Just Who Is Arvind Panagariya?

Just Who Is Arvind Panagariya?

You’ve already seen glowing biographical data of the first man at the operational helm of the brave new Niti  Aayog.  He’s been an author of free-market economics, with a Cyclops-eye focus on an India that might have been, and could be any time, given just half a chance: ten to fifteen books worth, a journal on India (India Policy Forum) that he edits; many articles in prestigious papers and magazines,a multitude of TV appearances, a bushel of proselytizing advisories, all selling his ideas of a ‘free’ India. Plus, Arvind Panagariya is already a Padma Bhushan awardee.

Panagariya is also a PhD scholar from Princeton, a world-class economist, former advisor at the ADB, the World Bank, IMF,WTO, UNCTAD… He is a current professor at Columbia University, and a past one at the University of Maryland. He, along with his senior at Columbia, Jagdish Bhagwati, have been advisors-at-large to a rising Narendra Modi, shaping his economic ideas, for a long time now. 

Dr. Arvind Panagariya, the dapper 62 year old global Indian-American, ethnically from Rajasthan, is certainly not at all like Nobel laureate and welfare/development economist Dr. Amartya Sen.  Dr. Sen was the inspiration of the Sonia Gandhi led NAC, renowned for its socialist ideas.

The now 80 year old Bhagwati, and 62 year old Panagariya, are both thinkers whose world-view would have appealed to founding fathers Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Chakravarty Rajagopalachari, Dr. Rajendra Prasad and other stalwarts,  on the ‘right’ of the independence era, big-tent, Congress Party.

You could well say Bhagwati and Panagariya, these 69 years on, represent the road not taken then. A road that could, many now believe, have already placed India in the first rank of developed nations- prosperous, modern and proud of its ancient heritage at the same time. Instead, we find ourselves plagued by shameful poverty for a full third of our population, and fifty years behind most of the emerging economies.  In all except market size; and potential, and therein lies the hope.

Panagariya has long asserted that India can grow at double-digits, given a massive push to infrastructure and facilities. He will not only make it fashionable for State Governments to compete in the development stakes, but truly legitimize and emphasise the contribution of the private sector.

It is no coincidence that JRD Tata was given a Bharat Ratna by the Vajpayee administration in 1993, and that silver coins have just been struck, in Modi Raj, honouring the TATA founder, as father of Indian industry- the long-bearded Jamshetji  Nusserwanji Tata.

Niti  Aayog will be a lean organization, of some five full-time members, but enough resources to draw in outside specialists as necessary. It has already inducted plain-speaking, right-of-centre economist Bibek Debroy, who has some great ideas on how to set the Indian Railways back in good health, and former DRDO Chief VK Saraswat, famous as the maker of India’s nuclear capable ballistic missiles.

While Niti  Aayog will not allocate funds, resources to implement its transformational ideas will be forthcoming, because both the Finance Minister as ex-officio member, and the Prime Minister as Chairman, are very much part of it. But while it will not look back in anger, the Aayog will not be a Thatcherite or Reaganite free-for-all against statism either.

Every one of India’s 29 Chief Ministers, and Heads of its Union Territories, will belong, and  be part of  the Aayog’s unique inclusive ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’  version of the free-market.  Regulatory strangle-holds of big Government will definitely go, but not the concern for the poor and the weak.      

(592 words)

January 6^th, 2015

Gautam Mukherjee

BJP 2.0

BJP 2.0

With the arrival of celebrated free-market economist Arvind Panagariya at Niti Aayog as Vice Chairman, the basics and foundation of BJP 2.0 have been put in place. The socialist era Planning Commission is gone. The federalist Niti Aayog has come to promote equity and competition between the states.  

The elders of the Vajpayee era have been moved respectfully into an advisory role. The Advani protégés, and both Modi and Jaitley must be counted amongst them, have been joined by young bloods and Modi acolytes such as Suresh Prabhu, Manohar Parikkar, Nirmala Sitharaman, Amit Shah, Jagat Prakash Nadda and Ram Madhav.

