Profits Privatised Losses Socialised!

Profits privatised, losses socialised

The Hispanic investment analyst I was listening to this morning on CNN was upset. He was angry as to how an insurance company, AIG, the biggest in America, with over a trillion US dollars in assets, could involve itself with risky sub-prime investments instead of safe, sound and doubly secure bonds.

There is similar outrage and bewilderment with regard to the fate of the 158 year old Lehman Brothers, regarded as a blue-chip investment bank till even two weeks ago, and Merrill Lynch too. These were, till a week ago, amongst the most coveted places to go to work. But now, watching images of hundreds of investment bankers walking out across the plazas outside their offices, holding the contents of their office desks in cartons; it is as if there never was a sense of responsibility in the Boards of Directors that determine policy in these top-notch financial institutions.

So what really happened? We need to understand, because there will be more and more revelations and collapses, because of globalisation, and interdependency, and the common belief that risk shared is risk diminished; in America, in Europe, Japan, China, Australia, Singapore.

A lot of this is happening because of a relentless pressure to achieve higher and higher profits. Companies, banks, and Boards are constantly analysed and commented on for their performance. Accounting systems are honed to deliver results in as short a time-span as possible. The future is seen as a continuum of the travelator-like present. No CEO dares to deviate and must need understand that no tomorrow can compensate for a poorly performed today.

But naturally, big profits, month on month, quarter after quarter, cannot come without accompanying risk. And as the competition intensifies, high street banks and insurance companies start behaving like investment banks, and investment banks look uncannily like hedge funds, and the whole hyperactive daisy-chain looks normal each to each, because speculation is the common language.

And the speculative, robber-baron style activity, designed to deliver multiples in profit, replaces the erstwhile 7 to 15% returns, from boring banking and commission based processes. And this roulette wheel style of placing business bets, is conducted not just with the institutions own money and reserves, but with multiples, borrowed against such reserves, and every asset in sight, owned, pledged to it, or even committed to on paper but not yet turned into reality!

And if anybody in this frenetic food chain, fuelled by luxury condominiums, luxe holidays, first class travel, top-end cars and massive salaries/ bonuses, feels nervous; why, they just look around themselves and simply do as others, peers, superiors, everyone they know professionally, do.

Abnormal is bound to seem normal in this context. All “oversight” reboots to treat the prevailing wind as a given or constant; anxious to be up-to-date, and not be left behind in the race.

Audit looks at processes rather than the executive decisions behind them, which, unless, it violates laws, is none of their business, besides. And laws are never onerous in a capitalist system based on risk and chutzpah, especially in the richest and mightiest country in the world.

Rating agencies rate according to levels of profit achieved and not according to the degree of caution shown. Caution, as Gordon Gekko might have said, in his heyday, and much before the fall, is for wimps.

And then, when it all comes unstuck, there is a baying for scapegoats that are not easy to find. Unless, that is, one intends to punish the entire financial services sector of the Western World and probably a good deal of the globalised Eastern world as well.

Lehman, it turns out, is funded quite substantially by the Chinese, the South Koreans, the Japanese.

The point about Capitalism is that it is prone to exploiting the system. It has done so once again. And this will not be the last time by any means, no matter how much knee-jerk oversight and controls are put in.

Once, in the Great Depression, inspired by concepts of divine retribution being the just desserts for greed; the US government refused to help. It let over 11,000 US banks collapse unaided, but had to spend a decade cleaning up the mess and alleviating the suffering caused to ordinary men, women and children.

That hopefully, will never happen again. It is altogether appropriate therefore that the US government should step in to rescue any financial institution that touches the lives of ordinary people no matter how irresponsible they may have been. That is what a mighty government does. At least one that believes its own rhetoric about being of the people, by them and for them.

So, it is good that AIG has been given an expensive bridge loan of 80 billion US dollars against 80% of its equity at nearly 12%. It is also good that the government has nudged American Bank to purchase Merrill Lynch and Barclays Bank to pick up the pieces of Lehman gone into Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Lehman may not touch the lives of ordinary Americans but letting the Chinese, the Japanese and the South Koreans down is also not acceptable in today’s world.

This is obviously not devil take the hindmost capitalism, nor the purity of a free market left to its own devices. But it is right because the consequences of being dogmatic can result in nothing but pointless pain. Of course, in the process of bailing out the collective of culprits, the government of America, of those in Europe, of all elsewhere in the free world affected by this crisis, are, as the Hispanic analyst said, letting them get away with the profits while picking up the losses with taxpayer money.

