Sprucing Up The Augean Stables At The BCCI

Sprucing Up The Augean Stables At The BCCI

The mighty BCCI, its constituent state cricketing associations, its sidekick the IPL are beleaguered- conflict of interest situations, nepotism,  cronyism, illegal betting, sex-on-tap, Great Gatsby style partying, big bang sponsorship deals, match-fixing, spot-fixing, money-laundering, black money; all in the context of big power and bigger bucks, and oh, it’s all about playing top class cricket too.

But yes, there are entire teams still under a shadow in the IPL, national teams too bored, jaded, and plain tired, to play test cricket for their modest fee paying nations. The viewership has been dropping as fans have grown disillusioned with rigged matches and listless performances.

There are several international players under investigation in the aftermath of government probing into payola  and sleaze. Some players, caught out, too ashamed to bear the scrutiny, have even committed suicide. This even as others, of a more brazen temperament, have weathered the storm and been exonerated.

All money, it seems, corrupts, but absolute torrents of money corrupt absolutely! But yes, what a lot of fun is had by one and all in the know.

The Indian government is presently trying to recall former IPL Tzar Lalit Modi, who nearly unseated his former mentor, the CM of Rajasthan Vasundhra Raje. He also threw quite a bit of mud at Arun Jaitley, the finance minister, at sundry Congress appointees in the BCCI/IPL, at Sharad Pawar, the Mahratta strongman at the helm of the NCP, and, of course, badly dented Congress smoothie Shashi Tharoor, as    well as his late wife Sunanda Pushkar.

Lalit Modi is ensconced in a Raje family mansion in London, and periodically,  in parts more exotic, such as the French Riviera, Montenegro, Brazil, Monaco, Portugal etc.

So, the best of luck to the Indian government in trying to catch him against his will.  L. Modi would, however, as he says quite often, come back in a flash, licketysplit, if he is given Z plus plus protection, and promises of a piece of all his enemies and tormentors. But that would mean I am starting a fairy tale here, given the powerful company this Modi keeps.

But at the moment, the cricketing universe, fans, players, staff, administrators, impresarios, cheerleaders, is holding its collective breath, on the will there be or won’t there be a Pakistan India Test series played in Sri Lanka very soon.

This, even as the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), needs the series badly to fill its empty coffers. Still, citing security reasons, it does not want to play in India, thinking it could perhaps be held in the familiar environs of the UAE instead.

But venue apart, the PCB quickly agreed to the series, backed promptly by  Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who also offered ‘unconditional’ talks on the eve of his departure for climate talks in Paris, knowing he will meet our prime minister Narendra Modi there. And now he has; and we can all wonder what they spoke about.

The wealthy and influential BCCI knows the excitement and money these India-Pakistan matches would generate, and Manohar has applied to the Indian government for permission to proceed.There is talk of truncating a test match from five days to four, even three. Ravi Shastri, former cricketer, potential coach, Indian team director, functionary of the BCCI extraordinaire, is advocating it.

After all, any India-Pakistan test match, or even a short form fixture, tends to be the most viewed sequence of cricket matches on earth. Television and the sponsors love it. TRP and viewers likewise. It is generally believed you can’t ‘fix’ this particular rivalry beyond a point.

If the government of India agrees to this joust, and who knows, in the humility induced by the post Bihar election drubbing scenario, it well might, now that  the opposition Congress has already declared for it. This upcoming test series has been proposed to be held in Sri Lanka; and if it takes place, promises to bring a financial windfall to the island nation as well.

Picking Sri Lanka as the venue suits the regional cricket diplomacy of the freshly appointed  Shashank Manohar, enjoying a second term after four years,   as the new president of the BCCI, with two years to go, and the spot as chairman of the ICC also his, for another six or seven months.

His predecessor, the redoubtable N. Sreenivasan, was ousted, at last, first in favour of the late Mr. Jagmohan Dalmiya, and now, Shashank Manohar from Nagpur.

From the political outside, the Congress party wants the Indo-Pak series to be played, in a volte face  of its former position, and new attempt to separate cricket from politics. The Shiv Sena on the other hand, has been vocal in bluntly stating that any such India-Pakistan test series would be disrespectful to all the martyrs of Pakistani sponsored terrorism. A terrorism, they gratuitously add, that shows no signs of abating.

The union government has not, as yet, given its assent, and it is thought in some quarters, that it will not agree under the fraught circumstances in tense India-Pakistan relations. Others say the decision to allow it has already been taken, and will be announced early, very early, in December.

Shashank Manohar, lawyer turned administrator, appointed/elected president by the board of BCCI this October, has quickly set to work. An early announcement from him spoke of resolving conflicts of interest between the BCCI administration, players, and staff, and the appointment of an independent ombudsman to keep the lines untangled in future. Manohar has a clean image, bolstered by his earlier stint in the same job, and much is expected from him. He, in turn, has asked for a mere two months to ‘clean’ things up.

