Turmoil At Infosys & Siege At McDonalds: What Ails india's Foreign Collaborations?

Turmoil At Infosys & Siege At McDonalds: What Ails India’s Foreign Collaborations?

India may be grappling with some chronic problems in its ease-of-doing business profile. This is a combination of a trust deficit between Indian and foreign partners, and a historical Governmental insensitivity to its credibility deficit, which the Modi administration is trying hard to fix .

It is a complicated and subtle terrain, as much a matter of business parameters in transition, a moving of the cheese as it were, as regulatory matters, and issues connected with India’s dreaded red-tape.    

It is an old problem in Indian collaborations with foreigners. Whether they arise from top level personnel recruited from the international job market. Or within company to company joint ventures with significant shareholding on both sides.

It affects even Indian multinationals that strike out overseas, acquiring a mixed personnel profile along the way.

And then there are Indian Government regulations, strictures and taxes, quite often applied retrospectively.

Non Resident Indian (NRI) Steel Baron Laxmi Mittal, one of the richest people in the world, never had difficulty reviving and running the sick steel mills he acquired. He could pull it off anywhere in the world, as long as he manned all key positions with Indians. The success story was also because of the Indian talent for frugality, and their lack of resistance to doubling up to perform multiple functions.

But as he diluted this approach, issues began to crop up. Combined with a  cyclic downturn in the steel business, his biggest acquisition lately, Arcelor of Belgium, began to fall apart, and almost from the very start.

Tata Chinese-walled the problem, by refusing to mix Tata Motors at home with acquisition Jaguar-Landrover in England. It gave the latter, run by  British and German top management, with British workers, complete autonomy.

So far, this has worked admirably and profitably, though bringing in foreign CEOs to run and revamp Tata Motors has not.

It did not succeed with its Japanese joint venture with Docomo in India either, though with their divorce landing up in arbitration in London, it has cost them a fat separation fee. In fact, Tata under former CEO Cyrus Mistry tried to use the Indian legal system to avoid paying it.

The reasons for the Tata Docomo business failure are many, including hostile market conditions, but the acrimony and misunderstanding between the partners cannot be brushed aside.

Another awkward situation arose when UK  based Vodafone purchased the Essar-Hutchinson  m0bile network in India, and the Indian Government thought it fit to slap retrospective taxes on the acquisition.

An older echo of this kind of thing recalls the dispute between the Government of Maharashtra, with the Central Government as guarantor, and American energy company Enron in the Dabhol Power Plant fiasco of the nineties.

Once again, the foreign entity invoked the clause allowing foreign arbitration at the International Court of Justice at the Hague, rather than agreeing to be governed by the Indian judicial system.   

Looking at the problem from the outside in, the Orient Express Group (OEH) of luxury hotels in Europe, stoutly refused to consider repeated  acquisition bids by Tata’s Indian Hotels Limited, citing cultural incompatibility.

Sometimes, the problems surface after the marriage, sometimes before.

So what is the solution? Can joint ventures only work in independent, if parallel silos? Should foreign acquisitions or operations be taken over and run by Indians in all key positions Laxmi Mittal style?  We need to find some viable answers.

Particularly now, because India is keen on attracting more and more manufacturing projects and others in the digital area from varied geographies. This culture, standards, speed and emphases mismatch and the problems it creates cannot be ignored.

Make in India has a Human Resources (HR) cum Finance Department problem that must be resolved.

The contentions usually surface quite early with regard to priorities and the costs involved. Foreign personnel, even if they are of Indian origin, approach things very differently, particularly if they are located abroad.

This kind of friction is not evident when, say, an American or European multinational, wholly–owned, comes to India. This even if the country head is Indian, and most of the personnel likewise. The culture of the company remains that of the foreign entity.

In joint ventures, or Indians working with foreigners in different geographies, confusion runs riot, hitting profitability at a minimum.

Infosys is in turmoil today because the old company that was run by the promoters from India exploited an entirely different market opportunity. This has since been lost to automation.

