Bench-Strength Will Be Crucial For Delivery In Modi Sarkar 2.0

Bench-Strength Will Be Crucial For Delivery In Modi Sarkar 2.0

A bench-strength of capable and energetic people with proven managerial and administrative ability is crucial for good governance. It gives the prime minister flexibility and options to execute his vision and saves him much embarrassment.

However, due to the realities of democratic politics, most of the political pantheon and council of ministers have to be chosen for their grass-roots strength, loyalty, affiliation to the RSS/BJP for long years, and ability to influence different sections of people and mobilize their votes.

There is little room for inducting people from a wider search based on executive merit here. A number of young political inductees are largely untried dynasts, just as in the Congress. Still, the size and quality of the political access pool is very important and the RSS needs to look at their own men too. A small coterie is vulnerable to tunnel vision, and depletion in its ranks can be very damaging.

Most meritorious and educated people with the right political orientation for the BJP can be accessed with greater ease, at least theoretically, into the bureaucracy, semi-government bodies, and think-tanks via lateral and invited entry on a renewable contract basis.  

The efficiency and responsiveness of career government servants too can be vastly improved if permanent tenure is done away with. In most cases, particularly at the junior and lower levels, permanent tenure of service breeds a lackadaisical attitude and petty corruption.

Not a lot of reform in this regard however has been pushed through, though beginnings have been made. The massive voting power and ability to subvert political initiatives by the bureaucracy is also a dampener to reforms. But the results of not doing anything are worse.

The inadequate depth of bench-strength of the Modi government has been exposed time and again. It is laid bare doubly by the bad luck of so many carefully chosen union ministers suffering from severe or chronic ill-health. Most, ironically, are quite young, and this weakness is despite Modi’s efforts to disqualify any candidates who are older than 75 years from holding ministerial positions.

Understandably, this makes for despondency for their close followers and discontinuity in governance despite the permanent bureaucracy. Unwell union ministers with intractable health issues cannot properly discharge their onerous responsibilities. Gaping holes in continuity of policy in governance are also exposed when talented ministers die in harness.  The pity is, there seem to be no suitable replacements at hand. This situation has been allowed to persist without adequate remedy.

A mistrust of people outside the charmed circle of lifelong RSS/BJP Party men and women, ones who have spent decades in the wilderness waiting for power and responsibility, is the key problem.

Only a few others have been allowed to trickle in. Capable people like Urban Development Minister Hardeep Singh Puri from the foreign service, and Tourism & Culture Minister KJ Alphons from the IAS, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, and Mukul Roy in West Bengal, erstwhile from the TMC.

The BJP needs to induct many more such assets from other political parties, bureaucracy, the private sector and the professions. Capable people waiting in the wings include, for example, Jay Panda, earlier with the BJD.

By way of contrast, the spectacle of the frail Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley, who has diabetes, has undergone heart surgery, bariatric surgery, a kidney transplant, and now has developed soft tissue cancer, being a major day-to-day policy figure in the Modi government, is definitely worrisome.

Albeit Mr. Jaitley is a very talented lawyer, Modi loyalist and organisational expert, and an old Lutyens’ Delhi hand too. But his performance  and delivery in the high offices he has been allotted have mixed reviews. Yes, he has kept the fiscal deficit down. Yes he pushed through the GST in the detail. But the content of his several Union Budgets, and handling of the Finance Ministry has never been particularly well received, even by the legions of BJP voters. And his being a Lutyens’ wala for long years, some of them as Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, has not significantly helped the Modi government.    

That Arun Jaitley has held charge of several ministries at the same time quite often has also not done them much good. That one of them was the Defence Ministry, where crucial decisions needed to be taken, certainly deserved a healthy and full-time minister. It has got one at last after the Jaitley and Parrikar stints, with Nirmala Sitharaman.

Not only is Parrikar now ailing, but even when he was well and Defence Minister in Delhi, his focus and attention was divided  between the political goings on in his beloved home state of Goa and his ministry at Delhi.

An ailing Jaitley, somewhat heroically, has also been doing a great deal of the heavy hitting for the government in parliament and outside of it. He appears to be the only person trusted enough to make the government’s case, particularly in English, on a host of crucial issues.

The inability to deliver in a dynamic fashion because of the sick men entrusted with the job, seems like an avoidable trap.

Even Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister for Roads, Transport & Shipping, with his frequent enigmatic quips of late, leading to the belief that he is an RSS backed challenger for the top job, is a portly person who is severely diabetic, and has also undergone bariatric surgery.  

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, a rousing speaker, has made clear she won’t be undertaking the rigours of campaigning for the general elections 2019, due to her health. She too is a diabetic, and has undergone a kidney transplant not so long ago.

The present Goa Chief Minister Parrikkar is also severely ill with pancreatic cancer and spends most of his time in hospital or at home.

In addition, other key notables in the Council of Ministers have also been the victims of untimely death, often due to cancer or accidents.

Going forward, this matter must be given due emphasis, as the TINA factor is still with the prime minister. At this time, despite the reorganising Opposition, plus the high decibel posturing from Rahul Gandhi, it looks like Narendra Modi will muddle through into Modi Sarkar 2.0 in May 2019.