Meanwhile, wearing his ICC hat, he has already embarked on a misstep. Manohar has suggested that the rejigged dominance of India, England and Australia in the ICC, engineered in part by predecessor Sreenivasan recently, was not fair to other cricketing nations.

This, in a move reminiscent of Jawaharlal Nehru turning down the UNSC permanent membership, when it was offered to India first, way back in the fifties, sending it spinning towards Mao’s China instead.  Present day China, of course, is not in the mood to return the favour any time soon.

But Manohar, citing his own convoluted logic, wants to give away the hard won Indian advantage before the ink is dry. This even as the BCCI is in line to receive 22 per cent of the ICC revenues generated going forward.

Manohar’s rather enigmatic attempt to curry favour with the very many other cricketing nations, though promptly applauded by South Africa, is not likely to be remembered by the gallery of beneficiaries going forward. After all, no good deed goes unpunished.

So let us hope that Shashank Manohar’s gush of egalitarian sentiment will be ignored, and nothing  more will come out of his less than well thought out international initiative. But he is welcome to sort things out at home and make the cricket clean and worth watching again.

For: Swarajyamag

(1,161 words)

November 30^th, 2015

Gautam Mukherjee

Questioning Indian Secularism & Socialism After Overhauling Macaulay

Questioning Indian Secularism & Socialism After Overhauling Macaulay

The spider weaves the curtains in the palace of the Caesars; the owl calls the watches in the towers of Afrasiab.

Sultan Mehmet of Turkey on his conquest of Byzantium from the Romans after 1,123 years and 18 days of their rule.

November 26^th 2015, the first day of the Winter Session of India’s parliament, was marked as Constitution Day, simultaneously remembering Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar in context of his year- long125^th birth anniversary celebrations.

The Union Home Minister, Rajnath Singh, in his speech,  implied the need to revisit the 42^nd amendment to the Indian Constitution that inserted the words ‘secular’ and ‘socialist’ into the preamble.

The Home Minister said the word ‘secular’ is being grossly misused today. The chief author of the Indian Constitution, BR Ambedkar, felt that India is inherently secular and therefore felt no need to spell it out.

Mrs Sonia Gandhi, president of the Congress party, now in opposition, agreed that the intent of the Indian Constitution was to assert India’s essential secularism. She defended the need to have the word explicitly inserted into it. She also laid claim to the very thinking behind the drafting of the constitution on behalf of the Congress party, implying the BJP were interlopers and recent arrivals.

The broader point now is not in the original intent, but in the need to examine afresh what these two words might mean today for the people of India, and for the future.

And herein may lie the basis of conflict between the ruling BJP and the opposition Congress, apart from the usual struggles of power politics.

The one, apparently wants to change the narrative, and the other is determined to cleave to meanings as they have been for long years.

Secularism has been dubbed ‘pseudo’ and code for ‘minority appeasement’ in certain quarters, while any attempt to redefine or reinterpret it has been seen to be ‘majoritarian’ and ‘communal’ in other camps.

The new debate, virulent as a virus, particularly on electronic media debates, print media editorials, and succinct social media posts, is raging in India.

Socialism, read the interests/welfare of the common man/poor, overlaid with tones of  being moral and correct, versus Capitalism, seen by some as making the rich richer/crony capitalism. But, as we tread over this watershed, is the route to take, a subsidised, unsustainable deficit financed polity of millions, or one that strives to generate more opportunities, income, and jobs for all?

The other hot potato is the attempt towards redefining secularism; seen, ironically, as almost a sacrilegious attempt to change its moorings.

One side does not want any understanding of the word ‘secular’ changed to represent a uniform playing field for all, in the interpretation if nowhere else, let alone the travelling towards a uniform civil code.

And yet, viewed through another prism of democratic evolution, this debate may represent the movement from adolescence to adulthood, a coming of age for the people of this country. Yet, the reactions from many quarters seem to be ringed around with fear of a lurking, rampant, majoritarianism.

It may be a good and hopeful idea, harbingering the inevitability of change, at this confused time, to remember another shibboleth that slowly changed over time.

The posh Indians with an Oxbridge education from pre-independent times spoke funny. Their accents were nominally upper class English, but somehow over-enunciated. It was the strain of remembered preservation surrounded by the saltier cadenced speech of multiple Indian languages.

The foreign accent was nevertheless a valued acquisition. It announced their Brown Sahib sensibilities, and suggested they should be taken for English. Too bad it was a trapped, piggy-in-the-middle sound, likely as not, to not always ring true. It wasn’t, after all, underpinned by the insouciance and sliced vowels bred by the white man’s burden and the privileges of empire.

Unfazed, irrespective of paradoxes and contraindications, this top rung of Macaulay’s children, the ‘loyal natives’, believed completely in the British way, just as he intended them to. They were, carried into the independent 1960’s and seventies, the neo-colonials you couldn’t ridicule into silence.

On desi shores, these accents, their accompanying mannerisms, the cold weather clothes, the liking for Worcester Sauce and breaded sausages, the studied ignorance of ‘native’ culture, were all of a piece.