The engine is in place, for both the Party and the Government to deliver, with several others in exalted and less stellar roles; in the Government, the Party, the Intelligence and Security Apparatus, as well as the Bureaucracy. The old arguments against Narendra Modi and the BJP will not hold water going forward. Too much is changing on a daily basis, both in form and content, and gradually, but surely, the commentariat is starting to shift the narrative as well.

This is a message that needs to be absorbed, particularly for all those who think the Modi Government has been big on announcements and small on implementation so far. And those who think that the fringe elements in the Sangh Parivar will derail the stated intentions of the Government.

Because, contrapuntally, there are others, including several foreign observers, who think that this Government has already done more in a few months in power than the UPA managed in several years of family politics, diarchy, and ‘policy paralysis’.

The pro-Government view cites the resolve not to be bullied on the borders, the deregulation of diesel prices, loosening of some labour laws and the scrapping of several redundant ones, the increased FDI in Defence Production, the increased FDI permissible in Insurance, and the more equitable Arbitration, the Coal-Block Auction and the Land Acquisition ordinances.

Other initiatives include online tendering processes, appointment of the higher judiciary, self-attestation, environmental clearances, time-bound processes, the cleanliness and solar power drive, more responsive and quicker governance, moves to part-privatise PSU Banks, sell-off some or all of certain PSUs, modernise the Indian Railways etc..

 All this, and a number of dynamic foreign policy initiatives and visits, that have resulted in substantial pledges of investment in India, and generated considerable goodwill.

This year 2015, promises well; preceded as it has been, by a flurry of important and enabling ordinances, designed to bypass the parliamentary logjam despite  motivated accusations of being undemocratic.

The Opposition in parliament has been vehemently protesting the activities of the Sangh Parivar’s fringes, and not the actions of the Government, even in omission/ commission or tacit approval; but they do not seem to care to recognise the difference! Some analysts feel the Opposition fears being completely marginalised as the Modi/Shah/BJP wave continues in the State Assemblies. This includes a high potential situation in J&K, alongside wins in Haryana and Jharkhand, and Government formation in plum Maharashtra.  

But it was the Modi pledge of ‘development’, based on which the public elected the BJP, and now it is clear that this Government is determined to deliver. Luckily for it, there is a respite from crucial Assembly elections in 2015, for the most part, as well.   

The BJP has in reality changed substantially and grown inclusive. In both the Government and the Party, it is now firmly controlled by a post-independence generation. There is a stated and clear-cut policy of dynamism, and not giving a ministership to anyone older than 75. And this Government’s stated, oft-repeated mantra: ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’, is in pointed departure from the BJP’s old majoritarian themes.

The Modi silence on the shenanigans of the fringe element in the face of Opposition demands, is however being bolstered by discreet action from RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat. As for the loud-mouths in Government or in parliament, they too have been quietly cautioned, but well away from the screaming media.  

The old polarising tactics are seen to be outdated, and are no longer BJP 2.0 policy. They have certainly contributed on the journey so far, right from the days of patriarch LK Advani’s  very successful Rath Yatra . They delivered the first BJP/NDA Government,  an unwieldy coalition under Prime Minister Vajpayee. But where it scored, despite its disparate make-up, was on the economy, with near double-digit growth. India also went overtly nuclear, repulsed Pakistan at Kargil, enjoyed a buoyant stock market , a stable currency, and built much of the spectacular Golden Quadrilateral.

 The 10 years after the Vajpayee Government under the UPA was like stepping back in time. It had just one proud moment- the signing of the nuclear power agreement with the US. The economy however languished, even as there was a huge increase in Welfarism and worrying fiscal deficits.   

 But now, a young voting population has put the BJP in power with a clear majority on its own, enhanced by the other constituents in the NDA.  It is this that will carry the resolve of this Government through. The nay-sayers have their work cut out for them. As the late Baroness Thatcher, somewhat of a kindred spirit, said once: This lady is not for turning.

(871 words)

January 4^th, 2014

Gautam Mukherjee

Free-Market Formalised

Free-Market Formalised

 Dr. Arvind Panagariya, the soon to be first operational boss of the brand new Niti  Aayog, is presently  the Jagdish Bhagwati Professor from Columbia University in the US. He earned his PhD from Princeton and is Bhagwati’s leading protégé. He has written ten books, the last of which,  India: The Emerging Giant was described as ‘the definitive book on the Indian economy’ by CNN. 

