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

The Consolidation Continues

The Consolidation Continues

Is the bulk of the mainstream media reflecting the changes in the vox populi , or getting stuck in an endless repetition of ‘yesterday’s papers’?  What excuse does it have to root vigorously for a Congress line, when its ‘master’s voice’ has been reduced to 44 seats in the Lok Sabha, and is continually losing power in more and more State Assemblies?  

Why does it frown upon the RSS/BJP assertion that there should be  an anti-conversion law for all religions, or else everyone should be free to convert according to his conscience, with each religion free to evangelise as it wishes.

But, if you’re an innocent Martian, recently beamed down, reading and tuning in, you might be forgiven for thinking it is BJP that is in the Opposition, being inconvenient, after being roundly rejected by the people! The daily goings on are reminiscent of a ‘White Russian’ style opposition to Stalinism, which stubbornly persisted some years after the Russian Revolution.

Joseph Stalin, renowned in history for his ruthlessness with fellow countrymen who opposed his version of the ‘revolution’; predictably undertook a massive purge. This put-paid to the remains of  the old Russian aristocracy, most  ‘counter-revolutionaries’, including those who had infiltrated the ‘Red’ bastions, and the well-to- do middle class; the last as a matter of principle. Stalin just didn’t believe in a perceived opponent’s change of heart.

The BJP led by Modi, in a thriving  and vibrant democracy, definitely, perhaps naively, does. But, of course, it also does not have the wherewithal to conduct any Stalinist style pogrom to rid itself of its detractors, however unfair, provocative and unreasonable they may be.

It is true enough that the bulk of the extant mainstream press and TV is beholden to the erstwhile Congress/UPA regime; having benefited from years of its patronage. But the continued bias and propaganda, in favour of a defeated idea of ‘pseudo-secularism’, is both morally offensive and an insulting disservice to the popular will. Is the mainstream Indian media taking blatant and twisted advantage of the robust freedoms granted in this country?

As things stand, the Modi Government is moving determinedly towards a two-term presence, and so this bias will have to be reworked. The BJP on its part, should seriously encourage some of its well-heeled supporters to start or purchase/consolidate private TV channels, newspapers  and FM  radio stations with enough spark and reasoned commentary promoting the right-of-centre economic views of the Government to counter the Congress leaning propaganda on extraneous matters.

The BJP is only well configured and effective in the Social Media, but weak in the mainstream, in English and the vernacular, which since it reaches many more, must be addressed. The BJP’s romantic reliance, on a largely unpopular and ineffective DD and AIR combination in this space, is simply not good enough.   

The historical and sociological narrative on the ground however, has changed.  There is an important new story to tell. And since May 2014, it has been evident that the people of India have been voting decisively for it. It is for the new BJP, and not the old Mandir-Masjid version. The new BJP, that is embodied in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’ message.  

But, as in any polity, there  are singularities. These emanate from the broader Sangh Parivar, and even from some MPs, MLAs, new Ministers and old Governors; either through sheer gaucherie, or  because they feel left out. These elements are therefore making efforts to attract attention, and possibly put pressure on the Government to protest their perceived marginalisation.

But, having said this, there is little justification for the mainstream media to give these deviants from the official  line the oxygen of so much publicity. They should be praising the Government instead for being singularly focussed on development for all.

The Roman proverb vox populi vox dei, meaning the voice of the people is no less than the voice of God, is worth a mention here.  The J&K and Jharkhand election results are significant for signalling the continuance of the Modi/Shah Wave. They also suggest Delhi’s election, coming up next, will also fall to the BJP’s tally.

This makes it all the more frustrating for some in the Congress-supporting mainstream media, that likes to portray the BJP as divisive, obscurantist, polarising, majoritarian and communal. In Parliament, this negative projection has both provided an excuse for obstruction and done its damage, preventing little legislative work to be done in the Winter Session.

But, the growing new reality is amongst the people, turning out in large numbers to vote, both in Jharkhand and Jammu & Kashmir. The BJP has won 25 seats in J&K, just three less than the PDP, and the largest share of the popular vote at 23%. It is now a strong contender to share power  there over the next six years. It makes eminent sense for PDP to join hands with it, so that together, they not only have a strong and stable Government, but the J&K administration is better aligned with the Centre.