In the Opposition, apart from TMC in West Bengal, Congress in a clutch of mostly newly won states, and Chandrababu Naidu and Telegu Desam, hanging on by the skin of his teeth in Andhra Pradesh, almost all the contenders keen on unseating the BJP are out-of-power. Thus they are hamstrung in terms of their resources and ability to mount a strong enough attack. Those who are neutral, or inclined to support the NDA, from the outside include Odisha’s BJD, and seat-sharing partners AIADMK.

So, Modi not only has the people’s advantage, but those of incumbency at the centre and a host of NDA states. In addition to the superb electioneering skills of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah,  the sitting government has options to deliver benefits via parliament and new laws, the budget, other proclamations and ordinances.

The interim union budget on February 1st will not be used for the big ticket economic announcements to avoid needless controversy, but they are still expected be made before the elections.

Politically, a strong appeal in the name of Hindutva is also about to  go out. A determined move is afoot to untangle the Mandir building logjam at Ayodhya and return the advantage in Uttar Pradesh to the BJP.

Taking all things into consideration, a second term seems assured for the NDA.  Earned positives include a strong economy, robust foreign relations, a defence capability that is being reinforced substantially, massive infrastructure development including the emotive cleaning of the Ganga by the building and commissioning of multiple sewage plants.

For the poor, there have been multiple yojanas and initiatives including cooking gas provision, adequate neem-coated urea fertilizer, targeted subsidies, mudra bank loans, and last mile electricity provision. The farmers evidently are not happy, and it is important that both provisions to help them and their efficient delivery is implemented.  

In addition, there is much work left over from Modi’s first term let alone the promises for 2022, India’s 75^th year. Modi 2.0 must be better at delivering on its promises to meet the aspirations of all who make  it possible.

(1,379 words)

For: The Sunday Guardian

January 30th, 2019

Gautam Mukherjee

BOOK REVIEW:THE FIRE BURNS BLUE-A HISTORY OF WOMEN'S CRICKET IN INDIA BY KARUNYA KESHAV AND SIDHANTA PATNAIK

BOOK REVIEW

TITLE:  THE FIRE BURNS BLUE-A HISTORY OF WOMEN’S CRICKET IN INDIA

AUTHORS: KARUNYA KESHAV & SIDHANTA PATNAIK

PUBLISHER: WESTLAND SPORTS, 2018

PRICE: Rs.799/- HARDBACK

 India’s Women’s Cricket Comes Of Age: The Power Of Volume & Passion

The 2017 World Cup, and India playing in the finals, was the moment when Indian Women’s Cricket finally arrived. That it was mostly a gender stereotype that kept this sport from being taken seriously as something women could excel in is a sad thing. India has been gradually led, by the example of other cricketing nations, to offer it patronage and facilities.   

Similarly, other sports such as Wrestling, Shooting, Boxing, Kabbadi, Fencing,  Tennis, Badminton, even Athletics  and Gymnastics, in which Indians are making their mark consistently now, are also joining in on the benefits and national prominence at last.

India did not win Gold at the 2017 tourney, missing it narrowly, as it went to England, but they did win Silver, at the semi-finals, beating the Australian Women’s Team.  India had reached this high once before, in 2005, losing the final, as it happened, to Australia that time.

Subsequently, officialdom seems to have made up its mind. The BCCI, that has been sponsoring international tours since 2006, got to work to turn the women’s team into more than the forever “feisty underdog”. The women’s annual retainer was tripled to Rs. 50 lakhs a year for the top players. TV rights for both men’s and women’s cricket, a lucrative game changer since the eighties and nineties, were sold for thousands of crores for a five year contract starting in 2018. India, said an ICC survey, wanted to also see their women cricketers playing. Coaches and other support staff were given two year contracts.

In the 12 months after 23^rd July 2017, the Indian Women’s Team played nine ODIs with four wins and five losses. In T 20, India won eight of fifteen international matches played. But it lost the Asia Cup for the first time since 2004, to a resurgent Bangladesh.

There are shortcomings. India is still struggling to unearth new power hitters even as star player Mithali Raj is the most-capped player and most-capped captain in ODIs in 2018.  There are other champions like Harmanpreet Kaur,  who was the the first to sign up with an overseas T 20 League (Sydney Thunder for the Women’s Big Bash League) in 2016. 

And Jhulan Goswami, who has captured 300 international wickets through her career so far.

Team culture and cohesion too needs to be worked on. But how long, in the era of the fitness and coordination of a Virat Kohli led men’s team, will it take before the women’s team too become world-beaters?

It stands to reason that Women’s Cricket should forge ahead to become world champions as training, skill, talent, new bench strength and fitness are being emphasized like never before.

Meanwhile, Indian men’s cricket has become the biggest sports money-spinner in the world next to international soccer. This is primarily due to the size of Indian audiences both at the stadium and on TV, and, of course, the associated advertising revenues . That the male players are now paid small fortunes for ODI, T20 and Test Cricket with grueling and busy calendars, and earn much bigger sums via multiple endorsement deals organized by sport star management firms, puts them on par with the big stars of the silver screen.

The authors of this book Karunya Keshav, a former Wisden and ICC reporter, and Sidhanta Patnaik, also an ICC reporter, have set out a chronicle of the long struggle to establish Women’s Cricket in India from the 1970s onwards. It describes many memorable games and their highlights over the years, the early stars and their considerable grit.