Panagariya who has been Chief Economist at the Asian Development Bank, has worked in the World Bank, and various United Nations organisations, is steeped in  matters Indian though located in faraway New York. He runs a journal named India Policy Forum and teaches a course at Columbia on the Indian Political Economy.

In fact, the Columbia University professorial duo of Bhagwati-Panagariya have long been regarded as  the preferred economic  ideologues for the Indian right-of-centre that have clustered around the BJP in recent years. 

Originally, the BJP, emerging from the Jan Sangh as the political expression of the RSS, was indeed known as a Party of “Hindu Nationalists”: Traders, the higher castes, cultural chauvinists, majoritarians; but it has drastically remade itself to become far more inclusive lately.

This profound and fundamental change  is evidently confusing its opponents who have long been comfortable branding it ‘communal’, as also its old-style adherents, who are angry at not finding much resonance for their prejudiced views in Modi’s policy slogan of  ‘Sabka Saath,Sabka Vikas’.

The outrage and sense of bewilderment from both sides of the divide is currently in noisy and raucous play. Nevertheless, the shifting of gears, that began decisively with the choice of Narendra Modi as the prime ministerial candidate, has definitely taken place.

The BJP, Government and Party, is now controlled by a post- independence generation, led by Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, with the full approval and support of a revamped RSS led by Mohan Bhagwat . Now, seven months on, with Panagariya tipped to become the first Vice-Chairman of the newly formed Niti Aayog,  the cornerstone to the future direction of our economic edifice has also been firmly set . 

Panagariya  asserts that India can achieve a growth rate of 6.5% in 2015 itself, given a toned up administration and quicker decision- making; a full percentage point higher than other estimates. He plumps for infrastructure development, particularly in the provision of electricity to industry, and believes in empowering the States to compete in the development stakes.  And this idea of competition is the basis of the free-market.

 News of Panagariya’s impending appointments is momentous. For the first time, a free-market economist will be operationally heading the nation’s premier and official ‘think-tank’. It marks a firm departure from centralised planning that has grown ineffective and out-dated.

With the Prime Minister, a former CM himself, as Chairman, several other Union Ministers and all the Chief Ministers on board; the Niti Aayog  will be much more democratic and federalised than its predecessor, both in  its policy prescriptions and decision-making. 

But of course, at first, with the Opposition determined to oppose the Government wherever it can with its filibustering, the Aayog will find greater acceptance in the States ruled by the BJP and its allies in the NDA, and those outside of it, a growing band, leaning towards the BJP led Government at the Centre.

With Panagariya in-charge of operations with full cabinet rank, there is every chance of a number of other notable free-market economists and thinkers being inducted into  Niti Aayog. This will mark a complete departure from the 80s style arch-leftist, bafflingly revisionist and anti-business complexion of the former National Advisory Council (NAC).  

The Modi Government has gradually been moving away from Welfarism as the answer to poverty. This has been aided by a lowering of inflation caused by a dramatic drop in the price of petroleum, metals and commodities. Subsidies and grants, at the core of Welfarism, are, of course, difficult to do away with, until the engines of growth properly kick in; and the Government has been mindful of this. But with the chronic fiscal deficits plaguing our mostly inefficient economy, there is urgent need for a sea- change in policy. With Niti Aayog supported by the Government in the Centre and the States, the entire process will pick up speed.

The Aayog will institutionalise the Modi Government’s commitment to productivity, growth, infrastructure and efficiency, as much better alternatives to socialism and the subsidy Raj.

The Planning Commission, inspired by the USSR in our first flush, has been increasingly less useful since liberalisation began in 1991, and more so as the States of the Union have gained in stature and autonomy. Reduced to irrelevance, it became controversial, gaining some notoriety for making absurd projections and comments on the poverty-line and then seeking to defend it.  In the latter-day, the Commission was also at loggerheads with many of the States.

(806 words)

January 3^rd, 2015
Gautam Mukherjee

Who Gives One For Minerva On The Volva?

