The Impending Retail Bonanza

The impending retail bonanza

 

Despite the fuss made in the Rajya Sabha on Walmart’s reported lobbying expenses, the legislative deed on FDI in multi-brand retail is indeed done. It makes the Opposition BJP and the Left look like they don’t want progress, even as the Government won the much clamoured for voting on the issue.

 The Left has always been more committed to its ideology than the demands of the economy, but the BJP’s stand is somewhat inconsistent and inexplicable. Many of the reasons advanced by its stalwarts during the parliamentary debates would most likely fail to convince their own roster of high-achieving Chief Ministers in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Goa.

All three states, among the several the BJP runs with reasonable competence, are progressing much faster than their peers, because of their strong emphasis on market economics. But the BJP central leadership and possibly the less transparent ideological backdrop in the RSS et al, seem to be on their own trip.

Some senior leaders in the BJP have even made bold to say that they will scrap FDI in multi-brand retail if voted to power in 2014. This is disappointing, and hopefully just political rhetoric. Most votaries of right-off-centre economics are not generally happy with the UPA’s mostly Socialist leanings. But now they must be feeling a little orphaned.

This is definitely a modern progressive development that rightly flies in the face of the protectionist instincts of a section of both the populace and its elected representatives. But closed economies, protectionism, suppressed competition, has truly had its day.

Today, this kind of insularity and big-brother-knows-bestism is almost impossible to enforce in a relentlessly globalised world. Demand, when it exists, will be met, by hook or by crook. But this way, at least the smugglers, the grey-marketeers, the profiteering importers, will have to look at something else. And the inefficiencies in the name of the indigenous and timeless bania-bred retailing system with have to upgrade or languish.

A great deal of the kudos for some adroit cross-party management, to make this milestone possible, needs to go to Parliamentary Affairs Minister Mr. Kamal Nath.

He has pulled off not only the voting on this controversial matter in UPA’s favour in both houses, but avoided the sticky logjam that has voided the previous two sessions and piled up the unpassed bills.

Significantly, Mr. Kamal Nath has recently also initiated both the regularisation of New Delhi’s many, running into their thousands, “illegal” colonies; and also the sprawling up-market farm houses, in a pragmatic and people friendly move. A move that is non-doctrinaire for once, and moreover freely points out the unrealistic nature of several of our rules and regulations and the glaring weaknesses of our master planning for the Capital. This, while wearing his Urban Affairs hat, of course.

But the freshly minted FDI triumph, that is still mostly being viewed as a bout of skilled political footwork, has much to recommend it. Not only to the eager customers it will benefit, but also to the global investment community which has at last received a positive signal from India after a number of wilfully regressive ones.

As for the fillip that our farming and manufacturing sectors will receive, inclusive of new employment opportunities, also the advertising and marketing end of the consumer rainbow; the impact is likely to be both uplifting and transformational. It will further professionalises our game and vastly improve our choices.

There will also be tens of thousands of retail industry jobs created in the accelerated urbanisation and penetration into some 200 “A B and C” class cities and towns.  No one amongst the foreign investors is going to take the money and run back to their country. There is, truth be told, nowhere to run to. Europe and America lack unrequited demand, while ours is almost endless. There are more bangs for the buck to be had right here.

And here too, gone are the days of the four or six metro cities thought to be sophisticated enough to receive modernity, surrounded by the darkness of the rest of India. All this is changing, as the statistics on the purchases being made by rural and those 200 cities and towns of India show. It is dawning on the many pundits that the unmet demand for sophisticated and modern facilities is probably the strongest in these parts.

Walmart already knows all this. That is why it has reportedly spent US$ 25 million over the years since 2008 on professional lobbyists to try and influence, among other things, the US and Indian Governments to permit foreign investors into multi-brand retailing in India.

And this US$ 25 million is apparently not a big outlay when you look at their estimates of the size of the Indian retail market. Walmart thinks it is worth US$ 500 billion currently, and likely to rise to US$ 1 trillion by 2020!

That magic figure of US $ 1 trillion is more or less the size of the official Indian economy, all of it, at present. And it took us 65 years to arrive at, or very near it, since independence in 1947.

 So, even at present, Walmart’s take on the retail tally and the consumerism it represents, is about half of the official economy, and perhaps a quarter or 20% of the entire Indian economy, with the cash-and-carry-without-benefit-of-banking part of things included.