The new attempt to revive the company’s fortunes is at the high technology level, necessarily animated from America in the absence of an appropriate R&D base in India.

But here, the margins are compacted, and the cost of business acquisition including the skilled people required is very high. Some of the growth must typically come from inorganic acquisition.

There is a raging controversy over Infosys’ recent $200 million acquisition of a company called Panaya, and the sudden resignation of its US based CEO Dr.Sikka.

The tensions between the management, the board, the shareholders, and its original promoters, threaten to spillover into prolonged “class-action” litigation, that too in several countries. 

There is, at the nub of the problem, a massive mismatch of cultures, between the need for new engines and the old bogeys still trundling along.

It probably calls for an American entity that is independent of the Indian company- the silo solution.

To-ing and fro-ing on H1B visas may have to be given over to a new kind of structure. Can the company come to it quickly enough before it descends into chaos?

In the global franchise model too there are problems in India. International fast-foods giant McDonald’s, an early and highly successful mover into the Indian market from over two decade ago (23 years), has been battling with its North  and East Indian franchisee for some years now (since 2013).

It abruptly sacked the franchisee from running the day-to-day operations as Managing Director,  citing incompatibility, hinting at financial issues, and a drop in standards, but could not make an acceptable offer to buy out its substantial (50%) shareholding.

The franchisee is also responsible for the rapid growth of the franchise, establishing its  169  outlets, and putting it on the map from scratch.

McDonalds also refused a counter offer from the franchisee to divest its holding in the North/East India operations.

McDonalds has a different Indian franchisee for its Western/Southern India operations,that it apparently does not have any problems with. Perhaps it is seeking to consolidate its India operations around a single operator. This even though it has just decided to fire the North/Indian franchisee altogether and claims that it is looking for a replacement.

However, the North Indian franchisee says the company is trying to oust him unfairly, and has obtained a couple of  rulings from the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) in its favour, the latest reinstating him as Managing Director in July.

The current position is that 43 outlets of McDonalds in North/East India are closed with the rest about to be. The aggrieved franchisee meanwhile is unwilling to take responsibility for operating standards, or sign on license renewal applications, when he stands reduced to a passive shareholder.

McDonalds has chosen to invoke both the Appellate at the NCLT and resort to the foreign arbitration clause (at London), rather than settle with the franchisee, or adhere to the directions from the NCLT. And now it has decided to get rid of the franchisee altogether. 

The narrative, over and over, seems to be that if it comes to a dispute between an Indian partner and a foreign one, the latter does not find adequate comfort with the Indian mechanisms for redressal.

There is probably a fear of presumed bias on the one hand, and of inadequate recompense on the other.

To tackle this, there will have to be judicial reform to raise standards of jurisprudence, compensation, and moves to cut delays. But also perhaps market access given to foreign law firms, as well as set up internationally acceptable arbitration mechanisms locally.

As for NRIs, ethnic Indians, and foreign nationals, inducted into Indian companies, and expected to both mingle with domestic employees and inspire them, it tends, of late, to also go badly.

Even Government appointed advisors from abroad have not been an unmitigated success and there appears to be a rethink on appointing them in future.  

For: The Sunday Guardian

(1,391 words)

August 21^st, 2017

Gautam Mukherjee

Defaulters Beware: Knuckle Dusters Under Kid Gloves!

Defaulters Beware: Knuckle Dusters Under Kid Gloves!

The Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, blithely suggesting that corporate financial defaulters, who owe the banks and others enormous sums, should pay up, or get ready to lose their companies to other entrepreneurs, has articulated a policy stance that must be lauded.

For long, India, neither rich, nor particularly business-friendly, shielded promoters, operating an unfair crony capitalism by default.

This, not in the privately held companies, but in listed companies the promoters often ran with wafer-thin shareholdings.

Even as thousands of public shareholders and institutional investors were held in non-interfering mode by unstated policy.

The public could speak, after a fashion, only at Annual General Meetings(AGMs), and watched proceedings helplessly the rest of the time, hoping for the best for their investments.