A New Year’s Day Parable

Who Gives One For Minerva On The Volva?

Did wise old Minerva, the spinster, repository of too much wisdom for the impetuosity of the marital plunge, manage to get on the Progress Bus with the Lotus emblems? That spanking new Volva, being driven by a hearty called Vikas, was certainly full for the ride.

Minerva, the soul of self-effacement, Saraswati by another name, took an unobtrusive spot on the bench seat at the extreme back. It didn’t matter because she also had an extraordinary sense of hearing, bordering on the omniscient. She could sit there minding her own business, and still send us this little despatch on the goings on.

She was soon glad she came, when she met her neighbours, with names straight out of the Virtues. Chastity and Charity were real twins, though not identical, and were sat right next to her. 

The front seats swivelled and reclined; had a view, and legroom. They were commandeered by the universal cousins, aka Seven Deadly Sins. This lot could have been a Pop Group, an edgy Choir, or a septet of Yalies; but, in fact, they were all listed separately, under their distinct given names, as ‘Social Workers’. This was a triumphant journey; and so it had a grand manifest, just like a train or a plane.

The Sins are hip and rich, and know how to call most, if not all, the shots. Vikas, the driver, had to be mindful and attentive,  but he carried the fawning to extremes, verging on taking his eyes off the road at times.

The middle of the bus was occupied by other bona fide invitees, bores mostly, lacking in colour and initiative, with no rough edges to speak of. The whole bus, the latest marque in Volvas, was chock full for the New Year jaunt.  Everyone was sat down, with none standing in the aisle, spitting on it, or blocking it up with baggage. And yes, there were His and Hers toilets too.

The Sins were discussing politics, translated into economics. They  were sure Defence Minister IIT Parrikar,  was going to ‘Make in India’ like no man’s business. There was $ 200 billion of Defence Product to manufacture. He’s been looking over the shipyards already, sending a three-star General to assess making six next-generation submarines. That’s at least Rs. 50,000 crores worth right there, said Greed.

Meanwhile Boeing wants to manufacture some more in India. It’s already making floor-beams for the Boeing 787 to 789 in Mohan Bhagwat’s Nagpur, along with TATA’s TAL amongst the Orange (Tangerine) orchards.  

Cyrus Mistry, man at the helm of India’s biggest in the private sector, has just sent a New Year message to his flock, saying TATA is enthusiastic about ‘Make in India’. He mentioned Defence Production, and, ahem, Infrastructure. As an old Shapoorji Pallonji construction man, Mistry knows how the cement stacks up in Infrastructure. His motor-making friend, Anand Mahindra, is also singing off the same song-sheet, along with L&T’s AM Naik, and Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance; and who knows, the nimble Gautam Adani too.  

The French want to make Dassault’s Rafale fighters, here; before the Sukhoi or the Eurofighter takes away their $ 35 billion piece of cake. But they’re still complaining about ‘lack of policy clarity’ instead of getting started with their collaborators. What they really want, probably, is Modi’s ink on their contracts, supplying out of France, and on a cash- and-carry basis. But they know they won’t get it or do they, under that woolly socialist Hollande?

That $ 35 billion joint investment estimate includes French surface-to-air missiles, and aviation-fuellers in the sky, says Gluttony, sucking on a jujube from an entire jar of the stuff.

The Russians are completely broke now, sanctions and oil prices, said Pride, sitting up straighter. Their Defence Production industry would be history if we didn’t keep buying. We’ve taken in $ 40 billion worth lately, but they’ve grown unreliable. No timetables. No spares. Cost escalations. Still they do know how. And now Putin wants to help India make $25 billion worth of stealth fighters, 127 of them.  They can certainly come handy for our indigenous Aircraft Carrier project too. And they’ve promised to make hundreds of helicopters in India and parts for 12 new nuclear power reactors.

But really, we could urgently do with some good Siberian strength snow-boots. Ishmael, from Moby Dick’s nightmare, had better sandals than our soldiers’ boots in Kashmir and atop Siachen!  And how about some bullet-proof vests that actually stop bullets! And Drones;but probably from Israel.