The first Women’s Cricket Clubs were set up in Mumbai, Pune, and Chennai  in 1971, when all three places had different names and women’s cricket had to fight in the face of low administrative support and funds crunches. The Indian Railways, with their multiple railway colonies that spawned talent, were early sponsors of Women’s Cricket teams. 

Early pioneers of the sport included names like Diana Eduljee who still plays an administrative part via the BCCI, and Shantha Rangaswamy, India’s first Captain.

The Fire Burns Blue reads for the most part like a cricket commentary in the classic mould from the radio days of the fifties and sixties, even though Women’s Cricket commenced only in the seventies. Here is a description for the cricket fan from the last day of the second Test against England  at Jamshedpur in 1995 - “ India needed someone to play a few bold strokes at the top before the ball got older and started to grip the surface”.

And another excerpt, from March 2018, by which time Women’s Cricket  was a recognizable force that puts things in perspective - “In a room full  of people that matter, Diana, in her typical dark trousers, flats, and loose, printed shirt, is the only woman. Three members of the Indian team, Mithali, Jhulan and Harmanpreet, who have been playing a T20I tri-series in the city, walk in eventually. They’re here to receive honorary Cricket Club of India (CCI) life memberships following India’s run in the World Cup – it’s a privilege few can afford or are eligible for and the CCI makes sure they realize it. The three, still in their India jerseys after a long hot afternoon of training, drag Diana into the commemorative photograph with them. They know they wouldn’t be here, playing cricket, earning accolades, if it hadn’t been for their senior. Four decades before, she was tonking balls and stereotypes on this very ground. Their honour was hers as well.”

(912 words)

For: The Sunday Pioneer AGENDA BOOKS

January 5^th, 2019

Gautam Mukherjee

The Unravelling Of The Cambridge Analytica Game Plan

The Unravelling Of The Cambridge Analytica Game Plan

The Congress Party of India under the  Nehru- Gandhis, likes to import its ideas. Though, let us remember, in the past, for Rajiv Gandhi’s post-Bofors scandal campaign that saw him out of power, it has also used MNC advertising agencies to think  things up for it.

The MNC advertising agency then used, sold the late Rajiv Gandhi a campaign that depicted the Opposition as scorpions and snakes in full-page advertisements in all the leading dailies. It backfired, as negative campaigns are wont to do.

But this time around, Rahul Gandhi and family went in for a fully imported and scripted campaign on a turn-key basis, with several of the hallmarks of political public relations, such as frequent repetition of the key message, built into it.

So much so, that it tended to ignore all developments on the ground to the contrary, and ploughed on relentlessly, with Rahul Gandhi himself as chief spear and Manchurian Candidate. That this created an unreal miasma around the Congress President, was a real problem. It has him shouting out crazy and theatrical invective, but the script was unrelenting, written for a prefabricated campaign. It had allowed for no modifications.

In the original presentation that offered hosannas in advance to the real election outcome, and had the Gandhi parivar mesmerized, Cambridge Analytica, UK Branch, and senior hand-holder Sam Pitroda of Chicago,( yes, also of Rajiv Gandhi era CDoT fame) were anointed. Together, they have cooked up a recipe for the 2019 general election campaign that included some hilarious image building forays for Rahul Gandhi from middling perches abroad.

 The objectives were two pronged – to elevate the stature of an erstwhile halting and inarticulate Rahul Gandhi , elevated now as the Congress President, and make it appear as if he was a serious contender for the prime minister’s chair. This was  indeed partially achieved. Rahul began to speak with fire and conviction from his prepared lines, and pitted himself relentlessly and almost exclusively against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The next task for Cambridge Analytica was to vitiate the atmosphere so much that it appears to the voting public that the incumbent government is corrupt, inept, communal, and a danger to the very survival of democracy itself.

Cambridge Analytica uses pseudo scientific methods such as the alleged mining of personal data without permission to influence voter and election behavior. In India that meant exploiting caste and religious fissures. They have reportedly done this type of thing successfully in a more homogenised America and Britain, but are also facing various legal consequences for invasions of privacy and other illegal acts.

In India, they sold an entire game plan to an impressed Rahul Gandhi and his family consisting of his mother, the Chairperson of the Party, and his sister, recently named a General Secretary of the Congress for Eastern Uttar Pradesh. The troika is complete now and into the rough and tumble of electoral politics for whatever it may yield.

The plan had all the ingredients of mayhem, which, if properly executed, would surely  have brought down the present government and installed a coalition  made up of Congress and elements of the like-minded regional Opposition parties.

That Cambridge Analytica underestimated India is understandable, because even the Gandhis, their clients, who like to believe they know the Indian mind, do think it is easy too manipulate.

The campaign, alas, has proved to be a an unmitigated disaster as per the grand old party’s own internal assessment and just 3 months before the general elections.

The forays involving outsourced arson and rioting via ambitious young caste leaders got exposed. The attempt to paint the prime minister as corrupt via a high decibel attempt at calumny around the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter aircraft from France refused to gain traction. Instead, involvement of the Gandhis in lobbying against the Rafale aircraft on behalf of the Eurofighter started appearing in the news. And so did their involvement as possible bribe-takers in a number of other defence and civilian contracts. The scoffing about favourable economic statistics also didn’t stick. The backing of radical elements have had the public feeling uneasy. Even the winning of three Hindi heartland states recently has not convinced the Congress that it is on a winning streak after all. The ghosts from the 1984 Sikh massacre have also come back to haunt Congress. The National Herald criminal investigation is also refusing to go away.