In Jharkhand, the BJP has a massive lead in the popular vote share with 39%, and has won a majority on its own. The upcoming Government to be formed will be the first stable one since the State was carved out of Bihar. The verdict in Jharkand has also added to the tally of BJP run States, and bodes well for its increasing numbers in the Rajya Sabha, crucial for it to pass legislation with greater ease in future. This result is also a great chance to put the tremendous natural resources of Jharkhand to use.

And if these electoral victories and gains are giving the Opposition in Bihar the jitters, well they might, because the BJP will soon be ruling on its very doorstep.

 Delhi is indeed next, and then come the big states of Bihar, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh, all before the next general elections in 2019. If all, or most of these, are won by the BJP, it will greatly consolidate its prospects for the next general elections in 2019.

The South of India also awaits; and BJP President Amit Shah, in perpetual election mode, is well aware of his party’s lack of electoral presence there; with just one important alliance with the TDP. More wins are bound to come, like a self-fulfilling prophecy, and to give further teeth to mission ‘Congress Mukt Bharat’. And if the people continue reduce the Congress Party to a footnote, where will all its vociferous fans in the media and out in civil society go to?

(1,093 words)

December 23^rd,   2014

Gautam Mukherjee

The Only Star Of The Right Is Narendra Modi

The Only Star Of The Right Is Narendra Modi

Ideas may be flowing at a right-of-centre conclave in Goa, but most of the participants are painfully obscure. There are hardly any media or political stars, and any that might be counted to serve, can be reckoned on the fingers of both hands.

The Right Wing Indian thinkers and professors don’t live in India; they come if transported in, all-expenses paid, five-star and first-class. They are employed in the West, mostly in the United States, where they are appreciated and well paid.

As for Right Wing Indian novelists and litterateurs; do they exist at all? The newly minted Ministers of the Modi Government are bravely trying to hold the fort, but they all lack authority and track records, and seem very self-conscious.  

Spiritual Guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar is indeed a stellar presence, but his being there is by way of an oblique blessing. But if it is wattage to be compared, the only one who can surpass his luminescence, though in quite a different way, is Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself.

Indeed the Prime Minister, risen to his present prominence via his own merit, patience, and determination; with  large dollops of assistance  from alter-ego Amit Shah, and the erudite support of legal beagle Arun Jaitley; is the only one who can hold his own in any arena, Left, Right, Centre, or Foreign.

This poignant state of affairs underlines the lack of space and opportunity for the Right Wing species in a Bharat that was officially Socialist and very Congress, till lately. Aficionados of the Right were labelled Communal by rote, and segregated from serious consideration.

The sad thing is that it is anybody’s guess how long the BJP Government, with an absolute majority to boot, will continue to allow itself to be pilloried by a media and intelligentsia that still clearly ‘belongs’ to the previous  dispensation. Every day that passes, the press and TV criticise this Government’s every little peccadillo, all in the name of democratic discourse, with nary a word against a UPA Government that failed the people of this country on almost every front.

The noisy bias and distortion in portrayal continues as if the BJP is still languishing in the Opposition. The bulk of the media makes no effort to reflect the verdict of the people and their demonstrated willingness to give the Modi Government a chance. This lot instead talks of curbs on press freedom and media witch-hunts, when the only person who ever imposed that kind of thing formally was once-upon-a -time Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

Current Congress President Mrs Sonia Gandhi, preferred patronage to get her way. And the old media stars grown substantial under the ancien regime’s ‘system’, are now plotting the downfall of this Government by the process of a thousand deprecating propaganda cuts. If they praise at all, it is faint, and qualified; but if they find cause to condemn and reject, the blood is up, and everyone is in full flow.

But as yet, the BJP has no mechanism in place to counter this adverse propaganda. DD and AIR is simply not enough. There has to be a substantial Right Wing private media akin to Fox in the US to drive home the message.  Here, Times Now has appropriated elements of the Fox Style, but the politics of the Times Group does not serve.

The LeftLib establishment is relentless and well organised. It controls almost every prominent media group, both in English and the vernacular, and is populated with masses of well-regarded spokesmen, embedded in the media, and by way of external commentators and talking heads.

This can only be countered by an equivalent presence in media and civil society as powerful as the one the Congress Party has built up over the decades. Unfortunately, the BJP does not have decades to turn the tide.