Parrikar’s putting the Defence Agents back in business for ‘ease of doing business’, before we have to go back to bows and arrows. Still, the late Mr. Win ‘Bofors’ Chaddha, undoubtedly ‘still winning’ in heaven, will be sitting this one out. Imagine, it’s been that long since we had official dalals in defence!  It almost makes you miss the Italians.

Parrikar is very catholic about it, considering, and will gladly buy a TATRA truck as long as it is assembled here.  Former Army Chief and present BJP Minister General VK Singh, who famously refused to be bribed, can still look it over to make sure that they’re not sub-standard.

Indians are good at making after all, says Sloth, looking at a copy of the Caravan with super-journo Shekhar Gupta on the cover. Though this, posed as a question, has always ended up eliciting a ‘What’.

We are over a billion people. We can make much water and rich manure too, agrees Greed, but copying a Japanese fridge let alone an American aircraft strains our comprehension to a jet-engined whine.  

So what, retorts Envy, we’ll get foreign collaborators. Besides, we are already making Ships. And Missiles. Rockets too. One went all the way to Mars and is still circling around it taking pictures. We never did want to ‘Make in India’ before. Sadly, it’s not very good for putting money in your own pocket, said E, thinking of the affluent Congress Ministers that preceded him.

The HAL Boy in the middle of the bus winced over overheard references to TAL.  Any suggestion of competition from the private sector makes him want to cry like he has dust in his eyes.  Also defence production sinecures like his were hard to come by. He was only the third-generation of his family working on the Light Combat Aircraft after all.

The Sins meanwhile, have moved on, to Infrastructure, and Union Roads Minister Gadkari, his debonair moustache, his scooter rides, his Saraswat Brahmin stand-up routine, and his affable promises. He did build the spectacular and quite difficult Mumbai-Pune Expressway through the Ghats after all.

But before much could be said beyond how Defence Production, Roads, and Railways alone were enough to put the GDP on super steroids, Envy asked if it was true that Railway Minister Prabhu was pursuing two PhDs simultaneously while rejuvenating the Railways?

Almost as scary, he said, as former academic RBI Governor Rajan, thrilled with being allowed to do things at last, and then refusing to do anything after all!  

Vikas smiled here, because he was fond of Suresh Prabhu, and probably Raghuram Rajan too, but the Sins, luckily, couldn’t see it.  HAL Boy did, in the driver’s rear-view mirror, which from his middle-seat, caught all of the man’s expressions.

Wrath said these Conversions, particularly of Christians, could get in the way of the New York Times yet again.  And shouldn’t the Government be pulling up the anti-PK types before every Opposition State decides to give Amir Khan permanent exemption from entertainment tax? 

You don’t need a passport, priest or panda to be a Hindu said Lust. I know they can’t answer now but what do you think Steve Jobs was? Or Max Mueller for that matter. Or the Brit who set up the Asiatic Society, whatshisname William Jones? In fact, Hinduism is a philosophy, and no one has an authentic procedure to convert anyone into it.

But yes, he continued, Goa had the longest Inquisition in the whole world, and everyone notable had to be converted or else. That left only the rice-planting, coconut-gathering peasants to account for the Hindu demographics there. And Aurangzeb did wreck an awful lot of temples out of a natural viciousness of temperament that he mistook for piety. And the Rajasthan rulers who knew what to do certainly got on with the Mughals. Or, if not, they ended up like Chittorgarh; very large, impressive, mostly empty, and in ruins. What is it about monotheism though?

Gluttony said, I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry. Minerva turned towards her companions on the back seat and smiled at the simplicity of certain wants, just as the Progress Bus turned into a lay-by. It led to the brand new Niti Aayog Office, all lit up. Yes I know said Chastity: National Institute for Transforming India; it’s a Think-Tank for us to work in.

It hadn’t been such a long ride after all, thought Minerva, and yes, there was a restaurant alongside for Gluttony, and everyone else.

For: Swarajyamag.com

(1,496 words)

January 1^st, 2015

Gautam Mukherjee

Goose And Gander

Goose And Gander

The Government moving things along via the ordinance route, is the best thing it could have done by way of a New Year present to the nation. Coming alongside its determined push with the bureaucracy, to  ease the rigours of doing business in India, while catalysing the ‘Make in India’ campaign.  