Ever since the main planks of the Cambridge Analytica game plan imploded, recent and subsequent developments seem to be off-script. Both the planning and execution has reverted to the Party elders here in India. That they are being orchestrated in a jerky manner, as if filmed on a hand-held device, is the price of hurried improvisation.

Such events include an attempt to malign the Election Commission via an event casting bizarre aspersions on the EVM from London - shepherded by Kapil Sibal, Senior Counsel and Congress stalwart. No sooner did this event say the EVMs were hacked in the 2014 general elections, the Congress realized it was in power at the time, and dropped the follow up actions on the initiative!

And the latest is the plunge taken by Priyanka Gandhi into Eastern Uttar Pradesh politics. This is designed to not only oust Yogi Adityanath from the Chief Minister’s chair, but show the SP-BSP alliance sans Congress how it is really done. That it tacitly admits that the leadership of Rahul Gandhi is floundering, with important prospective allies refusing to join hands with him or the Congress, is to most observers ill-timed. Besides, will Priyanka Gandhi do very much better than her brother?

It is a gamble worth taking, thinks Rahul Gandhi, because the Congress is desperate. A number of their top leaders and their relatives are likely to go to jail, including the Gandhis, Robert Vadra, and the Chidambarams, if Narendra Modi and the BJP is not ousted.

However, this is not looking very likely, looking beyond the prospects of the Congress Party alone in the coming elections. A huge flaw is the lack of a real agenda beyond turfing out Modi, and the difficulty in believing that any such coalition can provide a stable government.  

That Cambridge Analytica would fail in the Indian context was a foregone conclusion for many observers. This is, after all, a sub-continent, and a “main message” campaign maligning the prime minister on Rafale was altogether too simplistic. Particularly,  given that the Congress first family is known to be supremely corrupt itself. As the accusers, this is too ironic to be missed. And conversely, the target is a totally incorruptible prime minister.

Actually, the political strategists and PR firm, with its methodical occidental thinking is probably not capable of keeping up with the subtle workings of desi minds. That the recent goings on indicate a state of sheer panic in the Congress camp, is, of course, the price of the expensive debacle. It seems like surrender without firing the first shot of battle. 

This even as we get ready to see the first American made Howitzer and others, made in India with South Korean collaboration by L&T. The bribery tainted Bofors guns have been replaced, but not the dramatis personae of that scam ridden acquisition from three decades ago. But, truly not a shot has been fired. The main battles are yet to begin. The author of The Art of War would have approved.

(1,234 words)

For: My Nation

January 24^th, 2019

Gautam Mukherjee

Reservations On Earth? Why Even Heaven Holds A Place For Those Who Pray

Reservations On Earth?  Why Even Heaven Holds A Place For Those Who Pray

Would things have been better from the start to go in for economic weakness as the only basis for reservation without reference to caste or creed? We have had it in schools and housing societies in given states for a while, with the EWS reservations.

On the face of it, it looks like a reasonable idea, but is probably better suited to a homogenized population with tiny minorities and distinct groups. Where the population speaks the same language and professes the same religion for example.

India, by contrast, has always been a sub-continent and one size never did fit all.  Caste based reservations, in fact predate independence and both the British and some of the Princely States had reserved quotas for underprivileged castes and sections.

But reservations, whatever their demerits, in all their complexity and political potency, are a ground reality that cannot be reversed now. Instead, they can, and are, being used as a device to increase capacity in order to give content to the percentages announced.  This is what went awry in the years of socialist inadequacy. Today, there are resources to give the whole matter teeth.

So no, 10% economic reservation for the poor amongst the higher castes is not zero of zero, as the critics would have it. It is a modest beginning, long in the gestation and put on the shelf for 10 years by the UPA. It is law now, backed by almost all parties in parliament and now rapidly being implemented in the states. It has a solid intent to provide at least 10% of all future opportunities in education and jobs to the economically disadvantaged amongst the upper castes as the economy grows.

The Other Backward Castes (OBCs), Scheduled Castes (SCs), the Tribes, have been addressed, at least in theory, multiple times over the last 70 years, starting in 1954 and picking up speed in the late seventies. The Mandal Commission recommendations for the bottom of the pyramid excluding its “creamy layer” were implemented in the 1990s, despite upper caste protests. Reservations stand at near about the 50% mark or more in some of the states under state legislation, despite a Supreme Court ruling to hold them at the halfway mark in the service of equity for the “general category,” meaning everyone else not covered.

But the back-office of primary, secondary and higher educational opportunities, suffering still from chronic shortages, are being addressed as well now, at last on an accelerated basis. New universities, medical colleges and so on are being established all over the country.

After all, nobody can make a meal of percentages alone-they must represent seats and jobs, both in the public and private sectors, as well as in educational institutions and vocational training centres. If there are ample opportunities  and seats to go around there is no shortage economy, and reservations become meaningless.

The greatest guarantee that this can succeed is by expanding the economy so that there is more money. This will automatically throw up new, often unregulated, opportunities.

