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Saturday, January 31, 2015

Sorcerer's Apprentice


Sorcerer’s Apprentice

If politics is a form of sorcery, involving the swaying of the masses and the conviction of the classes, it cannot be within everyone’s skill-set or temperamental cup of chai. Some are born to selling chai but become consummate politicians; others are born to politics, but have no aptitude for it.

It does not take a genius to realise that the ‘united’ Congress Party, split once before by a very competent and courageous Indira Gandhi, has no future under the leadership of  her grandson Rahul Gandhi.  Reduced to less than a rump by the verdict of the people already, the Congress is about to involuntarily (through no doing of the High Command that is), splinter into several bits and pieces going forward.

Rahul has displayed little intellectual ability, people skills, stomach, or political acumen, for any work he has done for the Party, despite his interminable Sorcerer’s Apprenticeship. What he possesses in ample measure is a line in hubris and bad manners which he likes putting on public display, as in his treatment of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, when the poor man was out- of- station on a official visit to America.   

Rahul Gandhi is a known liability, but a designated political heir and illustrious dynast nevertheless, absolutely to the manor born. It is anathema to denounce him in the Congress Party, no matter how repeatedly incompetent he proves himself to be.

The attempt of his minders, like one-time Congress Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh, current General Secretary, trusted blue-blooded courtier, to explain away Rahul’s shortcomings; constitute acts of great skill in themselves.  Singh’s frequent advocacy that Rahul should take over from his mother as President of the Congress Party, smacks of the aspirations of a would-be regent.

Of course, if it does come about, it will be an excellent strategic development that will work in favour of the ruling BJP. But, it is anybody’s guess which faction of today’s Congress will even accept Rahul Gandhi as its chief.  

As Sonia Gandhi, Congress President for the last 15 years, ran out of ideas learned from a circa 1980s Indira Gandhi, there was nothing to carry the Party over into present times. Except, perhaps the magnitude of the corruption it engendered. Sharad Pawar walked out of a Congress led by her a decade ago, to find his independent identity, and retain his dignity. He has made a good job of surviving it, because of his home base of Maharashtra, and Baramati within it. He has worked with Congress since, at the Centre and in Maharashtra, but without being tied to the High Command’s apron strings. He even played a stellar role in enabling the BJP to form the State Government in Maharashtra very recently. There is a template for others to follow in this, and the experienced hands know it.

Rahul Gandhi, on his part, has even fewer ideas of his own, at least very few that make sense to others. So, even the threat of his imminent elevation to the top job in the Congress party, both in letter and spirit, is splitting the Congress at the seams.

One erstwhile Congress  Minister, a woman and a Dalit to boot, has already crossed over, and now the P Chidabaram camp has raised the flag of open revolt. It is becoming increasingly clear, because senior Chidambaram opted out to return to his flourishing law practice, even before the 2014 general elections. Next, Karti went hammer and tongs, first, followed by Jayanthi Natarajan.

It makes sense for Chidambaram and friends to walk away from the Congress if his faction is to have any future relevance in Tamil Nadu, heading for its own Assembly elections, soon. Others, if they want a political future, more in harmony with the times, will be making tracks too.

The ‘humiliation’, that Natarajan of the infamous  ‘Jayanti Tax’ fame, referred to in her press conference at some length, is nothing new to senior Congressmen. Who took the money? Who held up things in reality? Who will investigate?

But, suffice is to say, all Congress-wallahs  are all terrified of their High Command  culture, that tames all native ambition by having one satrap watch another at all times.  But now, it has become abundantly clear that the Gandhis have lost their magic with the people, and cannot win elections anymore. Also, their Party purse, sustained by the Centre and the States they once ruled, is fast emptying; and along with it their power of patronage.

The old guard, many of whom are nearing, or are in their seventies or more, recognise that they may not get another crack at power. And the likelihood of theBJP retaining power for 10 years at the Centre, and in most of the big states too, is quite intense. They know that their children and followers need new alliances to remain relevant to their political legacies.

 The BJP must know this too, but as they have been at pains to point out, have no agent provocateur role to play in the ongoing disintegration of a grand old party in decline.

(846 words)
January 30th, 2015

Gautam Mukheree

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Modi's Friend Barack



Modi’s Friend Barack

The personal rapport between a two-term US President and a Prime Minister of India,  newly minted, in his first year in office, was indeed heart-warming to witness. This still youthful US President has long battled the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, but is now, at last, witnessing 5% Growth, a profound uptick in a $ 20 trillion economy, but only in the last quarter.  In the interim, Barack Obama has also reached his sixth year in office, out of the maximum of eight allocated to any US President by law. But America is back on its feet, when Europe is still not exactly well.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, leader of his nation with the first full majority in 30 years, is also on a transformational journey for India, and looks at least ten years into the future. The two men, different as they are, do have a lot in common.

The pace at which this rapprochement between the two leaders has come about, over just eight months since Modi took over, signals the dawn of a new era in the relationship, and is far greater than just the  good chemistry between them.

There is no doubt that Obama’s two-and-a-half-day visit to New Delhi over India’s Republic Day weekend and up to the Tuesday, following, illustrates the broad bipartisan support in the US for a rapprochement and  upgradation of the bilateral relationship.

It is not easy for those who don’t want to accept its significance to effectively downplay it.  But, presidents in office do not have the luxury of making wholly empty gestures, or using their  considerable state apparatus to do something vacuous. And then, this was an unprecedented second trip to India. One to accommodate which the State of the Union Address, one of the most important fixtures in the presidential calendar, was preponed. 

The fact is, bipartisan US policy has changed. The US has decided to help India become technologically developed and more prosperous. It is being promoted into a bigger league. The US will champion India’s entry into APEC, currently dominated by China. The problem, of course, is that India is indeed five times smaller economically than China, and nowhere near as powerful militarily. But the US may be moving to find solutions for this too. It has promised to help fast track India’s jet engine and aircraft carrier building propensities, among other initiatives in solar and nuclear directions.

India has long been a nuclear power, but it will now operationalise its ten-year-old intended cooperation with the US. It may also be invited to join the NSG, citing a strong non-proliferation record. So, not only is India slated to enter the most powerful of the regional forums, but also the globally exclusive NSG that is the key formulator and arbiter of nuclear doctrine in the world.

The recent economic recovery in the US may be what earned Obama his feistiness in his latest State of the Union Address, undertaken just six days before his trip to India. President Obama asked the Republicans, who now control Congress, to have a care for the poor and the needy, in a sentiment  that Modi fully empathises with.  

Obama is building his legacy now, as is traditional, and opening up to Cuba was another move in this direction, that the Republicans can oppose only at their peril.

There is a lot of internal criticism in America, the richest nation on earth, owned largely by just 1% of its population, where it is still very difficult for millions of the underprivileged to live on ‘minimum wage’ .  Obama made bold to point out such things to the Republicans, who could, after all, win the next election in 2016, especially if the public wants change after eight years of Democrat rule.

Obama may be technically a ‘lame-duck’, but paradoxically, his nation is stronger today, economically speaking, than when he began his first term, six years ago. The Federal Reserve Bank of America has stopped its quantitative easing to the tune of $ 85 billion per month, tapering it off gradually, and may soon start raising interest rates from zero. The US dollar too has been stabilised.

Obama has, in addition, achieved many milestones, stopped wars, brought Osama Bin Laden to justice, presided over oil self-sufficiency, to name just three momentous developments. He has, of course, broken the mould for Presidents of the US, being the first African-American to win the office. The US could now perhaps see a female President before long.

Obama has also instituted a health care and insurance system  that includes the poor for the first time. This, against stiff opposition from the hospital and pharmaceutical lobbies, even though healthcare in the US is very expensive, and a very large proportion of the poor could not, before ‘Obamacare’, afford any health insurance at all.