With his penchant for acronyms, the Prime Minister  has asked bureaucrats to turn away from ‘ABCD’- avoid, bypass, confuse, delay, in favour of ROAD (to Success)- responsibility, ownership, accountability and discipline.

Between himself and the Finance Minister, they are making strong efforts to also get the RBI to make some much needed banking reforms, as well as start the interest rates on a downward cycle.

 Also, with the start of the GST, hopefully by 2016, a new Finance Sector Law to replace some 60 overlapping ones, the sum total will truly start the second generation economic reforms, and attract huge amounts of foreign capital at last.

There are four ordinances, coming thick and fast, days after the ruins of the Winter Session of Parliament. The Opposition, is now deprived of its ability to block legislation via the Rajya Sabha, and has to think on its future strategy again. Agitating on the streets is not going to help it generate more than heat and dust; what with the next Assembly election after Delhi, namely Bihar, not coming before the end of 2015 or even early 2016.

The Opposition is calling the Government undemocratic for using ordinances and bypassing parliament, after being roundly out-maneuvered; but has, in effect, brought this upon itself by a disruptive Rajya Sabha strategy that was amateurish, short-sighted, and not thought through with regard to consequences.

When the BJP did its own obstructing during UPA rule, the mathematics stacked up differently. The previous Government was a coalition, without the numbers to push through its agenda via a joint session.  Besides, The BJP in Opposition participated in a spirit of bipartisanship for the passage of a number of crucial bills.

The present Opposition stopped any movement on the Insurance Bill for example, even though it had passed through the multi-party Select Committee as required. So, it is not quite a goose and gander equation any longer. The BJP Government is in a stronger position than the UPA ever was, and very determined to see its plans come to fruition.

The Union Cabinet has just approved, and sent to the President of India for clearance, an amended Land Acquisition Act. Projects related to Defence, Rural Infrastructure, Industrial Corridors, and presumably Roads that form part of this thrust, will not need prior consent from affected land owners, nor require the complicated Social Impact Assessment procedures. The enhanced compensation and rehabilitation clauses however have been retained unchanged. This will enable an entire logjam of infrastructure projects to recommence; and provide a fillip to the moribund housing and construction sector. It will also help ease the pressures on much old PSU bank-lending, which is presently in the NPA column.

The Insurance Act raising the FDI component to 49% has also been put to an ordinance, along with another to permit the auction of Coal Blocks, and yet another to process arbitrations as well. The Insurance business will see billions in foreign investment now, though probably after the joint session of parliament passes the ordinance into a pucca law. There is also some concern that the insurance ordinance does not specify an exit route, in case things do not work out according to expectation.

And the Coal Blocks will now be e-auctioned to provide fuel to the electricity generation plants and other industries, which have been making losses using expensive imported coal for quite a few years now.

The Arbitration ordinance is to make it convenient for the process to take place in India rather than it being taken abroad routinely, as in the Vodafone case. Large Indian law firms, used to earning humungous fees for long-form arbitration, conducted over several years, charging by the sitting, have predictably begun to grumble that the nine months granted to settle such cases is inadequate. They are also not too pleased with the lump-sum fee requirements in the ordinance. But the foreign corporations have already welcomed the changes, and see it as part of the ease of doing business promise.

The Modi Government is firmly changing the way vested interest works in this country, while it’s going about it. Of the several hundred ordinances promulgated by the GOI over the years, despite being often in a comfortable position in parliament, the BJP has now passed six, for the President to endorse. If this is the only way to push the applecart forward, then so be it!

 (781 words)

December 30^th, 2014

Gautam Mukherjee

Bharat Bhagya Vidhata Mark II

 

Bharat Bhagya Vidhata Mark II

 

Here comes the end of 2014, and it is a good time to give thanks. The Nehruvian ‘Idea of India’ we have had to endure for so long was based on a derivative and borrowed vision from the West and the USSR. It gave us an industrial backbone, a democratic tradition, some excellence in higher and technical education certainly.  But it also muddled our thinking, entrenched our red-tapism, and stopped us from living up to our potential with an economy freed from ‘big brother’ shackles. The  commitment to pluralism, freedom of worship, tolerance, and cultural diversity, is innate to  the Indian people, even when it was a criss-cross of many kingdoms and rulers.  Jawarharlal Nehru did not invent it!