But let us remember that most financial services players too have been caught in the flytrap, and are looking not just at loss of livelihood but near or total depletion of their net worth.

Here in India we don’t allow such risk taking. We are therefore largely insulated from its worst excesses but it is clear that we can neither grow nor prosper if the free world does not do so as well. So being safe does not mean we are not sorry for our compatriots overseas. But then, on the bright side, just because they are down today hardly means that they are out.

(1,050 words)

17^th September 2008

Gautam Mukherjee

Updated version entitled "Down, but not yet out" published in The Pioneer, OP-ED Page on September 22, 2008 and online at www.dailypioneer.com

Pay the Piper Never Mind the Tune

Pay the Piper Never Mind the Tune

Sailing the ship of state is, at all times, an expensive proposition. In India, for over fifty years now, ever since the last vestiges of Gandhian austerity faded away, we have been treated to the spectacle of excessive government spending, on itself, and the way it works. This ranges from the housing, security, entourages and junkets of our elected leaders, both at the central and state levels. It continues unabated in the spendthrift manner the bureaucracy, in turn, conducts itself. There is little or no accountability to the public. Most of this expenditure is off-budget and tucked under various heads. It dwarfs the sanctioned direct cost figures by many times.

It is therefore something of a wonder that this country continues to grow. There are much richer, more developed, albeit smaller countries, that make the business of government a simpler, more efficient, and less expensive affair. But India takes its cues, probably from the Mughals and the British of yore, neglecting, conveniently, to focus on the fact that their establishments and equipage were nowhere near as vast in absolute terms!

So, it stands to reason that putting yet another raft of large figures on the table in the nature of a recurring bill, tends, inevitably, to irk. That is why most of the bigger operating expenses are not displayed for public scrutiny, except in a theoretical sense, under charades such as the RTI.

But when an item of expenditure pokes the public in the eye, being in the public domain, supported ultimately by our taxes, we tend to react adversely. It is another matter that this sense of our proprietorship is largely belied by the government’s cavalier reliance on its sovereign borrowing and inflation inducing deficit financing. But be assured, we citizens are not required to give our permissions, even as we pay the bill with interest! The moot point, as always, is, are we getting anything like our money’s worth?

But, leaving the grand macro-economics, the ultimate liability and cost-benefit questions aside for a bit, it must be admitted that when it comes to the government servant’s salary hike, it is indeed long overdue. And it is hard to imagine any of the recipients being more than shrug-worthily happy. This, despite an average net jump of over 30 per cent. That is why, we, the public, must stay unsurprised when the 6th Pay Commission’s recommendations, endorsed on the eve of our 61st Independence Day, with an upward revision, and with retrospective effect from January 2006, are met with more sighs than cheers.

The numbers, given the size of our gargantuan bureaucracy, are neither negligible nor huge, compared, for example, to the farm loans waiver, or the cost of armaments. The total cost of implementation of the Pay Commission’s recommendations, to benefit 55 lakh Central government employees, is about Rs. 17,798 crore annually. This excludes the arrears, those retrospective benefits inevitable in a system that grinds both slowly and fine. The back pay will, in fact, whack the national exchequer with a single blow of Rs. 29,373 crore, and additional hikes beyond the suggestions of the Commission will cost another Rs. 11,000 crores annually.

And then there’s the pension entitlements of our many central government superannuated. All this comes on top of the existing central government wage bill of roughly Rs. 30,000 crore per annum. So, the total, under various heads, will look more like the Rs. 71,000 crore farm loan waiver after all. And coincidentally, it will make about the same difference to the state of affairs in government, as far as the public is concerned, as the loan waiver has made to the poor farmers.

And the foregoing does not take into account the Commission’s impact, if its recommendations are implemented, in the States. The States may be notoriously profligate, but will be under moral pressure nevertheless to give their babus as much as the centre does.

If one is not churlish, it should not be anyone’s case to grudge the government servant his pay hike. But having said that, in the public mind, the sheer size and multiplicity of our government is incomprehensible. It is this, and the fudging of our real deficit figures, that might see the ship of state run aground yet, as it did in the USSR.

There was a time, in the fifties, when business, industry, the private sector and services were all in their infancy, when it could be argued that it made sense to employ five to do one man’s job. It represented a measure of welfarism in a land of little opportunity and fitted in nicely with the Fabian Socialist cum Soviet derived statist thinking of the times. But later, particularly nearly two decades on from the open sesame of 1991, it is clearly an unwieldy government we have, bossy, unfriendly, ponderous, and, taking into account the natural ingenuity of the Indian people, in the way.

