The Third Coming Of Prashant Kishor

Is the long innings of a decade as Consultant to various political parties, except for part of Prashant Kishor’s time in Bihar, about to come to an end?

There is a growing view that Kishor is good when the going is good for his client, and not so much when the road is rocky and uphill. At the same time, his ability to sharpen political messages, coin appropriate slogans, and analyse data is much admired. The presumption that he knows better than seasoned politicians who have put in the time and hard work to reach their positions however, always works against him. This, despite his always working with the supreme leader and his or her immediate power structure. This infighting is also what brings him down, time and again.

Kishor did advise Capt. Amarinder Singh’s Punjab government in 2016-2017, and the central leadership in 2021. Amarinder Singh won handsomely. The effort did not go so well with the Gandhi family and the coterie around them in 2021. Kishor was ejected. Probably just as well for him, because it was early enough. In 2022, all five state assembly elections were lost, with a zero performance or very poor showing for Congress.

Likely at their wits’ end, the Gandhi family is willing, via interim president Sonia Gandhi, once again, to countenance Prashant Kishor and his ideas. However, Sonia Gandhi is 75 and in poor health. She would not want to take on further terms at the helm of the Party, given a choice in the matter.

For Kishor, wearying of selling his wares as a travelling salesman going all over the country for every election, is it now thought better to settle down? Prashant Kishor, reinvented as a Congress panjandrum, with specific responsibilities and performance expectations.

After all, Kishor and his organisation are aware of the benefits and pitfalls of being an outside force with unstitched, undefined powers.  Irrespective of Kishor and his I-Pac’s performance, or indeed electoral results obtained, the role seems to end on the very day the votes are counted. And they begin to sour, via criticism from party leaders, well before that.

The one exception in his career was with Nitish Kumar and his successful Mahagathbandan in Bihar, but that stint as Vice President in the JDU ended abruptly in 2022.   Reason: party leaders who criticised Kishor. And this despite Bihar being his native state.

They say the best political minds in the country come from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. But nowadays, we can see Gujarat is nothing to sniff at as well.

 So can Kishor, as, say, a Congress General Secretary, with the stamp and wax seal of the Gandhi family backing him, be better positioned to weave together an Opposition alliance for the general elections of 2024?

All the political pundits agree that an Opposition construct without the Congress will not be sufficient, as the arithmetic, and the authenticity will not suffice.  Kishor does speak of the unique political space the Congress Party occupies, despite its poor showing of late. Is he right, or was that in a very different Idea of India that no longer exists, even as many disrupted and ousted by the changes, find it difficult to accept.

And yet, the biggest impediment to Congress involvement in an Opposition alliance has been, thus far, Rahul Gandhi, a fourth generation scion of the family that gave us three prime ministers. He wants to lead it, and inevitably be the prime ministerial candidate.  The trouble is, he is widely perceived  as not being up to the task.

Can Prashant Kishor somehow retain Rahul Gandhi at the head of the Opposition alliance, and, for that matter, his own head in the Party, and yet not project him as the prime ministerial candidate?  What can the Gandhi family countenance, even as it stubbornly clings to power in the near destroyed Party.  Critics like the G-21 within the Party have not made a dent.

Will Rahul Gandhi himself agree to such a fate? It is suggested that Rahul Gandhi does not want Prashant Kishor at all, and the coterie around him had him thrown out in 2021.  However, in recent days, it is Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi that wants to give it another go, even as Rahul Gandhi has gone abroad on yet another of his mysterious and private foreign visits.

Besides, can Kishor get other constituents, some of whom aspire to the pole position themselves, to agree to this?  Perhaps his main focus will be on how to get the Congress wins in 2024 up to a respectable total in three digits. He may prefer to keep things vague on an alliance till after the elections. If Congress has more than 100 seats, it will automatically be a strong contender for the leadership.

Can there be someone else from the Congress in an echo of the Manmohan Singh-Sonia Gandhi dyarchy that might be acceptable as the prime ministerial candidate? In those days, the Congress had a lion’s share of the seats in parliament, in the UPA tally. Can those sort of numbers be replicated in 2024? Given the sorry state of its election machinery at present it will be difficult. Besides we haven’t once mentioned the formidable RSS/BJP electoral machine and funding.

As a precursor, there are a number of assembly elections late this year and in 2023. Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh in 2022, in which both AAP and Congress will contest, and then Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh in 2023.

Can Congress, with Kishor on board, do well enough to actually bag one or more of the states currently with the BJP? It seems unlikely, but even a better showing could help Kishor’s credibility.

If Rajasthan or Chhattisgarh, or both, are lost however, Kishor’s days in Congress may be numbered. Unfortunately, in or out of the Party, once an election strategist, always thought of as one.

Unless compensation comes, say, via Karnataka, a money-generating state, one in which Congress has solid minority backing. It is badly needed, given its empty coffers.