Modi and Obama have quickly become friends, recognising in each other, agents of change in the fates of their respective nations, and their altering place in a new world order.

 (833 words)
January 28th, 2015

Gautam Mukherjee

Friday, January 23, 2015

Crane Bedi For CM



Crane Bedi For CM

BJP’s Chief Ministerial candidate Kiran Bedi, hand-picked by Prime Minister Modi and Party President Shah, is already starting to garner a larger share of media attention. This, as she influences the narrative more than Arvind Kejriwal, last-man-standing supremo of the AAP.

Bedi’s emphasis on development in Delhi not only syncopates well with Prime Minister Modi’s ‘Vikas’ message, and suggests good coordination between the city-state and the centre, but makes Kejriwal’s rants seem petty, amateurish, and quixotic. In fact, Kejriwal’s tone of wannabe tehelka-style firebrandism looks equally bogus and out-of-date. But all this is by way of an intelligent perspective, well away from the ways of populism in which Kejriwal specialises.

Still, all Kiran Bedi has to do to keep the pot boiling, is issue daily development oriented sound- bytes in the social and digital media in particular, and look photogenic on TV. She should avoid tripping over her own volubility, and maintain a centrist line, away from the over-simplification of the NGO mindset.

This will keep Bedi from inadvertently providing Kejriwal with ammunition to use against her. Recent well received statements include her seizing the initiative by endorsing the RSS for keeping the country united, her emphasis on work and efficiency rather than debates, convincing noises on women’s security, and her future plan to undertake periodic radio broadcasts just like the PM.

Bedi must avoid TV debates with the other CM aspirants like the plague, as it will inevitably dent her front-runner status. Besides the journalists are apt to paint her in opportunistic colours per the Congress line, employed for every BJP joiner, including MJ Akbar before her. It is as if conviction is patented by the pseudo-secularists and all others are, naturally, turncoats!

BJP has seized the advantage by inducting Bedi and allocating her the safe seat of Krishna Nagar. She has an instant well-funded state and party apparatus behind her. The former infighting in the BJP Delhi unit has also been stymied with this development, with none of the stalwarts gaining the upper hand one over the other. They have now all been stapled together willy-nilly by Amit Shah, to serve the overall cause of forming a majority Government in Delhi. And they will be held accountable.

So, in the short campaign ahead of her, Bedi, a well-known and longstanding national figure in her own right, can afford to concentrate on projecting her very credible image and administrative ability.

Her peccadilloes, over the years, are few and far between, as her rivals and detractors, looking for dirt on her are finding out. And such as they are, they certainly out-weigh her gifts, talents and accomplishments.

One-on-one TV interviews of the kind Shazia Ilmi has given to News X recently, in which she likened the AAP to George Orwell’s Animal Farm, could be very useful as the elections date draws nearer.
Kiran Bedi showed good judgement by astutely steering clear of the AAP even when it was in the ascendancy in 2013. But now, daily visuals of her smiling self being copiously garlanded by welcoming crowds makes a refreshing change from Kejriwal being slapped around. And this, more often than not by disgruntled AAP members or constituents whom he has let down. The organisational situation for AAP continues to unravel with considerable speed.

AAP founder member and Supreme Court Lawyer Shanti Bhushan who famously donated Rs. 1 crore of his own money to the AAP, called Bedi’s induction into the BJP a ‘masterstroke’ and Bedi  a candidate ‘as good as’ Kejriwal. He also heaped other character certificate style praise upon her. Shanti Bhushan elaborated on this by saying that his son Prashan Bhushan,   also a senior Supreme Court Lawyer and active AAP member agreed with him but could not say so because he was 'gagged'.

This considerable disenchantment with Kejriwal is not confined to the Bhushans. Several other founder members and early travellers left soon after the Lok Sabha election wipeout. Shazia Ilmi and Vinod Binny too have already jumped ship to the BJP. Others still in AAP, such as psephologist Yogendra Yadav, are known to be unhappy.

And Kejriwal’s own famous description of his party members in his heyday does not help. He said, with his trademark smirk, that they resembled ‘Shivji’s baraat’.

So what is going to become of the derisorily dubbed ‘Mufflerman’?  Bedi calls him ‘confrontational’ and the educated people of Delhi seem to have have grown weary of his sensational style. This more so because of Kejriwal’s farcical 49 day administration in 2013.

However, as the Opinion Polls indicate, Kejriwal cannot be written off. He may well benefit from the Congress deliberately helping his campaign and giving his people walk-overs. And also, the very real challenge for Bedi and indeed the BJP is to blunt Kejriwal’s support amongst the largely migrant poor of Delhi. They still trust him to reduce their financial burdens and give them a place in the sun.  

(801 words)
January 23rd 2015

Gautam Mukherjee

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Statistical Silver Lining Looking For Implementation Gold



Statistical Silver-Lining Looking For Implementation Gold

Prime Minister Narendra Modi signs his name, when he does it in English, by writing a right-leaning capital ‘N’, with a loop around it, and a dot to finish. It is, of course, representative of his given first name, Narendra. But the legible ‘N’, the only part of the signature that is not abstract, also reminds one of Napoleon, not so much because Napoleon was a plebe who became an emperor, but because he believed in luck being as important as skill. 

Brilliant military strategist, beloved general, ardent lover and tolerable politician, Napoleon Bonaparte did, it is said, consult a book of oracles he kept at hand. In has, in fact, been handed down to the present world of divination and prophecy as Napoleon’s Book of Fate.

But what then do the fates have in store for the monkish NaMo’s India? He too is a man of considerable destiny, and there is a tremendous sense of anticipation about all that he has promised.

Narendra Modi is proving himself lucky as Prime Minister, despite all the trials and tribulations of his early life. He has raised himself from poverty and obscurity to the most powerful job in the country, run the gauntlet of opposition, from within and without, and won; that too with a full majority for the first time in 30 years.  He is now plainly determined to transform India into a prosperous nation as soon as possible.  And circumstances seem to be helping him.

The dramatic oil price fall to below $50, cured the nation of inflation in one fell swoop. And most estimates do not see it rising to beyond $60 a barrel, even in a year’s time. As net importers of crude oil to the tune of an ever-expanding 80% , India’s oil bills have been more than halved, and worked its magic; particularly  to arrest  high-inflation and the falling worth of the rupee. The Government is a beneficiary of this, as much as the learned RBI, alongside the people of India.  The economy is even headed for a current account surplus, for the first time in seven years.

The billions in pledged money from foreign Governments and privates is likely to come in shortly. The external  environment has favoured India; and because the Modi Government is moving on its promises to cut red tape and taxes, reduce interest rates, streamline processes, reform labour and land laws, improve infrastructure and communications, and implement  a  large number of second generation reforms.  India is clearly the best performer in BRICS now, and amongst the EMs too.
But are we truly going to grow into a $ 20 trillion economy, the putative size of the US economy today? We will, on the present base of $2 trillion, take 25 years to get there. And, if we do, it will be provided we can keep growing at over 9.5% year-on-year for the whole time, even when the base is not so small. But getting started as soon as possible will be a tremendous boost to our spirits.

The fact is, China had an economy the same size as India once, before Deng Xiaoping got to work in the eighties. And it did achieve over 10% growth for 30 years. Its present, largely planned decline to 7.4%, in order to cool it, is the lowest its been in 24 years . So, impossible it is not, particularly if the US helps us now, as it helped China then, and all through most of the subsequent years.
But India will have to rely on a domestic consumption path rather than an export-led one today, at least till the world economy gets stronger, even in the main thrust to its ‘Make in India’ campaign; and it will have to ignite all sectors of the economy simultaneously, to gain, and keep the momentum.  
The IMF has followed on from Goldman Sachs and the World Bank in predicting India will  indeed become the fastest growing major economy in the world by 2017, and overtake China, if only just, in the growth stakes by then, (India’s 6.5% to China’s 6.3%).