These promoters, not only lorded it over their companies, enjoying huge pay and perks all the while, but were allowed to carry on without liability, unscathed by the corporate debts their companies accumulated.

If they didn’t pay on time, or indeed at all, there was little interest to make them on the part of the Government. Nor were they in any real danger of losing their companies or its assets.

Now, as headline news of the real estate sector  Jaypee Group in Noida demonstrates, it will not get away without losing everything.

Jaypee has left hundreds of investors in their apartment offerings in the lurch, in addition to the banks and other creditors.  

This new toughness is being assisted by a new Liquidation & Bankruptcy Law. Not only that, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has been empowered to push  hard for settlements at various Public Sector Unit (PSU) Banks, running into lakhs of crores, representing 10%  or more of their loan books, as Non Performing Assets (NPAs). Real Estate companies also have to conform to a new law, RERA, enacted to regulate their workings at last.  

But putting in laws and enabling moves are one thing, and using them to get results is quite another.

Particularly, in a country where neither the Capitalist, nor Labour, has ever been held accountable. And where the judiciary is not only slow and over-burdened, but is generally used by the defaulters to block justice.

That this is happening now via political/administrative and legislative will, is unfamiliar and unprecedented in the annals of Independent India.

Large corporations often saw to it that they were close to powerful politicians. This helped them obtain massive loans from PSU banks without too much difficulty, and no one in the Bank dared to ask them to stick to terms of repayment either.

The ultimate losers in this collusive daylight robbery was the benighted public, and it was powerless to do anything about it.

Alongside, this new strictness with regard to corporate finances the Government has also started confiscating Benami properties.

Already property worth over Rs. 800  crores has been seized, and even political heavyweights like Bihar strongman Lalu Prasad Yadav and his family have not been spared.

A toothless Benami Property law, on the statutes for long years, has recently been empowered with powers to seize property.

And so, the favorite loophole for ill-gotten wealth is on its way to being plugged.

Benami property with the ability to absorb huge amounts of undeclared cash, is a favorite with different classes of people.

They range from tax-evaders and bribe-takers to those who conduct most of their business in illegal and twilight areas of enterprise such as drugs, extortion, sedition, smuggling, illicit arms, flesh-trading, and so on.

Taken together, liquidating defaulting companies and their assets, and seizure of Benami property, -the gains to the National Treasury are likely to be substantial.

Because it is in keeping with international best practices, the moves are already playing very well with foreign investors.

Both foreign direct investment (FDI), which is embedded into infrastructure, business expansion and industry, and foreign institutional investment  (FII) that grows  and swells our stock markets, is seen to be boosted as a consequence.

Our foreign currency reserves are expected to hit an unprecedented $400 billion soon, even as the rupee continues to strengthen against the dollar.

Checking corruption and strengthening the financial and banking systems are part of the good governance overseas investors and international rating agencies want to see.

Greater transparency and further economic reform is expected, with a majority in both houses of parliament. This Government is expected to win another term per present forecasts and rule for the next seven years.

This, even as political contention from a very weak Opposition has less scope to hamper progress.

With a GDP already growing at the fastest pace in the world, at over 7% per annum, the Indian economy is likely to compound its size to more than double at over $ 5 trillion by 2025, according to Morgan Stanley.

Recently implemented GST is gaining ground, and will also contribute to greater Government revenues by way of taxation, now without leakage. It will also help increase the pace of economic growth.

While the new strictness indicates that business and personal wealth accumulation must follow transparent and legal pathways henceforth, it sends out positive signals to professional investors who want to conduct a clean business.

It opens up the possibilities for quantum growth in new institutional, high-tech, and restricted access government-to- government areas, such as defense production, and cyber-security.

(881 words)

August 20, 2017

Gautam Mukherjee

Power Shifts To The NDA In The Rajya Sabha: Will Enable Reform

Power Shifts To The NDA In The Rajya  Sabha: Will Enable Reform

The possibilities of a parliamentary majority at 40 months in both Houses,  tending towards an absolute of  80%, through 2019 and beyond, are both transformative and dynamic.