Gujarat has been with BJP for over 20 years, but who can pry it loose? If there are any opposition seats won, again by wooing the minorities, tribals, and perhaps the Patidars, they are likely to be won by the AAP.

Depending on how these assembly elections go for Congress, perceptions could change for the better or worse in the opposition ranks. Will any attempt to put in place a remote control in the hands of the Gandhi family end up breaking rather than making for opposition unity?

The buzz is in terms of organising one-on-one contests between the BJP and Congress in as many seats as possible. This presupposes other parties will stay away to prevent cutting into each other’s votes. I can’t see a resurgent and ambitious AAP agreeing to this in view of a near headless-toothless Congress. 

Mamata Banerjee of TMC has long advocated that the opposition should let its strongest constituents contest on their own turf without cutting into their votes. So TMC in West Bengal. DMK in Tamil Nadu, and so on.  But Congress has no pucca turf it can call its own anymore. It gets a tally based on a few seats from everywhere, and the one or two states it still might retain going forward.

Banerjee also seemed to suggest that the political party that garners the most number of Lok Sabha seats should be allowed to lay claim to the prime minister’s slot, in the event of a BJP defeat. However, this was after her thumping win in West Bengal against the BJP, and before pulling a set of blanks in Tripura and Goa. Her one-time acolyte, Arvind Kejriwal of the AAP, has similar ideas, particularly after winning Punjab convincingly.

In all this, Prashant Kishor’s usefulness lies in the fact that he has worked with many of the dramatis personae. He can therefore keep tweaking and nuancing the pulls and pressures in the lead up to the elections. He can jet around like Kissinger carrying missives and suggestions between the chief ministers.

However, his disadvantage will be the perception that now he comes as a Congressman, no longer as a detached consultant.

 (1,367 words)

April 21^st 2022

For: Firstpost

Gautam Mukherjee

 

Cow Belt Dreams And Elsewhere Screams

P.C. Sorkar, a famous Magician from the 1930s till the beginning of the seventies, in the days of magic shows and circuses, had a highlight in his act.

He kept conjuring what he called ‘The Water of India’. It was a nice unifying sort of gesture, because the water was indubitably sourced in India when he performed his Indrajal magic show in-country.

And the water was probably not the same when he took his magic show to Europe, Japan, and other parts. In those instances, Sorkar probably expected the audience to accept that it was the Water of India, not because he had brought it from home, but because it emanated from his hands.

The BJP is essentially a ‘Hindi belt’ phenomenon, though it has won two terms at the Centre and has spread its wings to the North East plus a solitary outpost in the South, in the form of Karnataka. It could be well on its way to All-India domination as well, if it resists some of its sillier impulses.

It was fathered by an eminent Bengali, Syama Prasad Mookerjee, in its Jan Sangh avatar. Mookerjee, a beacon of the Hindu Mahasabha prior to founding the Jan Sangh, is credited with saving West Bengal from the clutches of the Partition, and protesting the separate status of J&K. Mookerjee, briefly a member of Nehru’s union of ministers, is also credited with giving the Jan Sangh, which became the BJP, its strong Hindu nationalist posture.

This too has given rise to the Hindi-belt BJP’s fetish for vegetarianism. As if  being Hindu is equal to being vegetarian as well as revering the cow. It was however far from any Bengali mind like Mookerjee’s.

Before Air India was sold to the Tatas, it served vegetarian food only, in its latter days as a government owned entity with the Modi administration at the Centre. That this stance has no takers in BJP ruled Goa, all the eight states of the BJP ruled or allied North East, let alone in various Opposition ruled states, has seen this effort come a cropper.

The language however remains the hankering of the so-called ‘Cow Belt’. It wants to exalt the status of Hindi over other languages obtaining in the sub-continent, and demote English at the same time. This has never sat well with other regions, and probably never will.

Both Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has proclaimed an ever-lengthening motto in his ‘Sabka’ slogan; and loyal lieutenant Home Minister Amit Shah, should desist from stirring this particular Hornet’s nest. 

English, the non-frictional via media means of communication for all parts of the Union of India, as spoken and written here, is distinct from its usage elsewhere. The English of the colonial masters, the United Kingdom is different. As is the one used in America, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and many other countries formerly colonised by the British.

Indian English has not only contributed many words to the English dictionary, but has developed a rich and varied literature of its own. Characterising Indian English as something other than native, is both narrow-minded and inaccurate.  English has much greater depth and range than the Hindi used in government communication or on the street. Which is, of course, a far cry from Sanskritised Shudh Hindi, the province of an erudite few.

Besides, English usage makes Indians comprehensible in large parts of the globe, and gives Indians, many with an excellent command of the language, an edge in IT, Engineering, the service industry, and many other disciplines.