When these august organisations call India a major economy, it is not so much based on our actual GDP number, which is still only at a modest $ 2 trillion in absolute money, without going into purchase power parities (PPP); but the undeniable potential of our massive domestic market.
Besides, Indians are going to be young, 65% between 15 and 35 years of age, for decades to come; while China is greying fast. India also has a free press, a lot of quasi-independent institutions that function, an independent, feisty, judiciary, the basic rule of law, and above all, a thriving democracy.
But of course, China’s economy is already five times bigger than India’s at $10.4 trillion, and percentages, by no means, reveal all. China’s present growth rate of 7.4% is predicated on a size of $10.4 trillion and our 5.7% for 2014, or the projected 6.5% in 2015, is still on an economy that tops out at $ 2 trillion.

We are growing from a low base, wherein the percentages look good, and China is declining, by design as well as circumstance, from a base that is five times bigger. The absolute numbers in every case, including foreign investment into the two countries, will stay very different. A poor man’s growth is being compared to a rich man’s decline.

One irony of the situation is that India needs an estimated 8% minimum  in annual growth to reduce its humungous poverty statistics, with a third of Indians below the dubious ‘Poverty Line’. And China needs that very percentage also, but to keep its massive population from becoming restive.

The Emerging Market (EM) allocations may indeed be enhanced for India this year and going forward. But actually, we need very little in absolute terms to get the Indian stock market soaring. Where we need trillions from abroad is in infrastructure development.

Consider that, even at our worst showing of some 4% plus in GDP, under the last years of UPA rule, we were still growing, when most other countries in the ‘developed world’, were not.  Presently, almost every other major country is facing declines, stagflation, deflation, and the world economy is expected to grow at a modest 3.5% in 2016, and 3.7% in 2016.

But even then, we cannot put the cart of our attractiveness before the horse of difficulty in doing business in India. Our own self-posted target to attract $ 40 billion into the equity market alone in 2015, with a similar sum into the Debt Market, seems exaggerated; at least for 2015.

This seeks to double the roughly $ 20 billion each that flowed into the equity and debt markets respectively in 2014; impressive, but only by our local standards, given that the world of global equity runs into many trillions in annual investment.

More of the ‘stimulus’ funds actually came in last year to buy Government debt that paid about 10% on the zero interest investment. But for India, it was thrilling to receive such large sums, which promptly came in once restrictive FII investment caps were raised by the UPA Government.

The Chinese have trillions in dollar reserves from the good years, and have been investing it around the globe. It is famously leveraging  African raw materials, Russian oil, building infrastructure in all parts of the South Asia, and wherever else they can participate in a mega project, and may  soon do  so in India too. But, lifting the world’s second biggest economy on such long-term development, without commensurate domestic demand, or buoyant exports, is not easy.

China’s own factories to serve export demand are now working well under capacity, its domestic infrastructure is over-developed and under-utilised, its banks are scandalously over-leveraged, and burdened with trillions in bad debt. Domestic consumption, though growing at over 10% per annum, is simply not high enough, in absolute terms, to pick up the slack.

It takes considerable heavy lifting to get a $10.4 trillion behemoth going  to right the balance. China can, and probably will go the quantitative easing ((QE) route, like Japan, the EU, and indeed America, to keep things from nose- diving.  The big spending oil-rich countries too are facing deficits in their budgets for the first time in decades.

Only America, working on itself doggedly since 2008, with its innate advantage of huge domestic consumption, in a way, like India, and being the most technologically advanced $20 trillion economy, the largest in the world, is now definitely growing.

It is, of course, hoped, that this US recovery, in turn, will lift all boats, including that of Chinese in time.  Meanwhile, external events, as well as our own self-help moves are making the Indian economy look promising. Acche din may indeed be round the corner for India, and its lucky leader.

(1,476 words)
January 21st, 2015

Gautam Mukherjee

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Why is The Socialist Big Tent Collapsing?



Why is the Socialist Big Tent Collapsing?

The Pioneer, this very newspaper, was once the flag-bearer for the British Raj in the United Provinces. It had famous people like Winston Churchill and Rudyard Kipling writing for it, albeit before they became famous. Along with the once legendary Statesman of imperial Calcutta, and Times of India of mercantile Bombay, this troika carried the Union Jack held high, haughtily designed to strike fear and awe into the breast of the subjugated native.

The Raj carried the White Man’s Burden in this, their prized Jewel in the Crown, with exemplary aplomb. And the Raj papers above-mentioned maintained an infallibility of editorial tone.
They expostulated, rather than explained, the Government’s  policies and deeds as it saw fit. There was no felt need for fairness, or balance, or even a hint of a native point of view. In all sincerity, and without the least trace of irony, that was that.

Britain owned the bakery, didn’t we know, and everything and everybody in it. It did not feel any need to ingratiate itself.  So the British-Indian media narrative only buttered the British side of the bread, and audaciously ignored the rest.

The Pioneer, established in 1864, went into a long hibernation after the British departed. Only to emerge afresh, but in a  radically different, Left-leaning avatar, under the ownership of  suave Industrialist Lalit Mohan Thapar and the Editorship of Vinod Mehta.  The original logo, of the leaping stag against a yellow sun, has however, survived.

Mehta went on, of course, to preach his blatant ‘pseudo-secular’ line, as he self-deprecatingly puts it himself, in the Outlook Group of magazines, and still oversees it all as Editorial Chairman.  

But, it is a stark if strange truism, that for the last 20 odd years, the lone sentinel of the Right of Centre discourse in India has been The Pioneer, under the current BJP MP Chandan Mitra’s  editorship cum ownership.  He too, truth be told, has travelled the distance from Socialism as a student, to realising later that it does not work.

The Pioneer has been joined, but only of late, by the highly successful digital media offerings from  IT entrepreneur Rajesh Jain’s NitiCentral,  helmed by ex-Infosys staffer Shashi Shekhar. And, most recently, Swarajyamag, begun by two young entrepreneurs working out of Bangalore: Prasanna Vishwanathan and Amarnath Govindarajan.

Swarajya is edited by well-known media-man Sandipan Deb .The Swarajya  team is also in the process of reviving C. Rajagopalachari’s dormant magazine in a monthly print edition as well.
Arvind Panagariya and Jagdish Bhagwati, for long the stellar gurus of the Indian economic Right, shining a light on the goings on here from distant Columbia University in the US, are also centre- stage at last. They are being heard, and listened to, along with a number of lesser mortals, including myself, who also want 9% GDP growth year- on-year for a decade or more, and think it can definitely be done.

But this, ladies and gentlemen, is the sum total of the declared Right of Centre crowd. And you can probably fit all the Right leaning economists, columnists, speakers and cartoonists, comfortably into one middle-sized auditorium .

All the rest of the vast Indian media/intelligentsia; in print, digital, and broadcast, are, and always have been, pushing the Left of Centre Congress world vision. This was ordained by the first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, and passed down, like the Holy Grail, through most of our nearly seven decades as a nation.

While the idea of a zebra changing its stripes may be a non sequitur; the tone and tenor is definitely changing, as the extant media comes to terms with the prospect of a decade or more of BJP rule.
In the broadcast space, the dramatic change of ownership in the CNN-IBN/TV 18 Group from  entities controlled by Raghav Bahl to ones that belong to Mukesh Ambani has resulted in a shake-out.
While the Reliance Group has a track record of being pro-whichever Government is in power, it fully realises that Modi is here to stay. It is interesting to note that it finds repeated forays into the not very lucrative media and think-tank areas, cogent to its plans.

Similarly, yet another cash-strapped broadcaster, a pioneer and incubator for the industry, the NDTV Group, has also been bailed out by Reliance.  This, if not the advent of a majority BJP Government led by Modi, has resulted in instant moderation of its former bias.