This momentum is foremost in describing a spectacular political consolidation, and enormous personal popularity of the Prime Minister, with polls giving him over 70% approval ratings.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President, Narendra Modi's trusted engine-room strategist, the Chairman of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), and now a Rajya Sabha MP, has  not only delivered electoral wins in spades, but also grown tremendously in stature.

And looking at the Union Cabinet and Senior Bureaucracy, there are still no corruption scandals from high places at all. This is in sharp contrast to the decade of the  United Progressive Alliance (UPA).

Simultaneously, in the Treasury, not only do we have around $ 300 billlion in hard currency reserves, India is witnessing the early stages of strong, unprecedented, dollar inflows.

It is coming in, both as embedded direct investment, and into the bourses.

This is a well-earned endorsement and approval in an economically troubled world, with very few bright spots. The Ease of Doing Business Reforms will determine if this can grow exponentially from here.

The Rupee, consolidating towards Rs. 62 to the US dollar, is helping international confidence. Particularly, given GDP growth statistics of over 7% annually.

But  this currency strength needs to be  sustained by determined policy measures. Ones that emphasise the virtues of cheaper imports over other considerations, important for a country hungry to catch up with the developed world, and likely to be building itself up for 30 years going forward.

The rupee should be encouraged to keep strengthening, to Rs. 30 to the dollar by 2024, and if the Modi Government has its way, it will be.

This is, of course, emblematic of an approach that is a sharp departure from the economic thinking of the past.

But it is precisely such departures from the established policy thinking of many years that are, and will continue to make, the difference.

The large pool of IT talent could do much domestically to digitise the Government, Defence, spawn Start-Ups, and develop Cyber Security.

Our international diplomacy, conducted personally by the Prime Minister in the lead, is yielding unprecedented cooperation and understanding from other nations.

More than ever before, the time may have come when we can dare to address the larger pending questions towards nation-building, going back much further than 40 months of this administration.

These are indeed about second-stage structural reforms. But not just concerning the economy.

These are reforms crying out to be made constitutionally, in the judiciary, to the bureaucracy, and the executive,as much as to the legislature.

But of course, Parliament being supreme, though the Judiciary should perhaps read the 42nd Amendment  to remind itself, it is legislation that can be the greatest single driver of change and betterment.

Still, with the advent of a proper "hanging judge", Dipak Mishra, as the new  Chief Justice of India (CJI) at month-end, we may see a new era dawning there too.

Electoral funding reforms, implemented recently with the cooperation of the Election Commission (EC), point the way forward in just one vital area, throwing up, in turn, a plethora of questions in other places.

What is the point of making laws that can't be implemented due to the paucity of enforcers?
Of depending on Courts, with millions of pending cases clogging the system? With a shortage of judges and opaque, nepotistic, cabalistic, selection procedures to the Upper Judiciary?

Knowing that a both-Houses Parliamentary majority is imminent, will the  Supreme Court (SC), and the new, apparently like-minded CJI, cooperate in flushing the judicial selection system?

The last time Parliament legislated painstakingly on this, the SC threw it out on a technical weakness. And the Opposition let Parliament be snubbed rather than cooperate with the Government.

Elsewhere, when we are being militarily challenged by two of our most well-armed neighbors, where is the security in being under-manned, under-equipped, technologically backward and cyber-security challenged?

We are still abjectly dependent on imports, because of a poor defence manufacturing infrastructure, but this Government seems determined to accelerate this beyond recognition.

When are we going to set right the general infrastructure and logistics for that matter, in order to turn Indian industry into a power house?

Is the emphasis on electrification, water, and the building of roads, highways, bridges, tunnels, ports, dams, working hard enough towards this?

Are we going to see the implementation of simultaneous elections, at least to the 29 States  and the Centre, if not the Municipalities and Panchayats too?

This is a vital need for consistent governance, but interrupted presently by a  system in perpetual election mode. But those who think they will lose are not in favour. They do not want to be left out in the cold in a situation  where the ruling combine has an overwhelming advantage. But can they stop it any more?