 Mrs. Shiela Dikshit’s Government of Delhi State has been first off the blocks in its effort to implement the FDI in multi-brand retail. Her Government’s only fear is the misstep that could brings the political hornets buzzing angrily in its wake. But carefully as it comes about, FDI in multi-brand retailing will be most welcome.

And the Prime Minister is not lagging behind in his overtures to the farmers of his ethnic home state of Punjab, to welcome the opportunities that FDI in multi-brand retail is expected to bring to them. Punjab, as usual, will not be found wanting. The State is full of progressive farmers not scared of risking their arm.

And while there is much trepidation in the hearts of some that it will swamp our farmers, middle-men, small shops etc, and ruin, through unfair pricing, our none too robust manufacturing; there is little hard data from elsewhere to support this apprehension.

How are higher wage economies to compete with us? Won’t it be much more lucrative for the foreigners to manufacture here for other markets too? How much dumping is sustainable over time? No, fear-mongering apart, we are likely to see greater choice, better prices and quality because of the open competition.  

 (1,097 words)

December 11^th, 2012
Gautam Mukherjee

The Indian Fiscal Cliff of GNPA

The Indian Fiscal Cliff of Non-Performing Assets

India’s public sector nationalised banks, often directed by the Government to lend money to commercially unviable borrowers, are burdened by huge gross non-performing assets (GNPA). This, along with the huge borrowings of the Government, and the ever-widening fiscal deficit, are seriously eroding the strength of the economy as a whole.

The alarming rise in GNPA was made evident by Minister of State for Finance Mr. Namo Narain Meena in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha recently. The Minister’s reply sought to take refuge in the reduced percentages in the 6 month period till September 2012, in comparison to the full year figures for the previous financial year till 31^st March 2012, but taken on a pro-rata basis. This might amount to sleight-of-hand at the half-yearly mark, using incomplete figures.

 The fact is, the total quantum of lending in the top PSU and Scheduled Commercial Banks has increased this financial year, and the NPA too have risen alongside in absolute terms. This, even though there has been a decrease, or apparent slowing in the pace of increase of GNPA in percentage terms, over the previous fiscal, at least up to the half-yearly mark.

The total GNPA quantum nevertheless spread over all Public Sector Banks (PSB) and Scheduled Commercial Banks (SCB) till 30 September 2012 stood at Rs. 62,602.57 crores, but this is declared only on a provisional basis. The amount for the last fiscal full year was Rs. 56, 332.30 crores, so yes, the GNPA has increased at a much slower pace, based on the face value of the figures released by the Minister.

There are also multiple directives from the Reserve Bank of India the Minister cites, towards tightening loan recovery policies and procedures, which nevertheless are silent on the credit risk assessments and collaterals taken before such loans were given.

The effort of the RBI to smarten up recovery processes, procedures and time-frames are not very likely to yield substantial results once the loans have already gone bad. The horses may well have bolted, having found the paddock gates open. The RBI may be seized of this possibility too, because it has also touched on the matter of cleaning up the books by effecting write-offs of some of these GNPAs on a “prudential” basis.

Another worrisome fact, less so in the case of PSB and SCB of course, because they can be propped up by Government executive action, broadly unlike the private sector, is the probability of  the GNPA outstripping the capitalisation of many of these lending institutions. And this includes the substantial State Bank of India Group.

The Government, including the RBI, may well want to have the PSB and SCB to cultivate a better portfolio of assets, but this laudable objective is often in conflict with politically inspired lending that tends to be more interested in pleasing and catering to target groups. The ultimate risk however in such a scenario is to the fiscal health of the entire system.

A country without fiscal discipline cannot create the right environment for investment and growth. The question is, are these GNPA figures accurate, or optimistic?  Are the percentages and absolute quantums declining truly, or is this a consequence of redefinition of what constitutes a GNPA? Our long history of Soviet-style jugglery with statistics does not necessarily inspire confidence. Nor does the Leftist tendency to spend money that the country does not have by either increasing borrowings or printing more money, or both. When a banking system flirts with bankruptcy, inflation may be the least of our worries.

(593 words)

1^st December 2012

Gautam Mukherjee

Turning the Corner?

Turning the corner?

What does the recent Moody “Stable” rating given in its “credit analysis on India” mean; quite apart from the euphoria of a 305 point rally on the Sensex?

I am not speaking of the reasons and justifications already advanced by the rating agency in its report, but the ripple effect its bottom-line verdict is already having, within the week after, on the mood and economic perception of India.