Even the well-heeled Times Group, no doubt with a view to protect its bushels of advertising revenue from the DAVP, is also shifting position.  Vineet Jain signalled the change in stance himself by praising the Modi Government’s use of ordinances to break the legislative logjam.

There is some evidence that the India Today Group, sustained more by its state-of-the-art and large scale Thompson Printing Press, than by its media activities, is also coming around to a closer appreciation. Aroon Purie has ostensibly taken the Prime Minister’s invitation to promote the Government’s Swatchh Bharat campaign quite seriously.

However,  since  Purie continues to provide sanctuary to a number of ousted, Congress- loving, editors, maybe they too will put their considerable  journalistic acumen to work by learning a new tune, more in keeping with the times.

But many politicians, across the spectrum  have got it horribly wrong, and become misfits overnight. The CPM is hanging on by a thread in Kerala, its last perch. All the more or less Socialists in the fragmented Opposition, feel betrayed and wronged. Perhaps they can’t be blamed for being in denial. Socialism has been the default position in this country for a very long time.

But now, the voter has turned his face. This is not just the middle class who have enough, but the poor, urban and rural. They have rejected welfarism, rejected the dole and subsidy route.  The vote shares too have shifted in favour of a soft, inclusive, capitalism.

So is Socialism yesterday’s hit that is thoroughly played out? It sure looks like it.

 But since there are a masses of political parties, which live on caste calculus, as Marxists,  Lohiaites, and/or inspired by the activism of Loknayak JP Narayan; they can’t believe their eyes. What will they do when reality eventually dawns?  

Judging from trends, all politicians except those who can’t leave because of too many skeletons in their cupboards, will probably join the BJP. This is happening already, and will most likely snowball as the economic initiatives of this Government begin to bear fruit. There will be  speed. And, when politics becomes economics convincingly; implementation, as the IMF points out, is decidedly the key to success.

(1,097 words)
January 20th, 2015

Gautam Mukherjee

Monday, January 19, 2015

Follow That White Rabbit With The Fob Watch






On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the publication of Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland


Follow That White Rabbit With The Fob Watch

Why is a raven like a writing desk?-Mad Hatter, at The Mad-Tea Party

Alice had originally gone ‘underground’, as the title of the first version had it, following a hurrying White Rabbit in a waistcoat. A rabbit with a fob watch, muttering to himself, determined not to be any later than late.

But what sets Alice in Wonderland apart from all the fantasia, fairy-tales, nonsense rhyme and make sense illogic that poured out during the mid to late Victorian era? And why was there such a creative outpouring of enduring, other-worldly fantasia during the grimy, early smoke-stack stage of the Industrial Revolution? But the second question is like wondering what it was about the Seventies? 

Was it the end of the war in Vietnam or the liberation of the contraceptive pill, or both?
But in Alice, It was surely the number of delightful characters that populate the book and its sequel, the slightly darker Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There, published six years later. They are, without doubt, two of the most famous books in English literature.

There was an incandescent spark and wit about the Alice books then that remains most contemporary. Much zany conversation, to animate the animals who talked, the objects that walked, mixed with a quirky streak of landed upper-class British eccentricity and loftiness.

That tone of voice was the norm in the leading university of the English-speaking world, in 1865, when Britannia ruled the waves, and the paroxysms of violent change that came with the 20th century, were still decades into the future.  Alice, like the never existent but most evocative Wodehousian world later, has been ever- endearing. Besides, the best children’s books have a timeless quality about them, untouched by the vagaries of history and circumstance.

In addition, Alice has pace, crackling with a logician/mathematician’s intelligence and invention, but softened by the creative tenderness of romance as wide-eyed as a young man’s fancy, or indeed the innocence of a child.

Lewis Carroll had actually been writing and illustrating amusements, rhymes, fantasia, miscellania, right from his teens. But Alice was his block-buster, claim to instant and abiding acclaim, and what became his defining moment. It also earned him large sums of money throughout the rest of his life.  
It was a heady coming together of creative juices and the play of relativity, expounded later by Einstein, brought to simplicity. As the Walrus in Looking Glass quips in this oft-quoted snippet: ‘The time has come to talk of many things. Of shoes and ships-and sealing wax-of cabbages and kings’.

Edward Lear, a talented contemporary of Lewis Carroll, author of the beloved The Owl and the Pussycat, (1871), helped popularise the genre of hilariously illustrated nonsense rhyme. His best-selling book of self-illustrated limericks was actually published in 1846, well before Alice (1865). Alice, of course, ranged over a scale of thought and lyricism amongst the word-play, that went well beyond just the nonsensical.

That, a wonderful story, made up extempore by the author as he imagined it, for the simple entertainment of three little girls, could captivate generations  ever since, defines its inherent genius. Its sheer longevity in print and celluloid contradicts what the Mad Hatter says to Alice: ‘You used to be much more…muchier. You’ve lost your muchness’. Fact is, Alice, as she asserted herself, is still ‘real’, a century-and-a-half later.  

Published originally as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland it was conjured up out of the ether in fascinating outline, while rowing/punting down the river Isis, on a picnic cum boat trip. That first of these astoundingly productive boating excursions took place on 4th July 1862, between the evocatively named Folly Bridge and the village of Godstow, both near Oxford.

There were many more such outings later, on other idyllic days. Together, they helped flesh out the story- with the three Liddell sisters as muse: There was Florine 13, Alice 10, and Edith 8, all clamorously urging Carroll ever onwards in his invention, insisting ‘next time’ was always ‘now’.

It is now the 150th year since the publication of the ‘first children’s story without a moral’, wrote Melanie McDonagh recently in The Independent . This astute observation probably accounts for the tale’s tantalising appeal to young and not so young alike.

 Alice in Wonderland was published in 1865, three years after it was conceived. The first edition illustrated by the celebrated John Tenniel, later knighted by Queen Victoria. And afterwards, Alice inspired many other illustrators in subsequent editions, as well as a galaxy of famous painters including Salvador Dali, Rene Magritte, Peter Blake and Yayoi Kusama .

And this year, a whole flotilla of Oxford rowers made a commemorative journey down the Isis. Oxford University has long been clear about claiming its own, and this one was the work of a life-long resident and faculty member. Alice may be global but it is also local.

Susan Sontag, the American playwright, essayist and novelist, wasn’t exaggerating when she called Carroll’s Alice the most famous Alice of the 19th century.

Lewis Carroll’s muse however probably led him to an amalgam, a composite person of the imagination that actually featured in the books, but there is no doubt Alice Liddell figured prominently. She is mentioned directly in the text and referred to obliquely several times.  
But there was also the influence of all three Liddell girls, daughters of Henry Liddell, Dean of Christ Church, where Carroll alias the Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was a Mathematics don. He was, in fact, an Oxford prominent, teaching there from the 1850s till 1881, and staying in residence for the rest of his life till he died in 1898.  

In any case, Lewis Carroll, prolific as he was, never again matched the popularity and magic of the Alice books, generally published sandwiched together in later years. Everything inside and outside, up top and underside in Alice belongs; nothing is superfluous, not even the liberal poetic licence. That is probably why Alice thinks it is fine to be mad. She tells the Hatter, who is suddenly seized with anxiety that he’d gone mad: But I’ll tell you a secret. All the best people are.

Marina Warner, in an article written in 2011 for the celebrated Tate Gallery, noted ‘Dodgson saw humour as somewhere, above all, to shelter’.  This was the work of Dodgson’s nom de plume, the altogether more prepossessing Lewis Carroll, fluent, comfortable, debonair in the company of the Liddell sisters, but obviously his alter-ego, one that wasn’t tongue-tied or shy. 

But there is enough gossip, conjecture and anecdotal trivia on Carroll. Any tinctures of paedophilia, suggestions of which came to the surface in the suspicious 1990s, in Dodgson’s devotion to Alice Liddell, and indeed little girls in general, were certainly not borne out by the facts.  Neither Alice nor anyone else claimed anything untoward in the subsequent decades of Carroll’s life. This unlike quite a few celebrity icons of times just past.