The  Nehruvian  era was, in hindsight, largely a mirage of post-colonial impracticality, of a fake non-alignment, as we were actually in the Soviet Camp, and  a Third World misery-loves-company attempt at solidarity that never took off. And the big powers, including our patron, openly mocked our hapless, essentially naked- and-hungry punditry. But we ourselves couldn’t see it, owing to a sad deluded hubris.

All this, including an exaggerated, Gandhian, turn-the- other- cheek pacifism, is, at last, getting the push; and we are on  the move, going towards our true home, our real-selves. We are finally, not on a ‘Discovery of India’, like a Sahib familiarising himself with his bailiwick, but one of self-discovery.

We are led by a vigorous leader, grown from the grass-roots, determined to break from the past, and blaze a proud new trail. India is changing, breaking free, articulating a staunchly nationalist and patriotic new Raj Dharma. It is building on those foundations of the Freedom Struggle that have been wilfully ignored and obscured by the overstaying Nehru-Gandhi dispensation.

Bestowing a Bharat Ratna on Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya and beginning the process to build a giant new statue of Sardar Patel are just two notable examples of this reorientation. No more, probably for good, are we going to be subject to a corrupt, anachronistic and rent- seeking Congress Party, careful to disguise itself; very much the Wolf in Red Riding Hood, but cowled in a Socialist Hoody.

The best national level thing that happened in  2014 was the coming of Narendra Modi as Prime Minister along with a thumping majority for the BJP. This was a validation of the popular will, 65% of it shaped by people between the ages of 15 and 35. It is a clear-eyed assertion, since reinforced in a number of State Assembly elections that have continued the Moditva trend.

If the BJP moves faster on the economy now, having got used to the levers of power over seven months, this country will certainly be a very different place by 2019. Dramatic things have happened already, electorally speaking, with the BJP forming a Government for the first time in Haryana, and Maharashtra, and Jharkhand. If it wrests a lead role in the governing of J&K, a festering and chronic problem will be finally on its way to a solution.   

The year coming up, 2015, is going to be the tipping point. It will be momentous for the Indian Right emerging slowly but surely towards centre-stage, and it will see unabashed economic development.  The Government has already decided to bypass the parliamentary logjam. Let us be clear, despite the shrill noise of the outmanoeuvred Opposition, that the BJP has no choice but to pass practically every law it formulates first via ordinance, followed by a joint session of parliament.   The Opposition, diminishing in strength with every new State Assembly election, conversely, has only its majority in the Rajya Sabha to rely upon.

But the snowball is beginning to roll. Even a decidedly high-brow economic conservative like the RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan is finally signalling better times.  

The media hyped non-controversy with regard to Conversions is an attempt to hark back to the Congress narrative demonising the Sangh Parivar as communal.  After all, everyone is free to convert anyone else, particularly since there is, practically speaking, no hope of ever proving abstractions like coercion or inducement in our notoriously arthritic legal system.

It is ironic that the Congress is examining if it is ‘Anti-Hindu’.  The thing is, it is not even pro-Muslim because it has done nothing exceptional for any of the minorities despite its decades in power. 

As part of a complete change, the Government should seriously think of officially changing India’s name to Bharat. India derives from the Indus which is gone for good to a benighted and nuclear armed Pakistan.  Naming this country Bharat on our passports will put paid to the associations from the British era, while also getting away from the boxed-in singularity of being called Hindustan, paradoxically, from the Mughal era.

Bharat will open a new chapter of renewed greatness with a connection to our ancient heritage instead.