After all, it also saw, on the same day as the Moody report was released, the rupee slide to an all-time low of almost Rs. 58 to the US dollar, apparently on the back of fleeing Foreign Institutional Investor (FII) funds and the scarce US dollar in our financial system!

Moody’s report dutifully points to the challenges of the yawning fiscal deficit, the high Government debt, poor and bottle-necked infrastructure, both physical and social, political uncertainty,  stubborn inflation and other issues. And yet, it seems to suggest, the Indian economy is not headed downwards in a ruinous and out of control spiral.  

But does the Moody rating harbinger the end, or at least the beginning of the end, of the precipitous slide down the slippery slope of our economy?

Will others, such as Standard & Poor (S&P) chime in with similar guarded optimism along with the expected bushel of ifs and buts? Probably, because the international rating agencies tend to follow a similar matrix for its analyses. Happily therefore, at least in this instance, the past suggests the foreign rating agencies seem to be the first to indicate which way the wind is blowing economically. And they tend to be taken more seriously too than our desi, largely Government-owned economy watchers.  

This sort of foreign observed prescience spills over into other areas as well. In the old days, if one wanted the truth about the news in real time, for example when Mrs Indira Gandhi was assassinated in 1984, you turned on the radio and tuned into the BBC.

To lend credence to this statement, remember the famous picture of that fateful day which had the just bereaved Rajiv Gandhi standing by an SUV of the time, on a road- side in Orissa, tuning into the BBC on his independent little Sony radio. He was trying to get the unvarnished status on his mother, not really forthcoming on either Doordarshan or All India Radio (AIR), till much later, no doubt after being allowed and cleared to air the accurate reports.

 So, maybe we can look forward to a much economically healthier 2013. You and I may be forgiven for our lack of optimism at this time about the Indian Government’s ability to stimulate the growth that always seems so elusive. And also the pessimism one tends to feel because of our profligate lack of policy consistency.  And also on the legions of economists in our ministries and central banks who tend not to take the need for growth as seriously as they might.

Also, notwithstanding our precarious finances, we are reportedly also about to embark on a direct to- the-poor cash-back policy on subsidies, likely to cost the exchequer thousands, no tens of thousands of crores!

So, how does Moody arrive at its optimism? Frankly, I don’t know, despite the reasons given, except to say that perhaps things are not as bad economically as they seem. And perhaps we gain in comparison to the crumbling economies of large parts of Europe.

At least, we in India definitely possess almost bottomless demand domestically, and that is nothing to sniff at. Any classic economic analysis has to concede that having the demand is half the battle won. All that remains theoretically is the supply side of things. But in India we have a talent to make everything as difficult and complicated as possible, so nothing necessarily happens in logical progression.

The other point, among the many made in the Moody report, is with regard to our inadequate and over burdened infrastructure, which curtails our progress more effectively than the vagaries of our political process.

And in this, the point is hampered only one part by lack of finance and administrative inertia. The other part is to do with inadequate know-how, and perhaps an embedded reluctance to acquire it from elsewhere.

In this connection the recent initiative to collaborate with the Chinese to develop high speed Railways for both passengers and freight is most welcome. Among our inheritances from British times, the Railways are amongst the most valuable, but we have not been able to seriously modernise or upgrade the network to current day standards. We have extended it and converted gauges, yes.  And we were able to go from steam to diesel to electric gradually over the years. But our rolling stock, signalling systems, track technology, railway station infrastructure, catering and cleaning systems and so on, all still belong to a bygone era.

The Chinese have built the spectacular Beijing to Lhasa Railway in record time overcoming major challenges, as well as many other high speed train links to rival the famed bullet trains of Japan or the TGV of Europe. They can certainly guide our efforts, and it is most pragmatic of the Government to think of asking them to do so.

And those who feel that the best way to right the balance of trade with China is to actually engage in more of it, are naturally delighted. It may also contribute to a lessening of tension and suspicion between the two nations, despite the border disputes and other outstanding claims and counter claims of territory, the controversial and colonial McMahon Line and so forth. 

Our economy has suffered since the world economy crashed in 2008, not from a lack of opportunity to grow, but from too much caution in the face of turbulence. We choked off our own growth rate by raising interest rates and making credit unaffordable, without however being able to control inflation imported with our ballooning oil bill.

It is an obvious indictment of our incipient Socialism, still lurking just below the surface, that we think nothing of sabotaging growth whenever we want as a first option. But wrecking a nearly nine per cent per annum momentum in the GDP to serve the cause of controlling “food inflation” was, and is, arrogant and short-sighted. To build it back from five per cent will not be so easy. 