It is true enough that  Alice Liddel’s defining moment also became Alice in Wonderland to be sure. After all, she was the possessor of the only hand-written and self-illustrated copy of the manuscript gifted to her in 1864.  And so, she was often called upon, after Carroll died, to preside over Alice functions, almost up to her own death, years later, in 1934.

It is no secret that Carroll plainly loved her. He also took photographic portraits of her, her mother, and sisters and many other little girls, often nude or partially dressed, almost always supervised by a parent, because the prevailing conceit of the time saw pre-pubescent little girls as the embodiment of innocence.  There was no sleaze in it, and there were a number of other painters and photographers who did likewise.

Dodgson, a life-long bachelor did, reassuringly, embark on several discreet affairs with young women, some no more than in their twenties. It is also said, in some accounts, that he wanted to marry Alice Liddell when she grew up. This was a healthy enough sentiment for a man 20 years older. He voiced as much to her parents, but was turned down by Alice’s mother, the Dean’s wife.
Alice Liddel went on to marry a wealthy cricketer, one Reginald Hargreaves, the same age as her, in fact, and had three sons by him before he died in 1926. And she did name one of her sons Caryl, but coyly denied it had anything to do with Lewis Carroll.

There were other colourful rumours too. Alice was a striking beauty at 20, and before she married Hargreaves in 1880 when they were both 28, she was said to be the love interest of Prince Leopold, Queen Victoria’s youngest son. However, there is some confusion on whether it was actually she, or her younger sister Edith, who died young, that interested Leopold. But the Prince did pay Edith his last respects as one of her pall-bearers.

Also, there are missing pages of Carroll’s diary from 1863, which are thought to refer, contrary to the popular line, to the Liddel’s elder daughter Lorina, a blooming, hormonal young teenager by then, if underage  under today’s laws, who apparently gave inappropriate expression to her infatuation for Carroll.

This inevitably caused a rift between the Liddells and Dodgson. A rift, from which the relationship never fully recovered, though other reasons, including Oxford staff-room politics, were added to the mix in later years.

Irrespective of these formative juices, once Alice in Wonderland was published, it took on a life of its own, opening it up to a world of interpretation. What fascinated Director Tim Burton, for example, who directed the latest Disney cinematic version of Alice in 2010, is its ‘trippiness’.

Indeed, the mathematician in Dodgson perhaps seemed fascinated by what another analyst called the ‘unverifiable’, and the ‘unreliability of perception’. Others thought he brought non-being to life in Alice, along with a cast of hypnotic characters, including the contrapuntal Mad Hatter, the irascible Queen of Hearts, , the Mock Turtle, the March Hare, the Dormouse, and the Cheshire Cat, who could disappear leaving only his grin hanging in the air. Looking Glass introduced the duo Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the gryphon-like Jabberwock dragon, The Walrus, and the Carpenter.

Alice’s magnetism is probably due to its universality. It was clearly not just an outstanding Victorian era concoction, unlike several of its less celebrated ilk. It is still contemporary, and appeals also to adults, through its twists and turns, and its darker hues in Looking Glass. Carroll lost his father shortly before writing Looking Glass, and was quite depressed at the time.

The appeal and validity of the books has inspired a cornucopia of painters, illustrators, musicians, graphic artists, movie-makers, playwrights, fantasists, curators, sociologists, logicians, intellectuals, writers, novelists, and masses of Carroll biographers.  There are postage stamps featuring Alice and the cast of characters in Wonderland, fashion, clothes, Apps, computer games, a plethora of toys and oodles of gift-shop merchandise.

There were also a number of works, before and after, in similar genres. A languid and intoxicatingly illustrated Water Babies, by the Rev. Charles Kingsley (1862), was a satirical, moral fable, commenting partially on Darwinism, and a precursor to Alice, which was neither. But it was published by the self-same Macmillan that took on Carroll’s Alice.

JM Barrie’s Peter Pan, the boy who wouldn’t grow up, came later, after the turn of the century, first in a novel form (1902), and then a play, (1904); soon after the longest reigning British monarch, Queen Victoria, died in 1902.

Across the Atlantic, meanwhile, L Frank Baum published The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 1900, marking the first acclaimed American fairy-tale and children’s fantasy ever. The PL Travers’ series of Mary Poppins books came further down the pike, the first of them in 1934, in the ‘modern’ era between the wars.

Walt Disney’s own parade of humanoid animal characters led by Mickey Mouse was followed by movie versions of several of the aforementioned. It was Disney that took a stab at the first film version of Alice in 1951 and once again in 2010. And all the idealised ‘worlds’ and ‘lands’ since,  from Disney World to Hogswart, arguably had their basic inspiration in Lewis Carroll’s seminal and path-breaking work.

The Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was a pastor’s son headed for a career in the ‘High Church’ too, but though a deacon, was actually never ordained a priest in the end. He was,additionally, a brilliant mathematician with a dozen books on the subject written under his real name, including Notes on the First Two Books of Euclid (1860) and Curiosa Mathematica, late in life, published in two parts, coming out in 1888 and 1894.

Dodgson was a teacher, mainly of geometry, an Anglican deacon from 1861, a pioneer photographer, starting in 1856, when the medium was just establishing itself, illustrator, comic, author, a singing bon vivant, an inventor of useful innovations.

In himself, Dodgson was, despite his gifts, sometimes stodgy, a stuttering, shy, conformist. But, in a Through The Looking Glass, mirror-image kind of way, he was also, in his Lewis Carroll avatar, an outrageous, incandescent, and fluent rebel, a  soaring Superman to his mild-mannered academic gowned Clark Kent.

Dodgson was, in fact, also an occasional temporal lobe epileptic, given to visions, and suffered ‘aura’ migraines. These afflictions may well account for the distortions of his vision, and not the influence of psychotropic drugs, that some people seem to divine in the text. 

The feisty Alice, never one to be overawed, probably has the last debunking word for the motley dissectors, analysers, critics, and sundry other authority figures over the years. She shouts in retort at the imperious King and the bad-tempered Queen of Hearts: You’re nothing but a pack of cards! Who cares for you!

But perhaps it is not so much Alice, so given to holding her own, as the Mad Hatter, who sums things up best: you might as well say that I like what I get is the same thing as I get what I like.
 Or even the Dormouse, who says: I breathe when I sleep is the same thing as I sleep when I breathe.
 Deductive logic anyone?

For: Swarajyamag.com
(2,357 words)
January 19th, 2015

Gautam Mukherjee

Saturday, January 17, 2015

Why Not From Two To Twenty?


Why Not From Two To Twenty?

What were the key take-aways from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 40 to 45 minute address to the Captains of Business and Industry at the Economic Times Global Business Summit on the 16th? On the one hand, everything he said, because of the freshness of his outlook, the excitement generated by the possibilities he outlined, and his obvious determination to see it through.

It sounded very much like he wants to shrink the very expensive Government, restricting its scope to those things it does best, and move it out of things better done by the private sector. This sounds downright Reaganesque, this desire to dismantle the entrenched ‘command and control’ mindset, and will be extremely difficult to implement, given the self perpetuating nature of the beast.   But there were a host of other difficult ambitions too, with regard to both processes and brand new infrastructure needed.

In fact, the entire speech, delivered pointedly in English, was bristling with them. If the Modi Government is able to implement everything NaMo spoke of, this country will certainly be transformed beyond recognition.

India Inc. , packing the hall at Taj Palace Hotel in New Delhi where the Summit was held, was both mesmerised and delighted, never having heard a Prime Minister lay out such a bold vision for  the nation ever before.

Modi wants to effect substantial tax reform, cutting some out, and simplifying others. He wants to reduce expenditure and wastage wherever possible via the new Expenditure Management Commission. He wants to speed up the processes of Government and computerise the notoriously inefficient PDS supply chain system, this right from the FCI godown to the neighbourhood ration shop.