There has been constant bloodshed and turmoil in the Kashmir Valley from 1947 itself.  But now, are we in touching distance of getting at the root causes?

Will the vexed question of the modification of Article 35A of the Indian Constitution that grants special residency and property rights to J&K, as of 1954, be taken up in Parliament?

The Valley politicians are threatening blue murder, but what more can they throw into the fray without foreign help of a sizeable order? The Hurriyat is also under the lash now.

Will Article 370 under which J&K is run, be abolished at last after 70 years?

Will India adopt the Gregorian Calendar year for fiscal and budgetary  purposes, in line with most of the world today?

Will the Ram Temple at Ram Janmabhoomi at Ayodhya, on the site of the erstwhile Babri Mosque, hanging fire, tangled in litigation, and  pending since 1992,finally be built?

Will Labour reform, a political hot potato for over 25 years if not all 70 years since Independence, now go through?  We are, after all, contemplating the privatisation of Air India, despite the looming battles with its entrenched Trade Unions.

The Land Acquisition Act modification was a progenitor, though the Opposition successfully blew substantial holes in it, rendering it less than ideal.

Everywhere, there is a Trojan  Horse of this Government's courage in the face off adversity.

It managed to put the teeth into the Benami Properties Act, and has nabbed a large number of culprits, Lalu Yadav and family being amongst the most celebrated - confiscating their properties for the first time.

But, every such move; casting a drag net around "shell companies" is another instance, is portrayed as stuntmanship by those affected, and mindless disruption  from a direction-less Government.

The Opposition is in a particularly unforgiving mood as it contemplates its growing irrelevance and powerlessness, having been caught by surprise and badly done by in their cash hoards by the blitzkreig of Demonetisation.

But the number of tax payers has grown by 25%.

The bureaucracy, converted into accomplices and handmaidens of the political class from the days of Indira Gandhi, are most startled at being held accountable for their performance.

The rules of the nexus between political over-bosses and the bureaucracy have been thrown out in an attack on corruption.

A number of civil servants have been prosecuted. More of the same is expected.    

Still, the Modi Administration, determined to usher in the much ridiculed "Acche Din", has been hamstrung on its legislative  department from the very start. But now, from every direction, the straws in the wind indicate this is about to change.

Earlier the table was set, but not the stage.

Important legislation, other than "money bills" that do not need Rajya Sabha concurrence, could be and were routinely blocked and sent back to the Lower House for further consideration, or deflected to the limbo of long-winded Parliamentary Committees.

So much so, that the Government has had to resort to ordinances in several instances to get the ball rolling.

And this has been happening on a more or less confrontationist and partisan basis, albeit with diminishing success as Opposition unity has unraveled, and the Government's persuasion and point-of-view gained traction.

The GST Law is indeed a prime example of this Government success before it had anything like a majority in the Upper House.

Held up for over a decade, it was passed  at last, and  in the face of trenchant filibustering, disruption and cries of foul play.

Through it all, the Government whittled and nibbled at  the rickety Opposition unity.

It managed, by appeals to each State in turn, including J&K, pointing out its peculiar costs and benefits, to garner, in the end, the requisite two-thirds majority in both Houses.

And this, after securing unanimous agreement between all the Finance Ministers from all the States in the GST Council first.

But barring this single great achievement, and a few lesser, but significant acts such as the bankruptcy law, other Bills have been opposed or deflected to Committee, irrespective of the legislation's merit.

Blocking legislation and disrupting the functioning of both houses of Parliament using slogan-shouting, rushing to the Well of the House, disrespecting the Speaker, throwing paper missiles have all been widely used in place of parliamentary debate and process.

So much so, that there have been calls to take away its veto powers, or even abolish the Upper House altogether,  or failing this, to make it directly elected and accountable to the people.

The big point now however, is that there will most likely be a majority in the Rajya Sabha by April 2018. It will be presided over very shortly by a pugnacious Rashtriya  Swayamvak Sevak (RSS)/BJP stalwart  Muppavarapu Venkaiah Naidu, as Vice President and ex officio Chairman of the Rajya Sabha.