Much has been done right by the Prime Minister and his techie friends in terms of the Social Media, but much remains to be done in the mainstream media. It therefore loses points on the PR front on a daily basis. The fringe elements in the Sangh Parivar who say and do bizarre things. are played up continually, and end up defining the BJP narrative.

The Prime Minister, the only star in the firmament with the ample goodwill of the people, is being boxed into a corner. Not only that, the legislative agenda of the Government has been clearly stymied by a reviving Opposition seizing its opportunity.  

The Prime Minister never tires of saying his sole agenda is development and progress for all.  But too many, not very important people in the Parivar, are promoting obscurantism, misogynistic views and blood-curdling communal agendas.

(778 words)

December 20^th, 2014

Gautam Mukherjee

Is Swarajya Truly My Birthright?

Is Swarajya Truly My Birthright?

Lokmanya Tilak coined the term Swaraj near the turn of the 19^th century.  He used it to epitomise the yearning for independence, centre-piecing it in his wonderful assertion, and paying for it by being whisked away to Burma for six long years.

Rajaji, the eminence grise behind the first avatar of this publication, coming further down the pike, in the 20^th, put his finger on a major malaise of Socialist India, coining the apt descriptor: ‘Licence-Permit Raj’.

Today, in the 21^st, the meaning of Swarajya has turned metaphorical; and may well embody the growing yearning for economic progress, finally stripped of its Socialist fetters.  The spirit of C Rajagopalachari, our first Governor General, founder of the brave, given the times, and far-sighted Swatantra Party; putative ‘conscience keeper’ to the Mahatma, may be getting all set to ride again.

But Swarajya, ‘in our own write’, is hard to come by. Those Socialist ideological moorings are still holding us back, though the knots may indeed be loosening at last. We now have a young and aspirational polity, demanding economic betterment without excuses.

Even then, the din and intellectual confusion of a retrogressive clinging, the yesterday-men howling and lamenting their loss of power, tell us we are still a long way from home. This, despite the decisive installation of a right-of-centre BJP Government, with a clear majority, for the first time in 30 years.

And the announcement of a host of measures on the anvil, including the raising of the foreign participation limit in indigenous defence production to at least 49%, the delicensing of several categories, and even agreeing to a 100% foreign ownership on a case-by-case basis.

There are many other sparklers in the works: billions in foreign investment from Japan and China to be invested in renewing the Indian Railways, fast and faster bullet trains, Russian diamonds to be sold directly to Indians, helicopters to be manufactured here, a dozen new nuclear plants to generate electricity,  PSU bank privatisation up to 48% , divestment of other PSU shares to raise over Rs. 60,000 crores for the Government coffers, raising the FDI limit in Insurance to 49% to bring in more than $ 10 billion in investment, implementation of a GST to raise the GDP by up to an estimated 1.7%, the scrapping of some 90 redundant laws to start with, solar power, clean rivers, efficient governance, and so on. 

Never has a Government of India attempted to do so much to get the economy moving again in such a short time since its advent. But many of these things are meeting with enormous resistance on their way to implementation, by a fragmented but disruptive Opposition. The Opposition is also panicked, and consequently more strident. It is despairing of being pushed into oblivion by the ruling party’s blitzkrieg of electoral success, ongoing in the Assemblies now, juxtaposed with the seeming irrelevance of their ideas which no longer resonate with the voting public.  

Much of intellectual India is still, as it heads towards its 70^th year since independence, ambivalent. It is shackled to isms that have been discredited globally, even by the people who still hang out the shingle. The world can see a very capitalist China for example, grown mighty as a consequence; and a little Cuba by way of contrast, emerging from a time-warp, reconnecting, reconciling, re-establishing diplomatic relations with the US after half a century. But India, maddeningly, cannot quite make up its mind.

It may be instructive to note that there are very few journalists, commentators, thought leaders, willing to root for the right-of-centre point of view in India. Conversely, there are legions of the Liberal-Left/ Socialist persuasion. And indeed, an overwhelming majority of mainstream newspapers, magazines and TV channels, including those in the myriad vernacular, that chime in alongside.

Is this because India has been Socialist for a very long season.  So much so, that its tenets are semi-embedded in our psyches, and not just peremptorily, in the Preamble to the Constitution.