Going further, he wants to remake the entire agricultural backbone, modernising it with state-of-the-art materials handling, storage, transportation and food processing mechanisms. He plans to have first class communications. Indian farmers will be linked digitally to global markets. Farming itself will be made more productive via the latest ongoing technology, and thereby become remunerative as an activity as well.

Modi wants overall growth, substantial in nature, daring to dream of the Indian economy at $20 trillion, up from its present $2 trillion. Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu later spelled it out as a 9% annual growth rate, sustained year on year going forward.  

And Modi is very clear that he wants to carry the poor with him on this upwardly mobile journey. He flatly refuses to countenance a cut in subsidies for now, but indicated that the Government would henceforth attempt to deliver reliefs to the intended recipients, without the endemic systemic leaks that have plagued its administration . Much of the confidence in this regard is due to massive digitisation plans, the elimination of duplication and middle men, and time-bound processes.

But to Modi the purpose of his Government is to work for the poor first of all, and create growth with jobs for everyone.   Alongside these soaring and visionary plans, Modi indicated that he felt development was not just the Government’s business, but needed the participation of all sections of society to succeed. Likewise, in the thrust for cleanliness under the Swatchh Bharat initiative, and the cleaning of the Ganga, the participation of the populace was of the utmost importance. Tourism could only be promoted properly, for example, if the country was clean and had the necessary infrastructure.

Narendra  Modi  as PM does not usually consent to address conclaves organised by private media platforms, however well regarded. Particularly one that has consistently criticised his efforts, motives and value system for over a decade while he was in power in Gujarat, and continues to do so, even now that he heads a majority Government at the Centre.

The Times Group employs tens of thousands of pro-UPA/Congress staffers and journalists, ploughing that particular furrow for years, who may find it very difficult to change course, and rectify their ingrained bias, even if the atmospherics suggest that the owners seem keen enough to do so.  This subtle turnabout at the top, is largely in recognition of the perception that the BJP is probably here to stay, for a decade at least.

But, because of his confidence in his plans, Modi  decided to grace this occasion. It was also attended by eminent economist and academic Jagdish Bhagwati, the pro Modi eminence grise of the economic Right, and a somewhat awe-struck  Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman, busy muting his usually Left of Centre positions, replacing them with fulsome praise for India’s future, even  juxtaposed with his version of China’s report card!  

The very interesting thing at this Summit was that Vineet Jain, one of the owners of the Times Group,  categorically congratulated the Government for going in for ordinances in order to get over the obstructionism in parliament. That this was echoed heartily by the great and the good in India Inc. is, of course, not surprising.

(807 words)
January 17, 2015

Gautam Mukherjee

Monday, January 12, 2015

Pop Goes The Weasel


Pop Goes The Weasel

As  Delhi/ NCR  braces for a near month long electoral campaign of the Congress, the AAP and the BJP, the three principal contenders aspiring for  the next Government of Delhi, hopefully on a majority basis, promises are flying thick and fast.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has kicked off the BJP’s  electoral campaign on the 10th of January and has promised pucca housing for all slum dwellers, 24x7 electricity for everybody and portability of the electricity service provider at will, just as in mobile telephony. The BJP has been careful not to make wild election promises, relying instead on what it feels sure it can deliver. Of course, almost all the illegal and unauthorised colonies have already been promised regularisation even before election fever began.

Congress is yet to start its campaign, apart from saying it may agree to support the AAP again if necessary. And AAP, led by the voluble Arvind Kejriwal, the only known CM candidate from any of the competitors in the fray so far, has reiterated a demand for full-statehood. AAP is  also promising all manner of sops and subsidies if it is voted into power. But how exactly does  it plan to pay for its promised largesse?

When one looks at  Delhi’s finances, the usual pattern of profligate spending without a care towards balancing the budget  is curiously absent. The three-term, 15 year-long Congress Government under   former Chief Minister Shiela Dikshit did a pretty  responsible job of fiscal management, despite the CWG and other corruption scams that erupted from time to time. Still, it handed over an essentially robust economy to the 49 day AAP Government, which promptly drew down on most of its reserves.

What’s in the Budget for 2015 for quasi-state Delhi which saves on expenditure because it does not have to pay for its law and order apparatus, its traffic policemen, or its land administration? And it also receives grants from the Centre, plus its own capital receipts and non-tax revenue. All this   put together enhances its income by another 7% or so.

The revenue figure, for 2015, all inclusive, is  estimated at Rs. 36,766 crores, but both the plan and non-plan expenditure  have not made any provision for additional subsidies, which already consume about a quarter of the spending.

When President’s Rule was imposed in Delhi  on 16th February 2014, the six-month ‘on-account’ budget passed by the UPA did not carry forward the  additional  subsidies either.
But, with AAP promising  50% subsidy on electricity, presumably for all the poorer voters, the fiscal health of the capital will be hit hard, provided AAP pulls off a surprise win, and proceeds to live up to its commitments.

The general state of finances of the NCT  is however very healthy presently, comparatively speaking. Its per capita income is three times the national average, based principally on Delhi’s trading and services activities. The total cumulative state debt  stands at about Rs. 30,000 crores, and even this modest sum has been brought down over each of the last three years.

The NCR of Delhi consequently has a very low annual deficit financing figure, and a percentage of under 1% of revenue.

Tax revenues however are on an uptrend, and grew 9% in 2012-13 to Rs. 26,150 crores. This went up  further to Rs. 30,454 crores in 2013-14, up 16%; and is estimated to be marginally higher still at Rs. 36,766 crores in 2014-15, after a year of President’s Rule. This then, is the status on the eve of the fresh elections announced for February 7th, 2015.

The Opinion Polls are indicating a BJP win and majority Government in the 70 MLA Assembly. But if perchance the AAP pulls of an unexpected coup, the finances of the state are likely to be turned on its ear. Kejriwal is constantly making extravagant promises:  he says he will subsidise electricity and water afresh, alongside a host of other populist measures.

This will shoot up the debt figures and leave no revenue money whatsoever to invest in the city’s over-burdened infrastructure. Up to now, about 13% of the revenue was being set aside for infrastructure development, which is not too bad, when viewed from the perspective that it is self-financed from accrued revenue, and not borrowed money, just fuelling deficits.

The 2015 budget provides for a number of forward looking measures, such as: enhancing healthcare via strengthening facilities at existing hospitals, and building both a new medical college and another multi-speciality hospital. There are plans to start 20 new schools, provide toilet facilities for all slums, build 58,000 new unit housing for the economically weaker section ( EWS), enhance water supply, clean the Yamuna, procure 1,380 new low floor buses and 400 more cluster buses, build  two brand new inter-state bus terminals, construct several  more flyovers, and proceed with  stage 2 of the elevated corridor over the Barapullah Nullah. There will also be better, more reliable, electricity transmission and distribution built up.

 Implementation though, under the Lieutenant Governor, has been mostly lagging. This will be the BJP’s main advantage, because Modi  has the creds as a doer, both in the Centre and in the States.

(854 words)
January 12th, 2015

Gautam Mukherjee

Seeding The Whirlwind




Seeding The Whirlwind

A million people and several heads of state, including those from Germany, Britain, Israel and Palestine, remembered the Charlie Hebdo martyrs, gathering in Paris. It was an impressive show of solidarity under the TV borne gaze of the world.

A million placards reiterated  ideals of freedom of expression, the freedom to satirise, and the determination not to be cowed down by terrorists. This even as a German publication that dared to republish the blasphemous Charlie Hebdo cartoons as a tribute, was swiftly fire-bombed. And Al Qaeda proudly claimed responsibility for the Paris killings, while issuing a warning against repetitions of similar blasphemy. At the same time, the Internet was served with a convenient way to bomb commercial flights.