Naidu will probably not brook gratuitous indiscipline of an unparliamentary nature. And Amit Shah's presence there will likely help focus the minds of the BJP flock in the Upper House too.

Narendra Modi will have, on his part, another RSS/BJP  pillar in Ram Nath Kovind at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

The stage may therefore be well set for 2019.

For: The Sunday Guardian
August 10th, 2017
Gautam Mukherjee

Party Boss Amit Shah: Strategist With Missionary Zeal

Party Boss Amit Shah: Strategist With Missionary Zeal

Amitbhai Anilchandra Shah, now 53,  still wears the unspoilt air of a bustling Rashtriya Swayam Sevak(RSS) volunteer from Ahmedabad.

Though actually born in Mumbai, to a prosperous Gujarati Jain family in business, and holding a B.Sc. degree in Biochemistry, Shah gives the impression of humble beginnings and grass root skills.

This, perhaps through his personal  discipline, humility, and punctuality,typical of a RSS Swayamsevak (Volunteer). The organisation is legendary for its social service and disaster relief work, done quietly, effectively, via its massive and well organised cadre, but without seeking any publicity.

Shah's demeanour underlines, nearly four years into the Modi Administration at the Centre, that the corrupting influence of power has not gone to his head.

 Amit Shah still looks like someone used to carrying a jhola, eating and sleeping on hard floors, getting along with people, and walking from place to place spreading the word.

While this was never quite in householder and father Shah's experience, it is indeed the back story of his boss Narendra Modi. Modi was a long serving RSS Pracharak (Propagator), whom Shah met for the first time in 1982.

Shah now enjoys very necessary Z plus security, one of the biggest houses in the Lutyen's Bungalow Zone, flits about the country at will being the best Party President a political Party could hope for.

Today, people flock to Shah for favours, because he does wield an immense power of patronage.

Amit Shah can make or break most Party hopefuls after pelf, power, or prestige, and even those in Government if he deems it necessary. Being both well-off from birth and grounded in RSS and BJP Party discipline, he is not easily impressed.

Given the complete confidence he also enjoys of Prime Minister Modi, well on his way to becoming the most popular Indian Prime Minister ever, the clout is palpable.

Shah is, on his own bat, both elected President of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and the Chairperson of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), as of  July 2014. He was nominated by current Home Minister Rajnath Singh, his predecessor.

Singh also proposed Modi as the Prime Ministerial candidate in 2013, despite objections from LK Advani and his camp followers.

Amit Shah's  take-no-prisoners imprint is visible in the more aggressive stance the  Modi Government took after an initial period of trying to build consensus with the Opposition.

It is this that many believe  was causative in finally delivering the historic GST legislation, and not the soft-pedalling that preceded it.

This uncompromising style is at some variance with those long term stalwarts  from the Lutyens Delhi aspects of the top leadership in the Government, who could not however deliver the expected Opposition cooperation.

"Outsider" Amit Shah makes no bones about his dislike for everything the Congress Party stands for, including their consensus building with regional parties based on a nod and wink at mutual corruption.

But  even on a personal wicket he has no reason to like them. Shah was arrested  in 2010, hurting his chances of succeeding Modi as Gujarat Chief Minister, but catapulting him by default into national politics.

He was accused, using trumped-up charges of being a murderer, and even exiled from Gujarat between 2010 and 2012.

Though Amit Shah  was  eventually acquitted, the arrest took place at the instigation of the CBI by the UPA Government, led by Congress, then ruling at the Centre.

The long resolution also provided ammunition to those in the BJP who wanted to prevent his rise to the Presidency of the Party at the Centre.

But still, the mantle of such a stature now acquired, and the reckoning it represents, true though it is, and without exagerration, rests lightly on this most successful and accessible of BJP Presidents.

Shah's ready smile to the public seems to say who would have thought that I, even now a mere State MLA on paper, would become the second-most powerful man in India by my fifties, when most Indian politicians are still cutting their milk-teeth?