But perhaps now, in the final years of the present Government’s tenure, we will rectify the imbalance in our over-reactions and promote growth afresh. The Prime Minister, the original Mr. Reform of 1991, has declared his intent in plain terms. The West seems to believe him.

(1,105 words)

28^th November 2012

Gautam Mukherjee

One for the Money, Two for the Show

One for the Money, Two for the Show

The belated Congress/UPA boosting of the Reforms process, reiterated at their  show-of-strength rally  in Delhi and bussed in Chintan Baithak at Suraj Kund, Haryana, needs to be unequivocally welcomed.

It may have come against the threat of India being down-graded to “junk” investment status by the international rating agencies, making our international borrowings costlier in the event, and promising to dry up the relatively meagre investment funds flow. But at least it shook the Government out of its neo-socialist reverie even if the grim statistics did not.

There is a definite silver lining to the no-nonsense development. It is a truism after all, that India takes perverse pleasure in being at least fifty years behind even featherweight countries in terms of development. Thank God therefore for the presumed objectiveness and incorruptibility of the rating agencies!

Building protectionist barriers are just postponement of the inevitable. Chinese goods, for example, are ubiquitous in Indian markets and are being lapped up enthusiastically by a public that finds them cheaper and better. This competitiveness cannot be legislated away.

The fact is, better goods at cheaper prices are people friendly. Even goods that may not last, but have fancier bells and whistles at a cheaper price, are perceived to be worth the money. And none of us care where it comes from ideologically.

Besides, every internationally designed garment is tailored in China and very well at that. One is forced to acknowledge the powerhouse of manufacturing that China has become. And no protectionism steeped in wishful thinking can reverse such tides. And this is without reference to the project-execution capabilities and  other such formidable Chinese strengths.

But yes, there is a need for greater inclusiveness in our progress. Reform cannot be allowed to lead to19^th century robber-baronism. Though our scam-a-day reality does not need reform to flourish anyway! Still, it is paranoid to be suspicious of foreigners, their capital, and know-how. We need instead less lip-service and more action on the ground.

The much vilified Gujarat administration for example, routinely labelled communal, yet is reported to have the largest number of Muslim policemen in comparison with any other state!

The routine cheating of hearts in the name of the poor, the minorities, the ordinary citizen, has to be replaced with a true spirit of public service. Activism from Anna Hazare and his cohorts, and Arvind Kejriwal and his, only underscores the notion that the political classes have abdicated this space - to them and others, like the RTI based activists, the Swamis and Babas etc.

This is a time of shifting sands. And this reality, juxtaposed with the recent reports that India will become the world’s biggest economy by 2060, surpassing that of China, even as our per capita will be one of the lowest. This is the real stuff of Chintan Baithaks to come.

Will we grow so big because of the low cost economy fuelled by millions of newly born poor people? Or will we dominate the world economy because our consumption and demand per capita will drive growth at over 5% per annum compounded? Or does the credit go to the improved infrastructure to come that will help sustain a high level of GDP growth?

And socially, are we going to polarise between a few rich people with the ability to buy endlessly and millions of poor people with little or no purchasing power? Or will it be a relative thing all the way up and down the pyramid?

Many large business houses making cars and FMCG today are busy catering to the “sachet” market on the assumption that one can grow very wealthy in India selling to the poor. We may be quasi-socialists as yet, but are still the envy of the ageing and shrinking populations of capitalist Europe and even China. Our very failure at draconian population control, the storied “do ya teen bus”, may be our White Knight.

Today, looking back to the extensive population control campaign of the Seventies, most families indeed have two or three children; but then the base line has expanded to nearly 1.25 billion people.

Coming back to the crossroad in 2012, raising a bogey against the wheels of progress, CPI(M) or TMC style, against globalisation and foreign direct investment as an ideological aversion amounting to anathema, is purely negative milking of a fear.

The fear-mongering is that the aam aadmi will be badly affected by what will bring modernisation, efficiency, quality-boosting and progress. And that being linked to the global economy is to sink with it. There is no hope in the Leftist mind that the Western economies will ever revive from their excesses and no recognition of business or economic cycles.

This self righteous but actually spurious protest may well turn out to be the theme in the coming session of parliament as well. This, and the thundering against the wall of corruption of tsunami proportions threatening to engulf us.