And many influencers, smarting unbelievingly still, from the loss of their pole positions under the earlier Government, aver, quite subversively, that the very idea of India, as it was conceived : pluralistic, inclusive, secular, diverse, etc. is being subordinated to a majoritarian agenda. There may be strands of justification for this stance, with frequent and bizarre sallies from the Sangh Parivar’s fringes, but it should not turn them against the BJP’s robust economic plans.

But here too, there is a ‘communal’ bogey, an accusation, implicit, and an assertion that growth on the changed terms of a ‘level playing field’ cannot compare to one that clearly purports to favour and protect the minorities.

The young demographic of the voting public may be fed up of a rhetoric that does not deliver, but the bulk of the thought leaders refuse to  update their spiel, hoping against hope that they can hold out for five years, before seeing this Government out of the door.

But why does the ‘Liberal –Left’ portray the Centre-Right  in pejorative terms, 23 years after the ushering in of the first stage of Reforms, that too under Congress rule? The benefits of changes made in I991, which actually began in 1985, have, undeniably, been transformative.

1985 was when the ‘Computerji’, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi came into his own, and started dismantling the statist controls of his venerated predecessor and mother. Today, the gains of 1991 are easy to take for granted, but only for those who do not predate that particular Rubicon. Many of the intervening years have given us unprecedented growth, in near double-digits, as compared to the humiliating, almost zero, ‘Hindu Rate’, that preceded it.

So, what gives credence to the ongoing prejudice? Is it the sheer numbers of the LibLeft advocacy, its endless repetition, backed with a self-generated air of authority? Or is it because, from the days preceding Indian independence, the father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi, made some telling choices? Apart from his own, piquant, small is beautiful, and back to the village ideas; he chose the then fashionable Fabian Socialist leanings of the urbane, young, and personable, Jawaharlal Nehru. He did this over the hard-bitten and largely self-evident free-market philosophies of other stalwarts such as Rajaji, Rajendra Prasad and Sardar Patel.

That these laissez faire principles, albeit with a massive imperialist bias, served the Raj and the East India Company for centuries before, was probably the telling black mark. It was, after all, a thriving and vibrant commercial philosophy.  But the post-colonial world could muster no love for the free-market because it did nothing proactive about the subjugation of the weak   and poor. So policy makers emerging from the foreign yoke wanted first of all to promote equality and social justice. They may be forgiven for believing that Socialism, or even Communism, the new rage since the Russian Revolution of 1917, was indeed the answer.

Cutting to the present day, it is a mystery still, how, those we now label the LibLeft, expect to fund its give-away largesse? Except, that is, through an ever burgeoning fiscal deficit! Why, concurrently, are these people indifferent towards the very engines of growth that can supply the wherewithal? What is wrong with the State unabashedly supporting Business, Industry, FDI, FII, a balancing of budgets, and so on? Growth in GDP is not just ‘crony capitalism’, as the distortion would have it, but a boost for every sector of the economy.

The unleashing of growth since 1991 has produced spectacular results already and put India on the global economic map, even if it is past time to usher in the second stage of structural reforms.  The Sensex, writes Dhirendra  Kumar, of Mutual fund Advisory  Value Research, was at a mere 600 in 1989, two years before the advent of first stage reforms. It had climbed to 3,600 in 1999, and 21,600 in 2008. The BSE Sensex has been growing ‘six-fold per decade’ says Kumar. It is, we know, expected to climb to 35,000 by December 2015.

There is much foreign excitement and anticipation of a bright future for India. The upcoming Vibrant Gujarat Summit in January 2015, is promising to be another economic landmark. It will be attended by US Secretary of State John Kerry, along with a delegation of 80, visiting before President Obama himself arrives for Republic Day. UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon will also be there, along with Bill Gates, and several other heads of state. There are many proposals to establish new industry in Gujarat, including one to make Kalashnikov AK-47 rifles in the land of the Mahatma.

The fact is, given our gargantuan and growing population, already over 1.30 billion strong, India cannot make any enduring dent in poverty without at least 8% GDP growth per annum. What is needed, as demonstrated by China, are decades of sustained high growth, near or above the double- digits.  But a new Swarajya 2.0, can only truly dawn, when we resolve to break free of the past, and pull out all the stops for the future. 

(1,505 words)

December 19^th, 2014

Gautam Mukherjee