What can such violent and repeated provocation that throws away the rule book of civilised behaviour, hope to produce in the end? Will it yield what the terrorists desire, a dividing of the waves, a great polarisation, a hating, faith-addled crusade afresh? Will we descend, as in centuries past, into multiple wars of religions and ethnic peoples contending?

Will the saddening thesis of  Samuel Huntingdon’s Clash of Civilisations, that speaks of an unbridgeable divide between races and cultures, come about in reality, prodded into life by these continuous atrocities? Is the era of conventional history in the Hegelian sense, where nations seize the initiative from each other in the march of time, going to be replaced by a hundred bush-fires burning simultaneously?

Is the narrative of massive injury and injustice that the terrorists routinely use for justification acceptable? Or is the world making up its mind to coalesce against a  rash of scourges? Terrorists represent nobody else, but are still hydra-headed, growing virally amoeba fashion, motivated, well-trained and funded; and getting away with it.

The concerted retributive backlash must inevitably come, but to be effective, it needs precision targeting and a great global consensus without exception. But it is surely better if the next attack ends before it begins.

Extremist instigation and terrorist strikes today are a form of perpetual war, the nuclear age version of a constantly lit fuse that will kill a few of the ‘enemy’ and a random number of non-combatants. There is no distinction between one kind of  hostile and another, between criticism and injury, no preference for soldiers in ‘uniform’, between victims who belong to one faith or another, or are just faithless atheists. 

When we read of epic wars in history and legend, which consumed generations of protagonists, in the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Mahabharata, The 100 Years War; we think surely the time-scales are exaggerated, euphemistic, not meant to be taken literally. But perhaps not any more.
Because we are caught in the middle of multiple international  guerrilla wars of increasing sophistication, an informal battle for supremacy between different sects, tribes, races, religions. These are age-old struggles resurfacing, in rejection of technology, modernity, appeals to universality.

Our choices, in the face of such amoral savagery, are extremely limited. We cannot seem to do much against people who think it appropriate to kill children, old men, girls, women, young men in bloody attrition, or just in order to reduce their numbers and potentiality,uncaring of collateral damage, willing to kill people coincidentally passing by. But they do say, we are only answering in kind, doing what has been done repeatedly to us!

Statism apart, the civilised narrative seems to believe that we cannot descend to the Pit in retaliatory bloodshed. Not effectively anyway, though this has been tried, and continues to be policy in some places. A garland of heads for every eye gouged out, decimation for a murder, has met with some limited success, but alas, only till the regrouping.  And we cannot win the hearts and minds involved, no matter how hard we try. Fanaticism has its own unquenchable thirsts and deep fires.

Nor can we seem to persuade or prevent rich countries funding such mayhem with one hand, while shaking hands with the world with the other. We need to impress on such nations and Governments that the Frankenstein monsters they have nurtured are turning on them just as much as on others.

But at the same time, and even as the battle rages, the intellectuals who analyse these things, work the levers on every side of the fence. There are justifications, debates and denouncements. Deep causes are mined, and the bloodshed is seen by some as the surface consequence of something utterly logical.

The situation of the lit-fuse, like the slow burning rope that help smokers without matches, goes on; unaddressed, unfettered, unmolested, because no effective and coordinated global challenge to it has yet been devised. Great Powers see terrorists as good and bad depending on how it suits their purposes.

The terrorists themselves do not feel remorse, because they do not admit to any moral lapse. The fingers of accusation of a satanic morality, are pointed the other way. Who are the real terrorists they ask? Their accusations are jabbed into our eyes through uploaded You Tube broadcasts. These are punctuated, between rants of hate, by beheadings, summary shootings, pathetic condemned men, shorn of dignity, confessing to their ‘crimes’ in misled hope of reprieve.  They no longer need middle-men to get their message out, though terrorists are often assisted anyway by formal media, via the quest for ‘breaking news’. 

Can the rich throw money at the ‘wronged’ to set things right? It may be too late. The terrorist has found his own sources; through Janus-faced Governments, drug-trafficking, extortion, prostitution, gambling, forgery, the exploitation of real estate, commodities, the use of unofficial channels, front establishments; and through the vested interest funding of ‘regime change’ provocateurs.

Terrorists lack for nothing; not guns, not training, not sophistication, and certainly not motivation. They are not afraid to die any more than they are afraid to kill. They live at no fixed address. Their supporters have plausible deniability; protected by the freedoms of liberal societies and structures around the globe. 

Guerrilla warfare is now the ghost- who-walks, the effective combatants are not so much timely and good ‘intelligence’ but spies and commandos trained in covert action and preventive offensives.
This, while the armed forces and Governments of the world, like so many behemoths, lumber about, flailing  and slapping at pestilential locust-beings, that clog up their innards and block up their exits.

The dreaded and offensive secret service organisations throughout recent history, trained in  subversion, unsavoury as they are, may be the only saviours. It is this kind of fight-fire-with-fire force, woven into a tight international network of cooperation, that can bring terrorism low. There must be disruption, weakening and psychological warfare.  A deliberate and clever creation of mistrust and paranoia, misinformation, sabotage, betrayal, use of poisons and deadly germs, conflict engineered between leaders and lieutenants, followers and mentors, as in any regular war.

But let it be clearly understood. This cannot turn into a pogrom against the innocent no matter how much the terrorists may desire it to perpetuate their cause. Any demonising of entire peoples running into billions of humans, is a travesty of justice. Terrorists are not part of anybody’s  piety, no matter what they claim. Maoists, religious and ethnic warriors are not sanctioned by anyone.

There is madness in wilful martyrdom to be sure, but sadly, there is also intoxication. It is enough for the world to respect this for the needless loss of life it entails, even as it moves to resist it.

(1,240 words)
January 12th, 2015
Gautam Mukherjee


Friday, January 9, 2015

Anything Goes: The Unstoppable Terrorist




Anything Goes: The Unstoppable Terrorist

Extremist instigation and terrorist strikes are today a form of perpetual war, the nuclear age version of a constantly lit fuse that will kill a random number of non-combatants. There is no distinction between one kind of ‘enemy’ and another, no preference for soldiers in ‘uniform’, between victims who necessarily belong to one faith or another, or  are faithless unbelievers. 

When we read of epic wars in history and legend, which consumed generations of protagonists, in the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Mahabharata, or The 100 Years War, we thought the time-scales were exaggerated, euphemistic, not meant to be taken literally.

But here we are, in the middle of an Islamic jihad or a Maoist  ethnic-cleansing that has carved out terms of reference that can only end with the ending of this world as we know it.
Our choices, in the face of such amoral savagery, are extremely limited. We cannot seem to do much against people who think it appropriate to kill, children, old men, girls, women, as well as people coincidentally passing by.

We, as reasonably civilised world citizens, seem to believe that we cannot descend to the Pit in retaliatory bloodshed. Not effectively anyway, though this has been tried, and continues to be policy in some places. A garland of heads for every eye gouged out, decimation for a murder, has met with some limited success, but alas, only till the regrouping.  And we cannot win the hearts and minds involved, no matter how hard we try. Fanaticism has its own unquenchable thirsts and deep fires.

Nor can we prevent rich countries funding such mayhem with one hand, while shaking hands with the civilised world with the other. A poetic declaration of televised defiance, solidarity parades, placards, songs, candle-lit vigils, commentary and eulogies, do little beyond express the pain we feel, in the face of a horror of perceived injustice.

But at the same time, and even as the battle rages, the intellectuals who analyse these things, work the levers on every side of the fence. There are justifications, debates and denouncements. Deep causes are mined, and the bloodshed is seen by some as the surface consequence of something utterly logical.

The situation of the lit-fuse, like the slow burning rope that help smokers without matches, goes on; unaddressed, unfettered, unmolested, because no effective challenge to it has yet been devised.