But a hankering after permanent tenure government jobs must go. In an era when technology is increasingly leading to automation and digitization, the need for people is shrinking.  Bureaucracy therefore will not employ or absorb very many of the millions of new job seekers in future. They will have to look at the “unorganized”, the small and medium sectors, as well as the formal private sector. These, given a benevolent capitalist system, will grow through entrepreneurship. In the medium term they are expected to grow much bigger than the ailing PSUs. And, in all probability pay much better as well. Permanent tenure however may have to go even in government jobs.

Is there a positive momentum in the economy today? The answer is yes, and mainly due to the pent up demand from the restricted and licensed socialist years. It certainly needs a push and the untangling of knots as they appear by the political leadership, but the inherent demand exists. The foundations of the economy and higher education laid down in the early statist years have now taken on a life of their own.

China may be suffering from over building today, but India has a lead of at least 30 years before its domestic demand scenario is slaked. China has already had 10% plus growth for 30 years, starting from the eighties, and is now looking outwards and abroad to keep its giant appetites, resources, and machinery occupied as best as it can.

Does this road map then essentially reduce reservations into a political football, particularly at election time?  Besides look at the trend - if everyone has reserved seats where is the room for protest, except, of course, for relative percentages and quotas within quotas!

How are those people meant to survive who cannot secure the limited amount of private sector jobs or lack entrepreneurial skills? Well, a universal dole is on its way along with cash grants to farmers and interest free loans too. As is universal health insurance, already under implementation.

Will reservations themselves grow out-of-date too? Perhaps they are beginning to already. But certainly, when we become the second largest economy in the world after China on a PPP basis by 2030, reservations will make little sense.

Having a purchase power parity greater than that of America, that followed up Civil War with the massive Civil Rights movement of the 1960s towards its own form of setting things to rights and justice, is perhaps hard to imagine. But then, let us remember that India once was completely dependent on humanitarian aid to survive and feed itself. It has been some years since that it is no longer so.

Still it has been a long and winding road with a number of twists and turns. Illustrative allegories sometimes makes it easier to sympathise with how it has been for us. There is an iconic coming-of-age film from  1967, just over 50 years ago, called The Graduate, in which a cougarish Mrs. Robinson seduces a 21 year old Benjamin, come home after finishing his undergraduate studies. Benjamin’s father and Mrs. Robinson’s husband are partners in a prosperous law firm.

The sexual conquest of the young college man by his experienced seducer  should have set him on a path, presumably, of greater realism. Though like many young people, the lust he feels for Mrs. Robinson does not dent his romanticism. He next falls for Mrs. Robinson’s daughter Elaine.

This sets off a tug-of-war between the mother and daughter with Benjamin as the beneficiary. And when Benjamin does turn decisive, it is only to rescue Elaine from the altar when she is about to marry another man, prompted by her mother.    

A half a century on, the much awarded movie seems more like a parable than urgent social commentary. The tug-of- war could well stand in for the fandango between capitalism with a human face, and socialism that is eternally confused but, like an old flame, exerts great emotional pull still.

The Graduate was bold stuff for mainstream cinema of the time, with its hint of student rebellion and fecklessness. Benjamin doesn’t have a one night stand with Mrs. Robinson. He turns the dalliance into a longish, surreptitious affair with many nights at a hotel.

And then there is the need for validation, however clumsy, from the older woman. Nobody wins the laurel wreath for the moral high ground, and there is no redemption on offer. Unless, that is, Benjamin running off with Elaine in her bridal dress, grinning from the back seat of a bus in the final scene, is it.

The seduction of Fabian Socialism with Soviet overtones was the siren call of the early years. This was the Mrs. Robinson of our economic vision, looking for post-colonial validation. It left the nation (read Benjamin), yearning for equality and justice. It provoked caste-based affirmative action, without the mojo and wherewithal to fulfill such desires. Growth rates were truly paltry, at no more than 2%. The whole caboodle couldn’t sustain itself, massive five-year Soviet style plans notwithstanding.

Of course, Socialism, even Communism was the fashionable ism of the forties, probably in reaction against imperial and colonial exploitation that this country and others just emerging into independence experienced. The burning zeal in leaders like Nehru, and later his daughter, Indira Gandhi, who both ruled for lengths of time in our formative years, was to re-engineer economics to suit notions of social and economic equality.

Unfortunately, they did not pay much attention to the income side of the ledger, even expecting it to take care of itself with deficit financing. But, international credit ratings were invariably low. India was looked at as a poverty stricken third-world country with potential, but masses of intractable problems to overcome first.

Borrowed money therefore, was not easy to come by, not even from the multilateral lending agencies such as The World Bank or the IMF, and came almost always, when it did, tied up in multiple strings. The cavalry to the rescue in the early years, and to an extent even now, was/is the Soviet Union/Russia. It was and is keen on exercising its hegemony over a strategically placed country in South Asia.

So the USSR and Russia as its successor negotiated barter deals, deferred payments, and traded with us in rupees and roubles as opposed to US dollars. Iran, in difficulties with US sanctions today, sells us oil in rupees as well.  

Socialism implicitly and explicitly abhors notions of profit and prescribes redistribution of wealth, without however addressing how to hold up the central pole of the circus tent. So, in effect, it snatched away the assets and privileges of the rich and economically viable, without any knowledge about how to make and keep them productive.