But preventing parliament from functioning does nothing to cover the principal Opposition, the BJP, in glory either. The aam aadmi  ends up paying to witness a boorish circus time after time with nothing to show for it. This will be the third session in a row, if it too is stymied.

And the public can be forgiven for being confused about what the political Right stands for economically. After all, it keeps making common cause with the radical Left whenever it suits them. It also accuses the Government of rampant corruption while stubbornly refusing to measure itself against the same yardstick. Messrs. Jethmalani, both father and son, eminent lawyers and BJP leaders that they are, don’t seem to be making a dent.

Besides there is more, the size of a herd of elephants in the roomy chambers of the Lok Sabha. The puerile attitude of painting Maoists as disgruntled patriots for example. Old assumptions like the inviolability of treaties with the State of Jammu and Kashmir which need to be urgently abrogated. And why wait when even political dynasts from that state call India the “Enemy”?

No country should tolerate such challenges to its sovereignty without revisiting its  date-expired much too liberal premises. Why is this one quasi-state allowed its outrageous privileges in 2012, and why is the rest of India paying for them in money and blood?

And this, when every other constituency, such as the Princes, the private banks/ insurance companies, the zamindars, etc. promised, in 1947, Government protection till the end of the republic, has been ruthlessly ravaged by the state.

We have just come through yet another “festival of lights”. So when oh when do we start vanquishing the darkness?

(1,102 words)

13^th November 2012, Diwali

Gautam Mukherjee

Shameless in Sitapur Part One

Shameless in Sitapur Part One

We Indians, recent events seem to suggest, need to scrap and jettison a lot of laws and rules before we are totally overwhelmed by them. This notwithstanding the large and voluble efforts of anti-corruption activists such as Mr. Arvind Kejriwal. His erstwhile mentor, Mr. Anna Hazare may be advising him to stick to one scam at a time but there is such an avalanche of them that Mr. Kejriwal is likely to be swamped no matter which strategy he adopts.  

The Government and its allies, along with the worthy Opposition, are equally comfortable maintaining their illusions and self-importance. They are also very sure that they have the answers, even if no one else seems to be sure.

 But by way of contrast, very few talk of corruption in the tiny Emirate of Dubai where the Commercial Law can be contained, without exaggerating too much, on one side of A4 paper in double-spacing.

It is no real wonder that Dubai is beloved of the flashiest robber barons money can attract. Because there, they can go about their business both unhindered and unlabeled. The catch is that the emirate is very small indeed, and the “re-export” business to Africa, India and Iran is no longer what it used to be.

This is not to say that the citizens of Dubai are essentially any more virtuous than Indians. But there are some important differences in the way the Emirates are organised politically, and what constitutes a wrong-doing there. Also, any whisper of or about corruption in the UAE  constituted of Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi, Ajman and Ras Al Khaimah, is likely to be considered treasonous, as all large enterprise has links to the one or the other Emir’s Secretariat.

And the Rulers with their families in the confederation own a sizeable piece of almost every worthwhile pie being baked in the Emirates. Also, they are very big on law and order over there, enforced by impressively armed and trained para-military forces that police the populace. The local media, as may be expected, is tame, polite and self-censored as a company newsletter.

But here in rambunctious India, it is the seemingly eternal battle royal between laissez-faire, as in the good old days of the John Company aka the East India Company, and the hugely Socialist inspired Licence-Permit Raj. The Indian instinct and ingenuity, illustrated perhaps by the delightful jugaad phenomenon, is to operate without fetters. That is why we tend to do well whenever and wherever we re allowed to be ourselves. But, sadly, and somewhat paradoxically, in our own country, we are free to be ourselves as long as, and only, if we are prepared to make short work of the law.  

And of the latter we have a profusion. We have laws, codicils, principles and guidelines, so many, so confusing, and subject to so much interpretation. They are tentacular, all encompassing, layer upon layer, with never a rule or law apparently scrapped since the time of Manu the Law Giver!  

But despite their sheer number and complexity, we are not good at formulating them, as most are badly drafted and riddled with loopholes, and lead to ever further corruption. Nor, alas, are we any good at enforcing them perhaps out of sheer lassitude in our hot tropical climate. Which makes us possibly the most law-riddled  but free do-as-you please country in the world. We live in a legal gridlock. So bypassing the hurdles has become a national habit.