We have a robust democracy today and a free press/media, but one that is largely unable to deliver change. Most of our political energies likewise go into managing each other rather than contributing to the progress of the country. Perhaps the answer, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher fashion, lies in less intellectualism, less partisanship, and a determined effort to cut down “big government” that has proved inefficient all over the world.

We need no longer fear that the government is the sole repository of faith for the common man. All that was self-serving socialist propaganda after all, and may ultimately account for most of those sighs over cheers on the part of government employees.

At least we can be sure of one thing today--government may still be the biggest employer but not perhaps the preferred one anymore. We have a big fiscal deficit problem of course, much bigger than we officially admit, estimated by the World Bank at nearer the 10 per cent mark, when one adds in all the election year sops, the PSU losses and State Electricity Board bad debts.

In any case, it is much higher than the wildly optimistic 3 per cent the government cites. The government knows this, but it is banking on buoyant GDP growth rates to keep itself afloat. But shouldn’t the government, a much smaller one, content itself with responsiveness to the public and governing instead?

(1,050 words)

Gautam Mukherjee
September 10th, 2008

Also published by The Pioneer on 16th September, 2008 on the OP-ED Page as "Just pay the piper!" and online at www.dailypioneer.com

Hooray Henry!

Hooray Henry!


There is now an irrevocable tilt in India’s favour brought on by the imperatives of geopolitics. It is the tried and tested doctrine of “balance of power”, the concept famously used by 19th century diplomat/politician Klemens Wenzel von Metternich at the Congress of Vienna. Metternich, with minute and excruciating rachets of virtuoso diplomacy, tamed the great Napoleon himself.

His great admirer in recent times, Dr. Henry Kissinger, even wrote his Phd. dissertation on Metternich. Later, as US Secretary of State he masterminded the tilt against India in favour of Pakistan, and simultaneously, towards China, to pressurise the USSR, ultimately wiping it out of contention altogether.

But this latest American tilt is a serendipitous blessing for us. That it was also anointed by Henry Kissinger, now an elder statesman and Republican think-tank shaman, underlines the importance the US attaches to it. Kissinger visited us a few months ago to urge India not to miss the chance of global upliftment via the Indo-US Nuclear Treaty. And while here, he shrugged off queries on his previous positions; all those arch anti-Indira Gandhi comments; those veiled threats of invasion during the liberation of Bangladesh. Henry sees those views today as no more than creatures of their times, just no longer relevant.

But have we sufficiently realised that the India specific tilt is because the great powers have decided to create this country into a strategic bulwark against the militant Islam of the jihadists?

That India possesses a large, well integrated, apolitical, multi-denominational and disciplined military has not been lost on the developed world. Our standing army is over a million souls strong. We routinely participate in UN Peace-keeping missions. We are working on a blue water navy sufficient to patrol the vast Indian Ocean. The great powers have visited our military facilities and conducted war games with us. These countries include not only the United States, Britain and France but also potential friend and adversary China.

In addition, our non-proliferation record is indeed spotless. Unblemished, it beats that of a number of western nations not to mention edgy entities such as Pakistan, China and North Korea.

The tilt towards India therefore has much to recommend it. That is why it has been swiftly enhanced into a fait accompli by President George W Bush’s administration and enjoys bipartisan US support.

But the principal reason for making place for India at the high tables of power is because of our overwhelming Hindu majority. It is a demographic virtue, a pacifist influence in a troubled world order. The fact that India is 85 per cent Hindu, and not generally given to sectarian violence, is a great plus. We may be the favourite target of Islamic terrorists, but our refusal to turn provocation into conflagration, is a great temperamental and geopolitical strength. But even though we are a multi-cultural, multi-religious, multi-languaged functional democracy, we can, and are willing to defend ourselves. And this reluctance, not inability, to fight, makes us a responsible and desirable ally in the expected long war against terror.

That is why it has become important for every extremity of the Indian political spectrum, particularly the major parties, to both absorb and reflect on the implications of our perceived Hindu identity and make the necessary changes in internal policy to suit.

Things were, after all, very different in a kinder, gentler world, where antagonists fought according to rules, but now, as Metternich once said: “ Any plan conceived in moderation must fail when the circumstances are set to extremes”. Islamic Jihad, that makes war against others, from every religion; governments, but also ordinary men, women, and children, even Muslims who are not extreme enough; has forced the world into resistance. It has forced a reaction everywhere and caused the recasting of plans to contain its mindless and godless menace.

