks to its well-oiled propaganda machine, expect BJP to cop the blame for any violence against Muslims. And therefore find it difficult to attract post-poll allies.  Those who back this strategy in Congress are apparently quite prepared to sacrifice some Muslim lives towards its own lust for power.

Apart from the trio of frantic Gandhis, trying desperately to brand the BJP communal, other crafty Congress allies, such as the National Conference  and Samajwadi Party, have also been ratcheting up the abuse. Oddly, both NC and SP preside over perpetually communally tense states. Others, like TMC, pose to be pro-Muslim in order to woo its 26% minority population, including many Bangladeshi aliens who are a definite security hazard.

Violence in Maoist strongholds has also been escalating, but without much political dividend. More bloodshed too is expected in Jammu &Kashmir because of the irresponsible statements made by NC politicians. Similarly, cross border infiltration and firing is on the upswing, and the Pakistani Army Chief has also chimed in, calling Indian Kashmir Pakistan’s ‘jugular vein’.

Congress and its first family, claiming to be ‘inclusive’, are blatantly begging endorsements from any Maulana or Maulvi willing to listen.

Meanwhile, ironically, it has all gone bad on the ground in the Congress bastion of Assam, erupting most inconveniently for the Congress, for the third time since 2008. The infamous Kokrajhar district and two others next to it are experiencing yet another bloodbath. Native Bodos are slaughtering Bangladeshi immigrants. Retaliations from the Bangladeshi settlers/refugees, constituting vote-banks for Congress, are naturally expected. Meanwhile men, women and children, 32 in one night, were killed in cold blood, their houses burnt down.

Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi promptly called in the Army, but the situation remains tense, with all three districts under curfew. No one is sure there won’t be more attacks and retaliations, especially at night, and in the more remote areas. The Muslims are beginning to assert themselves politically as well by voting for one of their own much to the chagrin of the Bodos who are allied to the Congress.

But thanks to this kind of cynical demographic engineering practiced by the CPM and Congress over decades in the states bordering Bangladesh, the situation is coming apart at the seams. The immigrants, no longer compliant, parallel the now assertive Turks brought in to do menial work in Germany. The scenario has deteriorated into a process of frequent clashes, and even ideas of systematic, savage, ethnic cleansing by the native population.

In West Bengal, millions of refugees have been a law and order problem and economic burden for years. But the Bangladeshis are still welcomed by the Congress, the CPM, and now the TMC too.

Gogoi looks smug after 14 years in the saddle even as he reaps the whirlwind. The Asssamese seem to continue voting Congress despite everything. But what are the Bangladeshi Muslims doing?

Still, how can the Congress act against them, when they have created the Frankenstein themselves, like they once created Bhindranwale and his band of Khalistanis in Punjab, and are now cravenly dependent on it. The Muslim vote is vitally important to Congress, not only in Assam, but all around the country.

But despite this sordid history of state collusion in the creation of Bangladeshi vote-banks at the expense of the native population and its safety, a callous Congress continues to blame the BJP for everything.

May 4, 2014

842 Words

Gautam Mukherjee