Most law-enforcers on their part would have to back-pack the equivalent of a now largely extinct 21 volume encyclopaedia to cope. To have it all memorised by heart is a near impossibility, and a woeful waste of talent for the few who may be up to the task. Besides the powers-that-be know that it is the very laws, God bless them, that enable them to enrich themselves.

So there are the ever shifting sands of internal guidelines on how to interpret the rules, with varying emphases and exceptions added periodically, providing yet other continent size ambivalences and the opportunities in their midst.

As far as the wrong-doers go, as is observed quite frequently now, they can brazen it out more often than not, determined to be totally shameless. The political classes are almost uniformly compromised, so there is little embarrassment between pots and kettles when both are quite sooty. The bureaucratic babus and the private business types are not exactly lagging behind in this chorus either.

Almost everyone has fallen foul, voluntarily or not, of some regulation or the other. It is almost impossible to be totally honest/law abiding in this country and still be alive and functional. The situational evidence seems to suggest that in order to operate at all in India one must break some rules.

And some feel that if they must break some, they might as well break some profitable ones and make a lucrative job of it. After all, it is necessary to carry people along if one is going to flout laws. A little baksheesh here, an incentive there, a fat bribe sent around discreetly, an enormous audacious killing to catapult oneself into a bigger league, all have become acceptable.

The other glaring issue is the sheer size and heft of our Government, the author and guardian of our lawfulness. Apart from being the largest employer in the organised sectors, it has grown both gargantuan and extremely expensive to maintain. And there is no likelihood of it shrinking or ever going on a diet. In fact, it grows larger every day. 

And all of this awesome edifice is supported by the taxes levied on quite a small proportion of the overall population which is forced to pay all the direct and indirect taxes. Most states have little left over for growth and development after all the salaries and benefits have been paid. Ditto the Centre, and being thus over burdened by its own needs, the Government also refuses to let in much foreign capital for fear of losing its monopoly on power. A power built on denying the concessions it would be required to make.

Besides, being enormous and inefficient, the Government of India is almost singularly unaccountable, even to itself. Like a very long queue, nobody quite knows where it begins or ends anymore. It is the nearest approximation to infinity the Indian mind can devise. And so we have to congratulate ourselves for devising a political entity to resemble our ancient philosophies of an unbroken continuum that goes on lifetime after lifetime evolving as it progresses. Don’t worry, there is no conclusion to be drawn. It would be so un-Indian to do so.

  

(1, 106 words)

October 30^th, 2012

Gautam Mukherjee

Suspicious Minds & Remix of gali gali me shor hai

Suspicious Minds & Remix of gali gali me shor hai

“She was with Big Jim but she was leaning to the Jack of Hearts”
Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts- Bob Dylan

No one can prove the effects of influence, ephemeral and elusive. More so, in a Court of Law. No matter how high the stack of circumstantial evidence may be. Unless, that is, one has been silly enough to leave a paper, audio, DNA, smoking gun or bloody knife trail that serves up the proof. Some very intelligent people routinely make this mistake, confused between the DIY doing, and the once removed having it done.

That is how a smooth operator like Rajat Gupta, erstwhile of McKinsey and Goldman Sachs, was convicted. Mr. Gupta was convicted on three counts of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy for passing along confidential boardroom information about Goldman and Proctor & Gamble companies to the Galleon Hedge Fund.

By way of contrast, despite the sensational nature of its contents, the Radia Tapes of former PR Consultant Nira Radia have become mired in multiplicities of interpretation. Hours of interrogation of the lady herself has proved inconclusive too. Other bits of proof though saw both the Telecommunications Minister A Raja and DMK Supremo M Karunanidhi’s daughter and Lok Sabha MP Kanimozi spend longish spells in jail.

But then the DMK didn’t, and still doesn’t have the influence that certain other players in the game of influencing outcomes do. And no flashmob posse of Union Ministers came to Raja or Kanimozi’s defence either.

There is, it is seen, a voluntary and reactive aspect to influence mongering and peddling, a judgemental consequence, that can be viewed in a number of ways. So most such wrong-doing wears the garb of reasonableness, selflessness, feigned innocence, even virtue. It exploits and brazenly feeds off the fact that, conducted well, it can’t be proved. And if challenged, reacts with disdain, outrage and defiance and the sure knowledge that others live in glass houses too.

The Bofors Saga is still unproven in many of its aspects with many henchmen of the powers that be burying and burning any evidence that had the temerity to threaten the citadel. As are the Sikh massacres of 1984 or indeed its bête noire, the Godhra Riots of 2002.