This ended up killing the golden goose. And Nehruvian socialism only managed to redistribute degrees of poverty. Elsewhere, Communism collapsed altogether, to be replaced by a state run capitalist system or an oligarchy with all its inequities accepted.

Britain, Nehru’s early model for Fabian Socialism derived from it, has not only declined steadily over the years since WWII, but is now on the point of disintegration as a consequence of its ill thought out backlash with Brexit.

To compound issues, the programme of caste-based quotas in India, particularly by reserving quantities of government jobs, in the absence of much of a private sector, created further strains for the economy. The idea was to uplift the most downtrodden in a highly pluralistic society. Over the years the sub-castes wanted their pound of flesh, and so did the religions, and the sects within them.

India, the sub-continent also contains many languages. That they too were clamouring for distinctions and advantaged assistance is another story. One that led to a number of new states being formed to give vent to linguistic, cultural, and sometimes religious aspirations.

This, in turn, gave birth, prematurely, and probably without meaning to, both vote-bank politics and pseudo-secularism. And probably, in a round-about way, to the rise of Hindu Nationalism that has grown into the chief alternative in national and state politics.

But for the young Benjamin that India was, when it graduated into independence, it would undoubtedly have been much better, we can see in hindsight, to have pursued strategies of high economic growth under the banner of a benevolent capitalism.

A getting it on with Elaine and a happily ever after perhaps. That might indeed have brought forward the high growth rates from the mid eighties. The economy, which was only truly unshackled in 1991, still took some years to shake off its chains. What if it had received a no nonsense boost in 1947 itself?

For a left-wing Nehru languishing in British jails for long years even as the arch capitalist princely classes colluded with the British, it was a course he probably wasn’t even willing to consider.

With the model being American “individualism” and its risks of boom and bust, would we have forged ahead without excessive state interference? As a free market, Indian ingenuity and initiative, much appreciated today around the world, would have flowered. We may well have become the powerhouse of Asia, given our superior geography and natural resources in comparison to China.

If only the early Indian governments had stuck to securing our best interests amongst the comity of nations instead of trying to change the world order to suit the have-nots. It might have been the hard-nosed Patel what-if, instead of the Gandhi-Nehru rose-tinted what is.

But this is going into the realm of what might have been then, and might be again, given the proclivities and the gradual coming of age advantages this nation enjoys in 2019. An economy on the way to becoming a $ 5 trillion one before long, has many options, and reservations are the least of them.

As  we have grown more populous, we also seem to have become more prosperous. We were a very poor and ravaged country at independence, with a population of some 350 million people, with low life expectancies to boot. Today we are more than 1.3 billion strong, enjoy food surpluses, and have recently doubled our per capita income.

This is alongside being the fastest growing major economy in the world with an average growth of 7.3%  in GDP per annum. Our life expectancy, despite massive challenges yet in health, sanitation, and environmental issues, has more than caught up with that of developed nations.

Of course, in a successful and thriving democracy such as India, there may be populist steps taken that will retard our forward momentum from time to time. This even acts as a corrective towards the inclusion of those who might feel ignored or left behind. Our socialist past cannot be expected to exit the stage without a few attempts to survive after all.

But, overall, the inexorable logic of greater prosperity is a human desire to consolidate it and prepare for further growth. There is therefore no reason to fear that Benjamin will refuse to grow up and secure his own pot of gold.

(2,343 words)

For: AGENDA, The Sunday Pioneer

January 20^th, 2019

Gautam Mukherjee

Originality & Appropriation In Modi Raj

Originality  &  Appropriation In Modi Raj

The Modi kurta with the half sleeves up to his elbow is certainly in his own write. The no-sleeves gala bandh, except for the myriad bright colours and even prints and motifs, is probably a Nehru jacket. But in Modi’s defence, it has been appropriated by all Indian netas, bureaucrats, and India loving foreigners since the sixties – usually in dark grey, or dinner-jacket cream.

The colours and the frequent costume changes are pure Modi, with a passing nod at former Congress Union Minister Shivraj Patil, for those who remember his sartorial splendour.

The wrist watch, worn on the inside, is reminiscent of somebody else too, who, in turn, probably aped the British upper class on this affectation.

The classicists say there are just seven original ideas. Every other since is just a permutation and a combination of the original seven. Though they have offered convoluted explanations on how they came by this intelligence, it is no skin off anybody’s teeth to accept it at face value, unless it is sophistry that is one’s life’s mission.

Narendra Modi  seems none too concerned about originality, appropriation, or reinventing the wheel. He took Congress’ neglected stalwart Sardar Patel to his bosom, and thence to The Statue off Unity beside the Narmada. And of course, as a counterblast to the Nehru dynasty lionization and hagiography. Mahatma Gandhi, however, has been retained intact, with a picturesque ashram to showcase at Sabarmati.

Over the period from 2014 when he became prime minister, Modi’s government has implemented a host of stuck or neglected legislation including the celebrated GST, got infrastructure projects going again as only the BJP can, and picked off many of the low hanging fruit from the previous government’s leavings, deliberations and yojanas.

This has left Congress complaining that most of what Modi has done was mooted or even operational in the UPA era - sometimes under other names, sometimes tweaked into a new avatar by him. It was our idea they whine. Ah, but have they heard of what the classicists have to say on ideas?