India’s new Hindu-majority-derived status also comes with decided benefits. We won’t, for example, be hearing anymore about the infamous “parity” principle in the sub-continent. In fact, the time may have come to stop worrying about Pakistan as a viable threat altogether. We know that Pakistan cannot win a declared conventional war against us, and a nuclear misadventure will have to result in mutual annihilation.

Internally, Pakistan’s problems of national cohesion are greater than India’s by far, and its general state of affairs, the many divisive and violent cross currents, make its continuance itself precarious. The Pakistanis, particularly their devastatingly effective intelligence services, know this. And that is why they are trying doubly hard to sow internal discord in India. But life for the Pakistani is no longer easy without the same degree of US and broad Western support. And with even Chinese backing not necessarily a given in future, we can gradually afford to bring the curtain down on the Pakistani threat.

India can now afford to move on and realise that the West has, with the same masterstroke of geopolitical diplomacy, created India into a long term counterpoint to China. It is this new positioning that will elevate India’s strategic realities, despite our raucous and near anarchic version of Westminster style democracy juxtaposed simultaneously with the chaotic morcha and the autocratic chaupal.

Perhaps Henry Kissinger in his eighties can be seen as a metaphor for this paradox turned in our favour. Because, who could have imagined Henry turning the page so comprehensively on himself? It is impressive to see him, like a benediction from history itself, to underline its continuity. Henry Kissinger, the flesh and blood of him, is visiting the old theatre of his triumph, China, during the Beijing Olympics.

The opening ceremony cameras showed Henry, still in his trademark black horn-rimmed glasses, that serried wave of kinky Semitic hair gone grey. We saw the hook nose and that bright, cold smile. We saw that powerful corpulence, each chin making a power statement like rings on an old hardwood tree. We heard him speak in that thick Germanic voice and still speaking in his trademark nuanced ellipses.

But Dr.Henry Kissinger, policy elder, Nobel Laureate, master of détente and realpolitik, “nemesis” of the Left and the Right alike, Metternich’s successor in spirit, stands ready today for India to assume its position on the world stage. It only remains for India to realise who she truly is and why she has become important to the world.

(1,050 words)

Gautam Mukherjee
1oth August 2008

Eyes Right

Eyes Right


India is her own worst enemy because she artificially denies the sentiments and inclinations, if not the rights, of the majority of her people in the name of a bizarre and unsustainable secularism. This has been so from the birth of this nation, 62 years ago, grown out of a desire to differentiate ourselves from Islamic Pakistan, even though we often disguise this arrogant perversity under the guise of robust democratic discourse. But can we afford to go on denying our majoritarian birthright and debilitating our will, because the only ones gaining from our stance are the enemies of the nation?

India must realise, that rescue lies in shifting the entire polity sharp right, standing up and being counted as a Hindu majority country with equal rights and protections for our many minorities. It may well feel akin to moving a very heavy oak conference table. But, making this move to the right, and truthfulness, would change the political tone, tenor and content of debate, and signal, once and for all, that we have had enough of being exploited by fringe elements.

We all realise, patently, every Leftist is not a Maoist, every rough-hewn citizen is not a gangster, and every Muslim is not a Terrorist. But we need to protect the one and destroy the other, if we, the rest of us, want to survive. And we need to get much better at telling one from the other. And also, very importantly, we have to stop subverting the interests of the majority continually in favour of one minority or the other that seem committed, not only to irritating brinkmanship, but, ultimately, to a dark and mysterious self destructiveness.

We have too many permanent burning issues and a much bloodied landscape already. But, with a shift to the right by the demands of common sense, led by the major political parties, we will benefit the economy as well, combining pragmatic policies with an openly majoritarian bias to replace an unsustainable hypocrisy.

Otherwise, in the face of political cant and apathy, it is anarchy, fuelled by the frustration of both motivated and ordinary people, that is inexorably taking over. It is anarchy unchecked that animates all agitations in India nowadays, more so than when VS Naipaul called it “a million mutinies now”; with the law and its enforcers missing in action.

And everywhere, whether it be a land acquisition related or anti-industrialisation agitation at Singur or Nandigram in West Bengal; Maoist mayhem in Jharkhand, Bihar and Orissa; Gujjar self-assertion in Rajasthan, anti-Dera agitation in Punjab, and of course, the mother of all institutionalised ferment, that crown of thorns called Kashmir; no one seems to be the least bit scared of retribution.