But then, maddening as this subterfuge of working the cracks and crevasses of the system may be; most suspicions of being wronged, as in betrayed, are not particularly settled in a Court of Law.

Crimes of passion by definition cannot wait. And blatant wrongs done to the electorate in a functioning democracy like ours usually results in electoral defeat.

Politicians and senior bureaucrats, satraps and nawabs, know this, but the possibility makes them either insecure or complacent, and so they get on with their  paisa wasooli anyway.

The logic being that power, like youth and beauty is fleeting and waits for no man. So making the most of the present situation is not only sensible but appropriate. And what is the harm in diluting one’s integrity a little, or even a lot, in the greater cause of security and pragmatism?

Electoral politics, and hanging on to one’s perch on the greased pole of bureaucratic or corporate power, they say to themselves, is an expensive business, and needs to carry many people, along with their goodwill.

And money for the purpose certainly does not grow on trees. No one in politics or in the exercise of power can afford to have empty coffers and still be in a position to influence outcomes. And here we go, the crux of the issue, there’s that influence word again.

 Besides, in principle, there is nothing illegal about it. It may be unfair advantage to some, but influence mongering is what makes the world go around. That the powerful everywhere give their own both special privileges and easy passage is a routine thing.

 And so, Arvind Kejriwal’s decision to “expose” the shenanigans of the son-in-law of the Congress President is probably the best bangs-for-the-buck strategy he could have adopted. Besides, our notoriously ponderous legal system is not above being influenced a little itself. And the tag of sub judice puts paid to most controversies almost as effectively as sending controversies to parliamentary or judicial committee.

Mr. Kejriwal and his rag-tag band of IAC activists may be a nuisance to some but he and they are providing a very important constitutional role of oversight that has been given short shrift lately. Instead they, that is the powers, have become a law unto themselves, immune from the wants and needs of the populace that they rule in the name of.

Kejriwal & Co may be seeking “publicity” as their uncomfortable critics like to sneer but they are providing some of what the checks and balances in the system were supposed to. Likewise, the CAG, under its unusually active current Chief Mr. Vinod Rai, has been less than pliant of late. Predictably, it too is receiving a lot of flak and ridicule from the political establishment named in its indictments.

The fact is, the ruling dispensation is now childishly allergic to criticism from within or without. It counters each barb with a counter barb aimed at the perpetrators via its spokespersons. And these talking heads are sounding more and more beleaguered and under siege by the day.

And this, whether it is being attacked by its own uneasy allies such as the SP or BSP, or former ones such as the Trinamool Congress or the Left. Not to mention the legitimate Opposition, the less than compliant elements in the media, ostensibly “social” activist/critics such as Baba Ramdev and Anna Hazare, or those in Kejriwal’s  bus about to plunge into the electoral fray themselves.

More and more it looks like a leadership crisis, with the Gandhi family “High Command” no longer able to either provide the electoral dividend or the strategic direction to hold the UPA II coalition together till 2014.

The Gandhi family’s likelihood of leading the electoral battle successfully, when it comes, is in some doubt too. But to be fair, as declines and falls go, this was inevitable. Most dynasties tend to flounder in the third generation and this is already in extra-time trying to establish the fourth.

Perhaps the rampant and competitive corruption everywhere in the Government and its friends is of a piece with the realisation that the game is drawing to its inexorable end. The political discourse may be about to undergo a substantial change. And not just because of a vociferous Opposition. The ruling UPA, it appears, is overdue for some radical overhauling of its own.

(1,098 words)

15^th October 2012

Gautam Mukherjee

Reform at the precipice

Reform at the precipice

It is said that philosopher and wit Voltaire was asked to repent for his wicked ways and denounce the Devil at his deathbed. Denying the soul-seeking priest, Voltaire, thought otherwise. He said he didn’t think it was an opportune time to make fresh enemies.

The Indian politician is reluctant to make an enemy of the Socialism that has hidden a thousand sins for him. Almost as many as his white kurta- pajama and the ironically out-of-date Gandhi cap, that the Mahatma incidentally never wore. In the name of the poor, lofty pronouncements and sentiments have served to deflect criticism from massive inefficiency, mind-numbing delay, and rampant corruption.

The market economy, with its relentless logic and consequence, is far less forgiving. And the Indian neta knows it full well. Our master-of-paradox style Indian politician may routinely practice an arch Capitalism in his private affairs, but the fount of his power, pelf and influence, he knows, is his bleeding heart lip-service to the cause of the poor.