But Modi, thick-skinned about claims, thinks there is no copyright on a thing that never came into being because of Congress over-calculation or paralysis in governance. Or one on something that has been enhanced, improved, made more productive and accountable.  

There are some ideas in the Modi Raj that came, not from the UPA, but in fact, from Mahatma Gandhi. Such a one is the massive  Swacch Bharat programme, replete with a pair of MK’s spectacles as its widely publicized logo. It  has been wildly successful, and spouts the statistics on toilet construction and the elimination of open defecation to illustrate as much.

A few other initiatives have probably sprung from Modi’s poverty stricken early years and genuine concern for the poor- one such is subsidised LPG to thousands of rural households. The statistician says 90% of all households in India now use LPG. Electricity to every village has been accomplished and it is on its way to every household. The subsidized and free distribution of the  LeD bulb programme to save on electricity bills and consumption is another hit.  Solar Power is something of a Modi favourite.

Can Make in India, Digital India, Skill India, etc. all be seen therefore as old wine in new bottles? No, most of it has never been mooted without cynicism and lip-service in the past. Modi, on the other hand, burns with a youthful zeal to take this country ahead fast and furious. He has willingly faced the ridicule, and the reality of programme success falling short of targets. After  all, not everything can go as well as ISRO, but the man  deserves more than jeers for trying and the list of unprecended if modest successes.

The recent amendment to the Constitution to afford a 10% reservation for poorer sections of the upper castes was a masterful implementation of a law that has been languishing for 10 years.

Even though it may not yield very many government jobs at present, it will steadily increase in numbers as the economy keeps growing.. It is already moving  at the fastest rate of any major economy in the world. At 7.2% growth in GDP, projected for this fiscal, and more in future years, a fact that even government critic Amartya Sen can’t deny.

India could become the second biggest economy in the world after China by 2030, according to a recent report.

Narendra Modi therefore probably sees merit in steady implementation  of pending issues as the most practical way forward. This, even as another statistic claims that the per capita income has doubled. Abject poverty, long a feature of the Indian image and reality, is about to disappear in the next few years.

The only danger to this not very glamorous steadiness of purpose is political instability. And economic policies that are designed to put back the clock via  rampant populism. Modi won’t do it if he is re-elected, and won’t do it now in the expectation that he will be. But the mahagatbandhan, hungry for power on any terms, may well embrace the most expedient course of action.

Modi probably needs an emotive rallying cry to galvanise the voter. While economic moves may come thick and fast between now and the last budget to be tabled in February 2019, the most obvious political gesture may still be to commence the building of the Ram Temple at Ayodhya. The Supreme Court is unlikely to announce a verdict before the elections in April-May. It is therefore up to Modi to go the ordinance route or refuse to take this chance if he thinks the risk of a counter consolidation is too great.

The move to essentially not recognize the citizenship claims of millions of Muslim infiltrators and illegals who have come into the country  mainly via Bangladesh, while accepting those of six other religions including Hinduism, is a departure from the past. It moves past even that of the National Citizenship Register under implementation. This is probably the first overtly Hindutva move made by the Modi government with potentially far-reaching consequences. It could, and probably will, result in the disenfranchisement of many illegal infiltrators from Bangladesh and Myanmar, if not their repatriation. This bill has already been passed by the Lok Sabha but is causing upheavals in the North East while it awaits a Rajya Sabha nod.

Native populations in Assam and elsewhere in the North East want various other people, mostly from West Bengal, that are threatening to swamp the local populations, to also be gone.

There is some criticism that the secular fabric of the nation is being changed via this Citizenship Act, that it discriminates on the basis of religion. But the Modi government is apparently keen to get on with its push-back against infiltration. This is threatening the demographics  in various parts of the country, raising law  and order problems, and giving rise to threats of terrorism and sedition.

Will the Indian Constitution be amended in future again, particularly if Modi returns to power  in 2019? It is necessary, most people are agreed, to tackle various legacy issues that have led to a number of vexing complications, for example in our relationship with J&K. 

Let us also remember that most of significant constitutional amendments were made either in Nehru’s time, when it was a near one party rule, or that of Indira Gandhi, during the Emergency.

Modi, it is seen, prefers a more democratic approach as the latest, well supported constitutional amendment bill illustrates. There may be something new here after all. After years of dynastic and self-perpetuating rule dressed up as democracy you have a prime minister and government from the Hindu Nationalist sphere, often vilified as dictatorial, who changes the Indian Constitution only by consensus. His government did it for GST, and now, once again, for the economically backward upper castes.

(1,312 words)

For: My Nation

January 10^th, 2019

Gautam Mukherjee

BOOK REVIEW:THE INDIAN EMPIRE AT WAR BY GEORGE MORTON-JACK

BOOK REVIEW

TITLE: THE INDIAN EMPIRE AT WAR-from Jihad to victory-The untold story of the Indian Army in the First World War

AUTHOR: GEORGE MORTON-JACK

PUBLISHER: LITTLE BROWN, HACHETTE INDIA, 2018

PRICE:  Rs. 699/-

Indians Fighting For The Empire

For the strapping, if illiterate, peasants from the “martial races” recruited into the Indian Army it meant a salary plus additional allowances for overseas posting, and fifty acres of “irrigated land” that no money-lender could usurp, plus an “inheritable pension” on retirement. For those who joined up voluntarily during the First World War that ended a century ago in 2018, it was fit occupation for men who liked being soldiers.