(808 words)

December 27^th, 2014

Gautam Mukherjee

 

 

Bring On The Audacious Wizard

Bring On The Audacious Wizard

For the seven months of the Modi Government extant, it has been curiously hesitant when it comes to its economic initiatives. And this is jeopardising its core credibility. The dithering is in sharp contrast to its bold electoral and foreign policy moves, full of characteristic flair and dynamism. But since the entire Modi promise is predicated on economic growth, the Government must urgently realise that time-is-a-passing.

Could the gap in the electoral calendar provide the needed window of opportunity?   Between now, making ready for, hopefully, big-bang Railway and Union Budgets in February 2015; the Delhi State elections coming soon; and the Bihar elections later, next winter; there is some time to concentrate on pumping up the economy.

There is a lot of delivering to do. Reports of an Ordinance to launch 49% foreign investment permissible in Insurance, and an extension of the Coal Ordinance, is in the offing. There might have to be many other ordinances till its Rajya Sabha numbers are bettered, but the Government should not be shy about it.

The Administration, in addition, wants to  urgently push through thousands of crores worth of stalled Infrastructure projects, and revive the lucrative Mining industry.  A new, user-friendly law for the Financial Markets, instead of 60 overlapping ones, is also in the works. But can this Government implement any, or all of this, with speed, verve, and confidence?

Various commentators have been trying to make sense of Modi’s economic caution and diffidence, but at the core, it still remains a mystery. Could it be that Modi’s Gujarat formula of driving change via the bureaucracy is not working here? Could it be the resistance and vacillation of the Finance Ministry and the RBI? Could it be the absence of an economic vision to take the country speedily towards a laissez faire free-market?   Instead, we have clumsy attempts at ‘Forever Young’ Socialism, mixed with pseudo- reformist nostrums. This makes for a peculiar tasting cocktail, that smells fusty; of UPA trained bureaucracy, and date-expired ingredients.

The Modi Sarkar has shown an unjustified preference for gradualism, while the economy continues to gasp. There is an inexplicable urge to continue various UPA initiatives. There are no interest cuts to revive the investment cycle. There are far too many taxes. Why is MoS Jayant Sinha talking of reintroducing Estate Duty, abolished way back in the eighties? What kind of luddite signal does this send out? The Finance Ministry has not pushed the retrospective taxation button, but neither has it firmly shelved it. The much reviled MAT tax is proposed to be cut to 7% in SEZs, instead of abolishing it altogether.  Where is Modi’s personal imprint in all of this?

And anyone could have told the Finance Minister his taxation targets were unrealistic, given that the economy was in intensive care when this dispensation took over. Income Tax on Individuals and Corporations does not yield more than it costs to administer, imposed, as it is, on a very narrow base.  So why is this Government fighting shy of introducing a universal but minimal Expenditure Tax instead? And what about downsizing the expensive Government itself?

Where are the big-bang reforms to transform the economic destinies of millions of young people? Nothing has happened yet, except for the deregulation of diesel pricing, on the back of a drastic fall in international oil prices.

Today, given the tax shortfall, Mr. Jaitley will probably have to cut rupees one lakh crore in Government expenditure, if he is to achieve his deficit target. Already, there is a painful 20% cut in Health-care which hurts the poor the most.  

BJP President Amit Shah’s ‘Total Politics’ approach, wherein he doesn’t allow any walk-overs  to so-called unwinnable seats, has paid rich dividends. From the state level in Gujarat, to the general elections in Uttar Pradesh, and now in a series of State Assemblies, the BJP Party machine has worked to stretch targets.  

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the fountainhead of the new BJP that promotes  ‘Sabka  Saath Sabka Vikas’,  his personal charisma undimmed, has  continued to be the chief election campaigner. He is ably supported by Shah, following-through in his wake. The BJP has, over the last year, won the highest share of the popular vote also, time and again. It will, unless the public turns sceptical, win the big states of Bihar, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh too, and before the next general  elections in 2019.

But, great as this election juggernaut is, it must be backed by solid growth on the ground, before the shadows lengthen any more, using, perhaps, the billions pledged by foreign countries already.

The Modi Government must now reveal it has the audacity and wizardry to grow the economy to unprecedented heights. Then it can surely rule a Congress Mukt Bharat for at least the next ten years.

(814 words)

December 24^th, 2014

Gautam Mukherjee