 Narendra Modi and Amit Shah are both proud Gujaratis themselves.  However it didn’t keep Shah from essaying a confusing exhortation on the usage of Hindi in Sarkari communication recently.

This follows on from a milder attempt made by Shah in 2019, at Hindi Diwas celebrations, when he said, ‘If there is any language that can tie the whole country in one thread, it is the most spoken language of Hindi’.

That the Gangetic plains are the most highly populated part of India, is the pedestrian reason why so many people actually speak Hindi. But this is conveniently ignored, in this so- called quest for imposed unity. Amit Shah is the Chairman of the Official Languages Committee, but should  perhaps resist his innate biases.

Shah said Prime Minister Modi wants more usage of Hindi as opposed to English as the ‘Official Language’.  There is no attempt to work through the logic of this move that has angered many people unnecessarily.

At the 37^th meeting of the parliamentary Official Language Committee, Shah asserted Hindi was the official ‘Language of India’, implying Indian English, as spoken and written here, was somehow alien.  By way of justification, he said 70% of the Union Cabinet’s agenda was prepared in Hindi. He didn’t say that most of the Cabinet may not be very good at English, but the thought is  nevertheless implied.

Amit Shah said Hindi should be accepted as an alternative to English, as opposed to other local languages. This two-tier system with more Hindi instead of English usage, and other languages pushed down the ladder, is only comfortable for Hindi speakers.

To others, it is an aggravating insult. But this did not seem to stop Shah’s initiative. He said the North Eastern states, now under the BJP fold, had agreed to make the study of Hindi compulsory till Class 10. Many tribal texts in the region are being rewritten in the Devanagari script.

Hindi, is, as it stands, just one of 22 official languages. And most of the states in the Union of India have been organised along linguistic lines. To fly in the face of all this makes little sense. It is likely to promote regional chauvinism rather than unity.

The Opposition quickly labelled this latest attempt as one more effort of ‘Hindi Imperialism’, vowing it will be resisted by non-Hindi speaking states. As expected, West Bengal was quick off the mark with its sharp criticism. This was matched by outrage from most of the southern states, Maharashtra, Odisha and other non-Hindi speaking regions. Political parties other than the BJP were unanimous in their condemnation.

Hindi may be beloved in the top BJP leadership, but the universal Water of India it is not. It is more reminiscent of another of P.C. Sorkar’s famous magic tricks, called the ‘Floating Lady’. It was a routine featuring the illusion of ‘aerial suspension’. Ordinary fakirs from 19^th century India, and even the great Houdini, called it simply, the ‘ Indian Rope Trick’.

 

(1,082 words)

April 12^th, 2022

For: Firstpost

Gautam Mukherjee

 

Freebie Mates With Collapsible Gates

We have two countries on our doorstep, Sri Lanka and Pakistan, with collapsed economies. So collapsed, that re-flotation is a herculean task.  So far out of control are they, that their survival as political entities may be in jeopardy. 

If these countries were commercial entities, they would be Chapter 11 bankrupts, with caretaker managements to realise what value could be salvaged from the wreckage.

Senior bureaucrats have come calling on Prime Minister Narendra Modi to warn of a fate like Sri Lanka, or Greece, if not for the whole country, certainly for certain states bent on distributing freebies they cannot afford.

States, profligate with promises of free this and that, in order to win elections. This is something of a winning formula for the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), if not also for quite a few other state satraps and their parties. Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, West Bengal were also mentioned. 

Right now, it is the AAP that is in focus, even as they are off to try the same voodoo in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh for their forthcoming elections.  The formula is freebies for the masses, with a heavy slug of minority appeasement politics where the latter are present in number.

Both Punjab and Delhi, now with AAP, are in dreadful financial condition. One, Delhi, has been driven to the point of destitution by two consecutive terms of AAP politics. Very few promises have been kept on the development side, as in buses, new schools, colleges, hospitals, roads. Yes, subsidies on electricity and water have been given to the poor, and correspondingly loaded on to the rest of the bills.

The other, already run aground by Congress and Akali Dal administrations before the AAP win, has no money to afford Arvind Kejriwal’s extravagant promises. It has massive debt that cannot even be serviced from state revenues.

The bureaucrats are rightly worried. Bhagwant Mann has already come calling on Prime Minister Modi to ask for Rs. 50,000 crores as a first tranche of a special Rs. 100,000 crore package for the border state of Punjab. The threat, if any, implied, and wreathed in yellow turban clad smiles. The other states mentioned, also come, shawls and bouquets at the ready, for begging trips to see the prime minister. Most end in anger and frustration once back home when they don’t succeed.

This point of break down caused by devil-may-care spending, had also come to India, the whole country, in 1991, via Rajiv Gandhi’s excesses on the back of an unreformed low growth economy. It was thought to be the fag-end of Nehruvian Socialism.