Indians who joined as sepoys were not promoted to the King’s Commission then. They could never be officers commanding British and Indian troops alike, but enjoyed native ranks like Jemadar, Subedar, and internal promotions instead. Nor did they enjoy equivalent pay or facilities  of White soldiers, though in the European theatre they were well fed and cared for. This included excellent medical treatment and hospitalisation if injured.

And yet, did the Indians fight, a half million strong at 1918, bravely and with zeal, for the Empire? Yes, and in theatres as widespread as France/Germany and British interests in Africa and Iraq. A number of Indians won Victoria Crosses, the highest award for valour, just like the European soldiers in the Great War, and not all of them posthumously either.

Politically, the Indian nationalists decided to back the British war effort without reservation in the expectation of concessions towards Indian “self-government” in line with the White colonies of Australia and Canada that enjoyed “Dominion status”.

Instead, there was an extension of the Defence of India Act of 1915, with its “powers to detain without proof and sentence to death without appeal”. And it was soon after the war, in April 1919, that the infamous Jallianwala Bagh massacre took place. The British betrayal was acutely felt and sharpened the move towards independence.

In terms of anti-British activity in the period under review - mutinies, murders, desertions - provoked by British high-handedness, the lead belonged not to the subjects of British India or the Princely States, but to the “independent Pukhtun tribal areas of Waziristan”. 

The Mahsud and Afridi tribes resisted the British always, and with considerable success, irrespective of whether they joined their Army, or raided their positions in British India.

Indeed, author George Morton-Jack dwells on the preoccupation the British had with Muslim sentiment as they confronted the “Sick man of Europe” or the “Ottoman Empire”. This mainly because Turkey was the custodian of Mecca, and how the Muslim of British India would react to fighting against the Sultan of Turkey and the Caliph, was an issue of the greatest concern.  As it turned out, there were isolated outbreaks of Islamic fervour against British imperialism, but these were easily contained. For the most part, the Indian Muslim had no real problem fighting against the “other” Muslim or anyone else their officers   indicated.

The genesis of the extensive use of independent India’s armed forces for UN Peace Keeping activities may have its origins in the lead up to WWI, during it, and its aftermath, when the British found themselves with 27% more territory, quite a lot of it in West Asia, which they intended to hang on to. The British Indian Army was used extensively for this purpose too, and post 1918.

The Great War also went some way to advance the cause of racial equality as heavy losses, particularly in Europe, prompted the Allies to lay less stress of the ‘colour-bar”.

The civilians of France treated the Indian soldiers with great kindness and as “Liberators” from the German yoke, and opened their eyes to democratic notions of liberty, equality and fraternity. Many were able to comprehend for the first time the demands of a new nationalism that would have to exclude the British in the end.

The Germans, of course, wanted to provoke a Jihad amongst the Muslim Indian troops and dropped leaflets into the trenches they occupied. While conditions in the Indian front in France were bad at first, the British countered with a massive increase in “logistical support” and “unprecedented quantities of food”.

Top leadership, at least till 1916, such as Kichener, Willcocks,and medical care head Walter Lawrence were all distinguished old India hands, familiar with the manners and mores of their charges.  

Things were a lot meaner in the West Asian theatre. The infamous Mesopotamia Report put the finger on the Viceroy  Charles Hardinge and Commander-in-Chief in India Beauchamp Duff for grave lapse that had thousands of Indian soldiers perishing in pitiable circumstances. It received a lot of media play and debate in parliament at Westminster. Rudyard Kipling, the celebrated author and poet of the Raj took up for the slaughtered Indian soldiers. He asked for those responsible for the British defeats in Iraq, the mismanagement and neglect, to be pilloried and punished.

And yet, there was a mood amongst the top Allied Military Brass as the war dragged on, to use the Indians for front-line action in various theatres on a relentless basis. It even claimed British Indian Army General James Willcocks’ job, as his superior Douglas Haig ,did not think much of his efforts to shield his Indian troops from attrition and casualties. Willcocks became persona non grata  in the War Office after being fired by Haig, and could only get a job as the Governor of Bermuda  thereafter. The old style caring and nurturing of troops that Willcocks practiced was replaced by a more ruthlessly “scientific” approach.

And then, there were the uneven regulations. Apart from much lesser pay than their European counterparts, when an Indian was invalidated he had to return to the front after recovery. The option to retire and return to his country after being injured or wounded was denied him. Only European troops enjoyed this privilege.

This book, one for the war history buff as much as the general reader, travels year by year from 1914 to 1918 with a masterful account. It follows the ups and downs of military strategy and tactics, the dramatis personae, and the sheer blood loss of  trench warfare. The European theatre, particularly the Battle of the Somme, was priority number one, but Indian troops were sent to a number of lesser strategic spots around the globe simultaneously. Recently, Israel made special mention of Indian troops in connection with the liberation of Haifa.

The so called “War to end all Wars” was not successful, despite its millions in war dead. But it certainly made an international fighting force of the Indian soldier and added to the regimental histories of many Indian formations that survive to the present day.

(1,082 words)

For: The Sunday Pioneer, AGENDA, BOOKS

January 4^th, 2019

Gautam Mukherjee