If only we were Chinese, we wouldn’t have a Kashmir problem at all. If we were Chinese, we would set about reneging on Article 370 before the ink was dry on the document sanctioning it. The Chinese do not allow previous commitments to get in the way of present expediency, let alone their strategic interest. They have learned their lessons well, from being at the receiving end of their own colonial experience replete with horrendous European and Japanese exploitation and opium addicted slavery. The Chinese have also learned from the solemn treaty-breaking ways of the imperial British Empire, and indeed, the actions of the current king-of-the-world, the unilateral and all powerful United States of America.

So if we were Chinese, we would not hesitate to put down the cynical and unruly politics of the Kashmir Valley, pressing it into ruthless submission. We would have no compunctions about disabusing the Valley politicians of their grandiose notions. We would engineer a massive demographic rebalancing, aided, abetted, and incentivised, all over this multi-religious and vast country. We would deliberately and swiftly change the character and dynamics of Kashmir once and for all. There would be no Muslim majority Kashmir anymore than the Dalai Lama and his followers can hope to see a Tibetan majority Tibet going forward.

If we were Chinese, we would set about setting historic wrongs to rights. We would put all the shamefully displaced Pandits back where they belonged, restoring their homes, lands and dignity to them. In addition, we would extract reparations and indemnities for their trauma, suffering and humiliation from their erstwhile friends and neighbours turned usurpers.

We would drive out most, if not all of the rabid Islamic terrorists, and their vociferous supporters across the border. We would drive them into so-called “Azad Kashmir”, where they can savour life on the other side, much closer to their friends, compatriots and benefactors there.

We would let the rest of the Islamists, appropriately reoriented to ground realities, reminded of their duties, as much as their rights, from time to time, to participate in democratic discourse, and hold high office if elected at all by the reformed electorate and the restorative magic of universal suffrage.

But being India, we still allow, even as we may be forced to reconsider, by popular outrage and uprising, a particular dinosaur cum national humiliation enshrined as Article 370. An article and covenant which enables a coterie of fifth-column politicians, openly in favour of Pakistani intervention and influence in the Valley, and veiled terrorists with dangerously high levels of influence, to hold the Indian government as well as the Indian nation to ransom.

The infamous and unfair Article 370 is not only a bizarre historical inheritance today but also at the root of much that is wrong with our national politics of appeasement. Article 370 was an act of capitulation from the start, understandable in the aftermath of 1947, when it was used to assuage the apprehensions of a Muslim majority province in the backdrop of the Partition, but why do we uphold it today? Where were such niceties when we stripped the princes of their titles, lands and privy purses and nationalised banks at will?

Indeed in the face of government paralysis and endemic impotence on issues concerning Kashmir, it is the people of Jammu that are showing the country the way forward. They are likely to get their way on Amarnath soon enough and signal to all of us that the time has come to stop taking the docile support of the majority community in the face of continuous injustice, for granted.

(1,050 words)

Gautam Mukherjee
6th August 2008

In print in The Pioneer EDIT Page Leader as "Assert India's Hindu identity" and online at www.dailypioneer.com on Saturday August 09, 2008

We don't do nuance

We don’t do nuance

President George Dubya Bush, India’s special friend, or her hegemonistic bete noire, depending on your political persuasion, let it be known, “I don’t do nuance”, thereby putting the onus on his officials and advisers to present matters in black and white, the grey being relegated to damnation.

But two-term President G.W. Bush, once wanting a certain Mr.Laden “dead-or-alive”, in all look-you-in-the-eye seriousness, is wiser than it might be assumed at first. Because, casting the world and all its matters in stark either/or terms, does have its advantages.

Not doing nuance prevails, hands down, over doubt, and issues of intellectual honesty, for example. It helps you brush inconsistencies, like where are those life-threatening WMDs, under the carpet. And, it enables you to look decisive, almost as decisive as wearing a Bomber Jacket for a photo opportunity on a US Aircraft Carrier, as you back your chosen “regime change” horses. And you don’t even have to pander to inconvenient ifs and buts as you win re-election with a decisive majority.

But India, being an old civilisation, an observant and subtle one at that, always manages a variation on every theme. So, while the world watches our no-holds-barred version of democracy in morbid fascination; we, the people of India, are confronted with the unedifying spectacle of every political party, and person in it, casting its, and his or her agenda, in black or white, in sense and nonsense alike.

We don’t worry much that this resembles anarchy and invites aggression from Pakistan, China, internal Maoists, external terrorists and all others wanting to fish in troubled waters. But, really, we patently should!

Instead we seem to have developed an ever-changing aya ram gaya ram variation of the no-nuance mantra, with nil reference to our own past preferences, and a throw-away line or two as to the whys and wherefores for anybody listening.