Yes, the terrorists of this earth are immune to condemnation. They do not feel remorse, because they do not admit to any moral lapse. The fingers of accusation of a dubious, even satanic morality, are pointed the other way. They are jabbed into our eyes through uploaded You Tube broadcasts. These are punctuated, between rants of hate, by beheadings, summary shootings, pathetic condemned men, shorn of dignity, confessing to their ‘crimes’ in misled hope. 

The terrorists no longer need middle-men to get their message out , though they are often assisted anyway by formal media, in the name of ‘breaking news’. And the politicised killing, mostly of innocents, is invariably framed as a message and a warning. The terrorist has grown well-nigh unstoppable.

Can the rich throw money at the ‘wronged’ to set things right? Not really. The terrorist has found his own sources; through Janus-aced Governments, drug-trafficking, extortion, prostitution, gambling, the exploitation of real estate, commodities, the use of unofficial channels, front establishments.
Terrorists/ revolutionaries/freedom fighters, lack for nothing; not guns, not training, not sophistication, and certainly not motivation. They are not afraid to die any more than they are afraid to kill. They live at no fixed address. Their supporters all have plausible deniability; protected by the very civilised freedoms of liberal societies and structures around the globe.  

Guerilla warfare is now the ghost- who-walks, the effective combatants are not so much timely and good ‘intelligence’ but spies and commandos trained in covert action and preventive offensives.
This, while the armed forces and Governments of the world, like so many behemoths, lumber about, flailing  and slapping at pestilential locust-beings, that clog up their innards and block up their exits.
The dreaded and offensive secret service organisations throughout recent history, the NKPD, the KGB, Mossad, ISI, CIA, the wartime SS, the late Shah of Iran’s  SAVAK, the erstwhile Tamil Tigers etc.; such organisations, on different sides of the fence, all believe/d in taking the battle to the enemy.

They infiltrate and kill on perception, not proof, and seek to blatantly influence overt outcomes. It is this kind of force that can cramp the style of global terrorism, because they are cut mostly from similar cloth, prone to the excesses that come with a licence to kill and nil culpability. They too take no chances with potentials. It gives new meaning to the Good Terrorist, Bad Terrorist debate.

If the world unites in amoral desperation now, and decides to send its troops down into the bowels of Hell, it might be on to something at last.

(819 words)
January 9th, 2015

Gautam Mukherjee

Thursday, January 8, 2015

The Development Juggernaut Is On The Move


The Development Juggernaut Is On the Move

When India became independent, to our credit, not all the Congress stalwarts counted themselves as Leftist. Many, like Sardar Patel, C Rajagopalachari, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, amongst the notables, were decidedly right- of-centre, but their views did not prevail. They were, in fact, roundly ignored by Jawaharlal Nehru, who also had relative youth and longevity on his side.

Rajaji’s Swatantra Party did not do well electorally, and neither did Dr. Shyama Prasad Mookerjee’s efforts, though both had their committed adherents, who have added vastly to their numbers and flowered these 69 years on. Such ideas now, after decades, win elections, as Narendra Modi has demonstrated. The nationalist mood of the times, in the forties and fifties, the sixties and seventies, and for half of the eighties, preferred the rosy promises of socialism.

But we now know that this going down the socialist garden path, as opposed to the capitalist high road, condemned India to decades of negligible growth, rarely more than 2.5%, high inflation, as much as a ruinous 20% per annum, with no  I&B controlled media comment; and ever increasing poverty in a face of a growing population.  Our infrastructure, to date, is patchy, vastly inadequate, and often described as quaint.

So, to create a workable image, the Government of the day, cast itself in the role of an annadata, a benevolent   neo-feudal maibaap, demonising the rich, and feeding the poor with terrible, sub-standard rations, often unfit for human consumption.  The popular films of the time played along with this ethical fiction, without offering any explanation as well.  

The Government wilfully glossed over its own colossal failure. It took no responsibility for perpetuating a Dickensian nightmare and utterly failing to make the economy grow. It ignored the lack of equality and equity on the ground, the opposite of what socialism loved to profess and promise.  Raj Kapoor played his version of the lovable tramp Charlie Chaplin, and was very popular in the USSR as well.

Till the sixties, for all Nehru’s lofty pronouncements, we could not even feed ourselves, and had to go begging for food aid. We received a lot of charity those days, including ‘PL 480’ grain, powdered milk etc. from the generous US, even as we pretended to be non-aligned, and were actually ensconced in the Soviet camp.

Indira Gandhi’s Green Revolution of the seventies changed this basic requirement at least, and the people loved her for it. But the dislike of free enterprise, embedded in the Soviet style Planning Commission from its earliest days, stayed.

It took a highly statistical approach at first, institutionalised under the much in favor PC Mahalonobis. People like TATA Director Freddy Mehta, who was a member at first, quickly lost influence and had to quit. Nehru saw it fit to patronise a young, patriotic and enthusiastic JRD Tata, without taking any of his suggestions on the economy seriously.

The saving grace was that Nehru did allow what he called a ‘mixed economy’, with the private sector at least permitted to exist, albeit under a mistrustful and tight reign, the infamous ‘Licence-Permit Raj’. This, along with very high taxes, forced most of the successful in Indian business and industry to become dishonest and dexterous master manipulators of the system.

This went on for so long, and created so many distortions in the economic reality of this country, that we all got used to it as part of how things had to be, because we were a ‘poor country’. Nobody questioned why we were poor. Sadly, it was a given.

This began to change in the  mid 1980s with the advent of  Rajiv Gandhi, and more forcefully when  economic liberalisation properly began, in 1991; only to lose its way again, after an initial spurt of real change.  Still, it ushered in, from the mid-eighties, a near double-digit rate of growth, for the first time, with transformational consequences.

But if we are about to witness the launch of the much delayed second generation reforms, it is because we are now ready to make a decisive break with the past.  The end of that Planning Commission and the beginning of Niti Aayog, marks this departure, led by a celebrated free-market champion that believes double-digit growth is achievable; given a hefty push to infrastructure, modernisation, and ample utilities.  But, there are other problems today, with a highly uncooperative Opposition.

The Government, stymied in parliament, not in one session, but two, by a noisy filibustering, has begun on its legislative agenda in right earnest via the use of ordinances.  It is interesting to realise that we have forgotten what the obstructions were about in the Monsoon Session, except that they were very much there, and expressed similarly; though the outrage in the Winter Session is still fresh in our minds.

This time, it was about the RSS moving about on Conversions in their Ghar Wapsi Campaign, and some foolish, if salty remarks, made by not very important and inexperienced BJP MPs in the House. These were further amplified by certain Sangh Parivar fringe elements on the outside.  The whole noisy bunch have now been curbed by RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat, stepping into the breach and fray, rightly to assist the first majority Government in 30 years

Still, it will be interesting to see if an electorally marginalised Opposition is going to do its sworn duty even in the Budget Session, by behaving any better, or resort to further noisy scenes over  found and fresh issues, to try and stop all progress.

But, refusing to be side-tracked by all this, the Government is pressing on, determined to pick up the pace on its development agenda, lagging also because of its divided concentration on a spate of Assembly elections, bunched together over the last few months. Fortunately, these state elections have yielded good dividends for the BJP, making it all worth their while.

The latest on the anvil, now that the Government is back to business, is the restarting of mining, again by Cabinet decision and ordinance. This getting on with things regardless, underlines the absurdity if not futility of the tail attempting to wag the dog as an Opposition strategy, particularly when the dog in question is of the determined sort.

To signal the coming of its free-market philosophy tempered with concern for the poor, the Government has institutionalised the Niti Aayog. This new organisation is widely expected to inject a spirit of competitive development amongst the States of the Union, and boost the prospects of the private sector as well; all the while driving the tempo towards raising the GDP as soon as possible.

 (1,098 words)
January 6th, 2015

Gautam  Mukherjee