It is yet another travesty of the truth that the poor have been uplifted only at snail’s pace in the last 65 years; while the politician that is not in hundreds of crores today, is a very incompetent politician indeed. 

The perverse thing about progress itself in India is that it is never a priority. All progress, political, economic, social, comes to us when we are at crisis point. This applies to fundamentals such as power, water, education, health and so on as much as it applies to the quality of our democracy. And democracy in India also seems to evolve and mature only with a gun to its head.

That penny-ante nations have no problem dealing with basic civic necessities like roads, electricity, water and modernity commensurate with the second decade of the 21^st century does not worry our disgraceful obtuseness.

 Perhaps, because this is a deeply religious country and people, God comes mysteriously to the rescue, lifting us from the routine morass we build for ourselves. It is God that helps us transcend our multiple infirmities and denies the doomsayers their satisfaction. In a round about way, this is what the Bible meant when it said the meek shall inherit the earth. The faith of our poor, their acceptance of suffering, moves the Gods to protect them.

Because, our educated elite that largely run this country, are experts at sitting on their hands. It is only when we are between a rock and a hard place, that the political dispensation of the day is able to push through any beneficial reform. And that too, after eliciting a hue and cry for challenging the status quo. We do very little to anticipate future demand and supply dynamics, probably to avoid stirring a hornet’s nest. We are a country of man-made and artificial shortages, much ameliorated since 1991.

But in many things there has been inadequate change. A good example is higher education, that needs entrance marks in the high nineties, and objective observers do find the occurrence of such percentages both suspect and incredible.

In recent times, and it is necessary to restrict ourselves to recent times, because the pre 1991 India was a much sadder narrative of poverty, shortages, neediness, hubris, and obsolescence.

Prime Minister Narasimha Rao and then Finance Minister Manmohan Singh were able to transform Indian possibilities as we knew it since 1947. But it was only at the point of looming bankruptcy. That most reforms then were dictated to us by the World Bank in return for a life saving rescue package of loans, is the telling point.

And here we are in 2012, twenty one years later, with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh showing some of his reformist zeal again, but only, once again at the menacing threat of a crashing economy.

The dismaying thing is the disarray in the political landscape. The Opposition, at various times in favour of reform measures, are busy cheeseparing their own confusion. The Government’s allies are sniffing around desperately for a political foothold that they can make capital out of.

Almost all of the objecting discourse smells of sour grapes and Luddite fear. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is addressing his legacy at the home stretch of his tenure. The Congress Party, with its own generally useful fifth column of sharp Left protagonists, finds itself helpless to resist presently. Socialism is therefore stymied, if unconvinced, for the moment.

But when have we ever welcomed change? In Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s time, blessed with a record breaking majority in Parliament, he still had a deuce of a time introducing computers in Government offices and banks, despite being labelled “Computerji”.

And babus, in their classically anachronistic manner, promptly put their PA’s to operating the “infernal machine”, even as they carried on dictating letters and spending all day correcting “drafts”.

And today, every political party, including the Leftists within the Congress Party and many others in the UPA, want to scuttle all of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s belated attempts at reform.

There is a lot of cant and misinformation in the air about every one of the initiatives announced and contemplated. The strange thing is we seem to abhor efficiency and refuse to acknowledge that we have much to learn. This even as we know precious little about the intricacies involved in multi-brand retail.

By letting in the world’s best in such fields we could learn a lot, but do we really want to? No, instead we prefer to cry wolf about the small trader and the small farmer, steeped in orthodoxy, xenophobia, obscurantism and chronic backwardness.

Pension reform and foreign investment in the airline industry, already a decade or more late because of raucous vested interest, is still attracting controversy just as it did in the nineties.

We can only dream of a Japanese style consensus on reform in India, where every political party backs it, but there is only a nuanced difference in degree. Instead we have the politics of the bazaar, and it is anybody’s guess what kind of oxymoron will emerge from all the resultant compromise.

The objections, after all, are mostly designed to attack the Government wrong or right. But it is the country and the people who will suffer in this battle for votes at all costs using shibboleths long past their sell-by dates.

But there remains one certainty. And the Soviets, who are by no means experts, having gone so completely the way of all flesh, said it years ago. They thought, in the first flush of the Nehru era, that this country is indeed run by God, as otherwise it wouldn’t run at all.

(1,104 words)

October 2^nd 2012

Gautam Mukherjee