Sometimes, a few politicos pick up, this being the land of Mahatma Gandhi, whatever shard of ethical justification they feel like, to cloak it in. It is a shard picked up from the floor, from the shattered jar of morality lying there. Others have reached a new level of blatancy altogether, and feel no need for cloaking anything anymore.

That is why you have issues of political illegitimacy cohabiting with oxymorons of deep-seated political incompatibility. You have the UPA refusing to distinguish between the patriotic Muslim citizen and blood-thirsty terrorist, at least in terms of nabbing and punishing any of the perpetrators. The illegal, encouraged to walk-in Bangladeshi, harbouring seditionists in their midst, is retained with full voting rights and a tacit understanding of political patronage while crocodile tears are shed over increasing piles of the innocent dead. The domestic jehadi, from known and documented hotspots, is allowed to go about his business as if it were a fundamental right of his that the nation must preserve.

You also have the NDA, ostensibly a Right-leaning, business-friendly party, brazenly declaring its intent to oppose any initiative to execute long pending reforms held up for long by the ideologically driven Left. This, coming, as it does, after disowning the very Indo-US Nuclear Deal that the NDA helped foster, over six years of preparatory work. And after testing nuclear devices, five of them, readied painstakingly after years of surreptitious development by successive Congress and Janata Dal governments before them.

You also have both sides trying to engineer defections, using every device of cash and kind at their disposal, and refusing to see any ignoniminy in it.

You have, in addition, the rag-tag-and-bobtail UNPA, the secondary Opposition, devoid of a coherent political vision of their own, unless it is the debilitating ideology of the Left, opposing both ends of the stick against the middle. They see nothing odd about their declared intention of providing the benighted populace with the “third alternative”, one to be authored and executed by themselves.

The UNPA is hoping to increase its strength in the next general election so that the UNPA, the UPA and the NDA become more or less the same size. Then, the UNPA would have the right to stake its claim to form the government just as legitimately as the other two groupings. The way things are going, this could indeed come to pass.

As for the other two formations, namely the UPA and the NDA, they are determined, to make short work of the UNPA, just as they have three times already! But perhaps the past is not an accurate predictor of the future. It could be the UNPA that breaks up the NDA or the UPA to their advantage the next time around!

And all this is only the main plot. Every regional party that is teamed up within the UPA, the NDA or the UNPA, or is ostensibly independent and unattached, has its own regional agenda, often at cross purposes with its larger commitments.

The solution to the deepening mess, bizarre as it may seem, is coming to more and more strategic, economic and political commentators. It is simply an alliance of the centrist elements in the UPA and those in the NDA, or, if one has to peel the onion somewhat in the process, between the Congress and the BJP.

After all, they account for nearly 400 of the 542 seat Lok Sabha between them and are likely to easily tally up the 272 seats needed for a parliamentary majority together going forward. They also represent most of the political and administrative acumen available to the Indian political stage. Not only would such a formation end the descending spiral of political blackmail that is getting us more and more into its boa constrictor-like grip, but the Congress and BJP could be regarded as natural allies if each dropped a few of their irreconcilable differences in favour of a common minimum programme of their own.

Together, the Congress and the BJP are capable of providing governance and stability to this country after the impending elections. Dubya Bush, our friend over the seas, knows why he doesn’t do nuance. Likewise our political leadership too must, in the service of our beloved nation as our 61st Independence Day approaches, consider dispensing with chicanery and refuse to nuance the differences between the party that won our independence and the one that constitutes the principal opposition. Today, they need to unite against the rest.

(1,050 words)
Gautam Mukherjee
July 29th, 2008

Published in The Pioneer as "A possible alternative" in Leader Edit slot on the EDIT page and online at http://www.dailypioneer.com/ --on Wednesday, July 30th, 2008

ON with the show!

On with the show!

A lot got done amidst the high drama of July 21st and 22nd besides the government winning the Trust Vote with a 19 vote lead and ten abstentions. There was most useful cross-voting from individuals from a clutch of Opposition parties, and it may be a short time before the cross-voters are drawn firmly into the UPA fold.

The lines of competence have been drawn for the general election coming up, and it seems clear that the Opposition is at a considerable disadvantage.

Nevertheless, it is hard to feel sorry for the Opposition. Not only is the UNPA composed of a jerry-built raft of the oddest lots of the political pantheon; including the detritus of lost political battles; but they are probably the worst behaved parliamentarians encountered so far.