But there are well founded reasons. Not only does the NDA run a majority of the States of the country in addition to the Centre, even more are likely to fall in shortly and certainly before 2019. And the credit goes to the excellent working partnership between Modi and Shah.

When the BJP President is setting about his job of running the political Party with the biggest membership in   the world ( a product of his innovative membership drive), he dispenses with the affability, and would put any hard driving corporate CEO to shame.

There is no tumultous democratic back and forth. Party meetings  under Shah are quiet affairs, with everyone straining to absorb what  he wants.

His elaborate use of lakhs of RSS cadres at the grassroots for canvassing votes and explaining positions at various electoral contests, has now gone into political campaign history for its effectiveness.

 On his part, Shah relentlessly demands, and gets, a high level of hands-on performance at various levels of the Party.

The BJP President, honed his own political skills, first in the student wing of the BJP, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), which he joined in 1983.

He joined the BJP itself in 1986, and became an Activist for the Youth Wing of the Party (Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha) rising through its ranks with various designations.

But it was in 1995, when Shah and Modi were tasked to work together for the first time, that they developed their bond. They employed innovative disruption strategies, built BJP networks, campaigning to  degrade Congress influence.

This was in rural Gujarat at village level, in the powerful cooperatives, their banks, and sport bodies. They infiltrated Congress organisations successfully, and established their partnership and implicit mutual understanding.

Shah  became a first-time MLA in 1997, now with a strong benefactor and comrade-in-arms higher up the ladder at all times.

He became amongst the youngest and most powerful state ministers since 2002, featuring in consecutive governments of Gujarat.

Shah today arrives at his electoral strategies and constitutional coups, not only via his much talked about Chanakya-like strategic skills, his vast experience in realpolitik, but also after no-nonsense data-crunching US-style. He makes detailed caste, creed, class,   demographic concentration, historical proclivity and future projected political analyses.

He begins this mapping at the Block Level, where Shah once began his political career, right up, and into, Parliament on Raisina Hill, where he is now headed.

There too, Shah is expected to bring his formidable organisational skills to bear. However, speculations on Amit Shah giving up the Party Presidentship and taking up an important Cabinet position  instead, are not likely to be proved correct.

Not only has Shah himself ruled it out, his continuance at the helm of the Party apparatus is crucial, at least till the general elections of 2019 are done with.

Instead, in the Rajya Sabha, Shah may be expected to organise consensus on holding simultaneous elections to all the States and the Centre; changing the financial year to follow the Gregorian Calendar, as is already the practice in most of the developed world; and other such pathbreaking reforms, piloting them to enabling legislation.

This has something in common with the political coups Shah engineers with such apparent finesse.
He will show himself, in this great coming work also, that is  likely to reduce parliamentary obstruction and chaos greatly, as a canny judge of character, astute at finding the fault lines to crack.

Amit Shah is today, the alter-ego,and probably Prime Minister Narendra Modi's only trusted friend.

This goes back to the days when they both walked the dusty roads together. Such trust and friendship with the personally aloof Prime Minister is unparalleled in the Party or the Government.

But then, both are highly public men, who simultaneously guard their  personal privacy zealously.
The Prime Minister is a bachelor, while Shah is a family man, but attitudinally they remain, even at the height of their political careers, dedicated RSS Pracharaks on a mission.

They have meshed seamlessly into an over-achieving reprise of Cervantes' Don Quixote, with Modi tilting at corruption and terrorist driven "windmills", while striving towards an economically, diplomatically and miltarily powerful India.

Shah is cast as his devoted Sancho Panza, smoothing the creases along his electoral path, and creating representational heft for him.

It is a waking dream of India's manifest destiny, and there is nothing fanciful about it as a work in progress.

Along with Ajit Doval, the highly respected National Security Advisor (NSA), to the Modi Government, it is Amitbhai Shah that gives this administration its immense back-room thrust.


August 1st, 2017
Gautam Mukherjee