But no, it saw a revival for another decade, with the surprise win for Congress in 2004, after the failure of BJP’s ‘India Shining’ campaign and election.

Under Congress party President Sonia Gandhi, (and remote-controlled  Prime Minister Manmohan Singh), plus her extra constitutional Leftist National Advisory Council (NAC), welfare expenditure went through the roof. 

There was MNREGA, set up for the election of 2014. But, good as it was, it didn’t do the trick. It should have, as per the formula, but there were Hindu nationalist forces at work.

 What happens when there is an imbalance? Between 2004 and 2014 we didn’t develop any infrastructure to speak of. The armed forces got no aircraft, ships, or tanks. Exports languished. Imports burgeoned. Industry lacked investment and ‘animal spirits’. Commission agents, speculators, and real-estate prospered.

Pakistan could do no wrong. The terrorism in Kashmir and all over the country went unchecked. China just helped itself to Indian territory with not even a murmuring from us. We could not afford to get annoyed.

 This longish interlude, marked by huge corruption, was preceded by six years of the Vajpayee administration that saw India boldly go nuclear-weaponised, and establish the Golden quadrilateral of excellent highways.

But, all in all, after over 30 years since 1991, we can clearly say that, in our case, the bankruptcy turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

When it happened in 1991, we had just a week’s worth of foreign exchange reserves, and were about to default on our international debt payments. We had to first of all fly out some 40 tonnes of our gold reserves to Switzerland. This held the wolf away from the door, while the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), worked out a rescue package attached to a long prescription of economic reforms.  It was a prescription that was non-negotiable, if India wanted to see a second tranche of funds.

Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao, who took over after Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, was probably our most learned prime minister to date. He seized upon the dictation from the WB and IMF to pry this country loose from the death embrace of socialism that had brought India to this pass.

The same malaise of reckless spending, a good deal of it on armaments in this case, brought down India’s all-weather friend, the mighty USSR. That too in the self-same 1991.

The friendship endures with the rump, which is Putin’s Russia.  President Vladimir Putin, an erstwhile KGB man of Soviet vintage, still thinks the economic mismanagement that dissolved the Warsaw Pact, broke the Berlin Wall, and dissolved the USSR, is plain unforgivable.

He has worked on reviving some of his nation’s former glory, via several annexations and alliances with countries in the neighbourhood like Belarus, Hungary and Serbia. The ongoing special military action in Ukraine, is also part of it.

In India, it is the liberalisation and economic reforms of 1991 that has sown the seeds of a prosperity that was never imagined by socialist India.

It is true that with 1.4 billion people headed towards 1.7 billion by 2050, despite a slowing birth rate, that every one of our citizens, via the inexorable logic of per capita income, will not be well off. This, even when our dollar economy more than trebles to $ 10 trillion plus.

But yes, this country will have the third largest economy in the world, perhaps as early as 2030.This is predicated however on a judicious mix of welfarism, and growth in the GDP, by all other means. Welfarism is unavoidable with at least 400 million poor people, with over 100 million below the poverty line. But we cannot be cavalier about it.

We cannot summon our finance minister, as Sonia Gandhi summoned Chidambaram and order him to write off Rs. 60,000 crores in farmer loans, off budget, only to have another Rs. 50,000 balloon up in just one year. That sort of monkey business didn’t work for Idi Amin’s Uganda, and it certainly won’t work for us.

We cannot really afford to have backed down on farm reforms that would have put money, perhaps even doubled and trebled the income of the small farmer, because of pressure from rich farmers in Mercedes Benz SUVs. But we have. And there’s the danger. The wolf is never that far from the door.

The suicides of poor farmers go on unabated. The rich farmers and commission agents pretend to have won the day for them, when everyone knows it was nothing of the sort.

Socialism of the irresponsible kind that wants to give tax payer money away to the poor, particularly in our perpetually overspending and indebted states, is touted as equity and justice politics. Politics of the people. A people, largely illiterate and poor, not familiar with the laws of economics, but armed with the universal franchising vote. A freebie is well understood. How the government pays for it is the government’s business after all.

And yet, in such a system, where the poor are handed sops, the productive forces, the rich, inevitably get richer. They may be a very small part of the overall population, but it is they that grow the economy.

To make it count and not let all the riches fritter away in non-productive expenditure, there have to be laws against making free with tax payer money you don’t have. And the politics that blackmails the Centre for unrealisable promises. It may be a good way to arouse the rabble. But this is abetment to anarchy, a lack of integrity, and not democracy.

Prudence and good economic management insists that AAP style conjuring of  pie-in-the-sky bonanzas must be outlawed and nixed. Unfortunately, the temptation to use ‘jumlas’ is something the BJP is also no stranger to. Jumlas are not designed to deliver. Is that the answer? Otherwise, who will bell the cat?

(1,411 words)

April 4^th, 2022

For: Firstpost

Gautam Mukherjee