Their fellow travellers in this instance, the NDA, look dispirited and hapless, and distinctly uncomfortable for having got into bed with a number of very unsavoury playmates. But perhaps in this era of coalition politics there is little choice.

There was much money doing the rounds, reportedly. But irrespective of the enquiries and prosecutions that may yet ensue, it seems hypocritical to be shocked to learn that public life has its corrupt moments! And to put it on television hardly represents any grand departure from the past, except for some pointless titillation.

But perhaps a few new steps do need to be taken. It seems no longer easy to take revolvers into parliament, at least one hopes so; but easy enough to spirit suitcases full of cash in. Perhaps the Watch and Ward Staff is unable to muster up the courage to stop “immune” MPs. It may therefore be time for a circular to go out from the Parliamentary Affairs Minister banning the entry of cash into parliament except for what a parliamentarian can carry in a wallet. That’s wallet, in the singular, as in one wallet per MP.

Parliament also badly needs to put in a new, high-tech sound management system, with sufficient acoustic insulation built into every part of the House, so that it makes all hecklers and interrupters inaudible, or nearly so, unless they speak into mikes. And the Speaker should have the button to cut off said mikes whenever necessary.

It is evident, of late, that opposition to anything is tantamount to shouting down anyone that is targeted. Persuasion from the Speaker of the House falls routinely on deaf ears despite the yelling he is forced to resort to. So, if one wants to, the technological solution is certainly at hand.

As for the Well of the House, and the propensity for parliamentarians rushing into it to hold impromptu dharnas, accompanied usually with sufficient slogan-shouting to paralyse all other activity; perhaps the answer is small-charge-shock-mines, embedded into the floor, acting in a manner similar to cattle-prods. Again, a button at the Speaker’s desk should prevent the parliamentary staff from receiving electric shocks as they go about their business. I am sure Westminster does not need such arrangements; but we are a younger democracy, and we certainly do.

Similar arrangements, like the Delhi Metro, moving to build Metro systems elsewhere, can then be spread to the State Assemblies, where legislators routinely throw furniture and fittings at each other as well, before rushing over to indulge in fisticuffs, and may call, therefore, for additional features.

The Trust Vote success, earned with commendable, if strenuous effort, by the government, does offer the ruling UPA a great chance to set a number of things to rights before calling for the general elections on schedule next year.

The Indo-US Nuclear Deal is going to happen, and happen without domestic interference now. This presents unprecedented new opportunities to India Inc., running into billions of US dollars, and the capital goods and power infrastructure companies have already begun to rally sharply on the stock markets in anticipation.

The Finance Minister is talking of developing consensus on a number of financial bills pending parliamentary approval but since most of these need only a simple majority, like the Trust Vote, and not a two-thirds majority, required generally for constitutional amendments, there is no need to regard Mr. Chidambaram‘s remarks as any more than politeness. Or perhaps, we need to see it as a face-saver for those elements of the Left that no longer wish to follow Mr. Karat’s amateurish directions.

Some social reform bills, such as the Women’s Reservation Bill, do however pose problems, with elements in the ruling UPA constrained by their vote banks, and will probably have to be kept in abeyance for the time being.

But, if the SP can find a way to withhold objections to it, adding daring to boldness, it may have the side effect of curbing the profusion of criminal elements in parliament with as many as 50 MPs facing grievous charges such as murder and over a hundred up on lesser charges such as rioting, arson and the like. Women, after all, are widely thought to be the more law abiding of the sexes.

But the greatest thing in favour of business and industry is the fact that the elements that now constitute the UPA are decidedly reformist and business friendly. This can only throw up new opportunities for the prime minister, an eminent economist himself, as well as the duo in the finance and commerce ministries.

We should also get on with drawing closer to the United States and Israel in defence and high technology areas. This will not only give us the best from the best, but paradoxically make Russia, the Arabs and others that we interact with, for oil, gas, trade and defence supplies, far more reasonable. It is a truism that negotiating from a position of strength makes all the difference.

We can also henceforth expect to be less frequently threatened by China with regard to Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh and even Sikkim! As for Pakistan, we can be fairly sure that this is when they begin to give up the ghost with regard to their rivalry with India.

Perhaps, at long last, the contours of India as a future superpower are indeed possible to discern after this historic vote. And a special vote of thanks needs to go out to Speaker Somnath Chatterjee for upholding the highest standards of parliamentary procedure and wrestling the rambunctious assembly to an orderly outcome.


(1,050 words)

Gautam Mukherjee
July 23rd, 2008

Keys to India Inc. Vedanta, Karma & Dharma

BOOK REVIEW


THINK INDIA

The Rise of the World’s Next Superpower and what it means for every American

By Vinay Rai and William L. Simon
Published by Dutton (Penguin USA), August 2007.
Pages, 284. India price: Rs. 450/-


Keys to India Inc. Vedanta Dharma and Karma


It is always encouraging to see books on Indian business prospects written by businessmen, rather than academics or journalists, who, erudite as they often are, often lack that all important business instinct.

Vinay Rai of the erstwhile Usha Group, is a to-the-manner-born businessman, even though he concentrates more on his educational and philanthropic ventures these days. And having collaborated with a professional American writer, William Simon, who has previously written a New York Times bestselling biography of Steve Jobs of Apple Inc.; the book is smooth in the reading, with a profusion of easy Americanisms, to make it further comprehensible to the American interested in doing business in the new India.

This short and straight-forward book does not hem and haw, but clearly states that it is time for India and the United States to collaborate across-the-board, to their mutual benefit. This thrust is set in the context of present day global geo-politics, and the rising strategic threat posed by China, to Indian and American interests alike.

But of course, because India is geographically next door, it can certainly feel the dragon’s breath somewhat warmer on the back of its Gandhian neck. And it doesn’t help matters that India is forced to make the most of its Soviet-era armaments, with the odd brilliant bit of Israeli equipment, acquired lately, in the interim; while matters grow cosier with the United States, particularly without the impedimenta posed by the Left.

But the refreshing, if typical, Indian paradox is in the very next suggestion: next best strategic ally for India is none other than China! If we can work this in tandem going forward, mirroring the US-China initiative by Richard Nixon, that served to slowly unravel the power and eventually, the very existence, of the USSR; we will have the best of all worlds. But, this proposition is set in the favoured US style combo format. The unabashed alliance with the US is essential, and the further cooperation with China will be simply dandy.

Vinay Rai is scathing about the economically speaking lost years of India’s “tilt” towards the USSR, and her own Socialist policies of the licence-permit regime; which, according to him, in agreement with prevalent wisdom nowadays, has served to retard India’s progress. He speaks from first-hand experience, of course.

But, to some extent, Rai points out; the tilt towards the USSR was forced on us due to an unwarranted tilt on the part of the US towards Pakistan. So much so, that during the Bangladesh War in 1971, it is presumed that the US would have attacked India, if it were not for stern warnings on our behalf from the USSR.

The book also talks about the Indian approach, the Vedantic, Karma and Dharma-centric view of life and matters, her diversity, tolerance, her unity in tenuous ways, not so visible to the naked Western eye, her virtues, that are nestled in seeming deficits. And India’s geographical variety, her beauty, the attractive national temperament, always eager to learn, and so on.

This book has come to India almost a year after it was released in the US, and today, some of the grand posturing with regard to India and China as the engines of 21st century growth seem a little dog-eared, because the other two in BRIC, namely Russia and Brazil, are contemplating better prospects now, sitting as they both are, on large reserves of oil. To his credit, Rai does acknowledge this, but, in August 2007, there was probably no way of anticipating the extent of the oil price rise of 2008.

Ours is now a world labouring in the heat of ever-rising oil prices, risen seven-fold since 2001.We will, all of us who don’t produce a surplus of crude, never have enough to go around, and until a solution is found to this issue, most of the assumptions of this book may yet not come to pass.

Besides, what it is doing to global growth and inflation is of seismic proportions.

A lot of THINK INDIA reads like a starter book on India, a primer on its charms and contradictions, even glorifying the exotic aspects, and discounts the effectiveness of the internet and travel stories on TV channels such as Discovery and National Geographic, because otherwise, it wouldn’t have dwelt on first principles like this.

Fortunately, THINK INDIA redeems itself in the last chapter by getting back on economic track. In it, Simon and Rai write of the progress being made in the “Two Indias”, the one of urban and modern progress, the other, of a rural India, mired still in poverty, but wherein a lot of progress is being made to alleviate matters.

And all this, within the parameters of a thriving and effective democracy, unlikely to see any cataclysms that could derail its new tryst with destiny. And what might that be? India and China, both boasting economies ahead of the United States by 2050.

Well, Goldman Sachs says so, and if it is right about USD 200 per barrel oil soon, perhaps it is also right about India as a superpower by 2050.

(850 words)

Gautam Mukherjee
Tuesday, July 15th, 2008

Printed in The Sunday Pioneer BOOKS section as "Good times, bad times" and online at www.dailypioneer.com on Sunday, July 20th, 2008