The mercantile banias on the other hand, who were often richer than these pretenders, laughed up their sleeves. But seizing opportunities for profit being the bania way, they scraped and bowed with professional gusto, letting the Brown Sahib think he was as good as the genuine article, and simply over-charged for such affectation.

The home-grown English speakers, those educated in our government and private institutions with their sprinkling of poignant white missionaries and Lord Jimming educators, were largely condemned to a second and, it must be said, third, rung of Macaulay’s  intended edifice.

These English speakers, the species going back over a hundred years, were letter perfect meal ticketers, persons who read English as a ‘foreign’ language, and thought in other, altogether more comforting mother tongues.

These people, much more numerous since the 1830s when Macaulay introduced Indian-English education, composed the rich seam of out-and-out babudom.

Babudom that has been lampooned but persists, with their ‘preponing’ preponderance towards ‘doing the needful’ and by their super-heroic ‘swinging into action’.

Caricatured, but unconcerned, is the babu, now  migrated into the 21^st century, having grown up generation upon generation with derived ‘power’, waiting for discretionary ‘orders’  from  ‘ higher-ups’.

Babu, on the third rung of this tyranny of how one spoke English, didn’t care about being bested by the ‘mixed up’ produce from our home grown public schools. What were they after all: sing-song hybrids, syntax shot through a tarka of gas/coal-fired steam? Nothing pucca about it.

Banquo’s ghost at this table was indubitably Anglo-Saxon-Norman English. The rest, Scots, Irish, the Welsh, in the Indian experience, were ‘Tommies’, low caste, and not fit to emulate.

They were familiar enough in the bazaars and kothas, in Rudyard Kipling and John Masters’ books, speaking their pidgin, and dipping their wicks. Dipped they were into the same inkpots as the natives. Sometimes this introduced a sprinkling of blue and grey eyes, to take on, where the Greeks left off.

But, for the native Oxbridge set, it was an unchanging England, a fancied, Bertie Woosterised period between the wars, with surviving notes of High Raj Victoriana and pre Great War bucolic. And, later, troubling lashings of Harold Laski from the LSE.

On the khaki side of the fence, there was a Sandhurst-IMA variant, complete with bottle-brush moustache, harrumph, tweed, and cravat.

Time, they used to say, moves slowly in the colonies.

Then, stirrings, as the world began to change. ‘Sentiment’, as they also say in the stock market, shifted. Socialism became shop-worn. Class, that caste-wealth-birth triumvirate, was much dented, scratched, holed.  The new, up-to-date was to be part of a sarkari ‘reserved’ model, but you had to be born to it.

Colour too, in this most racist of countries, went in for a makeover- ‘wheatish’, became seen as contrast to fair and lovely, and not automatically ugly.

Ethnicity was now chic, and the big fat Indian wedding bested most. Consumerism grew hip. Colonialism went camp. It’s the tradesmen who use the front entrance now because they are the ones who keep people in business.

Meanwhile, the accented Oxbridgers went obsolete, even the doughty specimens who occasionally made plummy foreign ministers. Instead, our once minister of everything, and now the president of the republic, Pranab Mukherjee, speaks with astoundingly rounded vowels, and doesn’t worry a bit. Oxbridge is now more useful as entry code in class-ridden Britain, than it is in India.

The current-dayers go to Harvard and Yale, their claws sharp and their accents drawn tight on a Yankee leash. On the way back, standing under Nelson and the pigeons on his hat at Trafalgar Square, they can watch parcels of Patels, Noons, Mittals, Pauls, Hindujas and Tatas sweeping by. And none of them worried a whit about their broad Jinja or Jullunder or Navsari or Chennai or Bengaluruspeak. They even have a good deal of that caucasian insouciance aforementioned, as if it rubbed off on them like whitewash.

And so, we’ve arrived at the digital age, brought on by resurgence, our place in the sun, a smaller world, technology, interdependence, money.

Life has become a multispoker, overlays, blends, bhangra-reggae, tip o’ the hat. There is no need for compromise. The information highway is faster than any dictionary. Nobel laureates Amartya Sen and VS Naipaul; mellifluous Vikram Seth, newer claimants, with their ‘finest’ use of the English language, is certainly cause for pride, yes.

But if it’s hair you want to let down, and a voice you want to call your own, let’s talk chutney, and raise a cheer for the pioneering work of Salman Rushdie.

That exuberance, which is so Indian, has broken out of its confines and not just on the written page. But let’s look for barometers anyway. Cast your eye over the three big Bombay books of yesteryear, all with their we don’t need glossaries and italics for the goralog.

And let’s not forget the delicious desi gaalis, full-throated, immense. It’s alright for Suketu Mehta in Maximum City and Vikram Chandra in Sacred Games, huge mothers, both books. But the third tome, Shantaram was written by Australian Gregory Roberts.

Confidence has come. Everything else will follow Insha’allah, including the solution to today’s semantic and real problems, and the success of masala bonds.

For:Swarajyamag

(1,574 words)

November 26^th, 2015

Gautam Mukherjee

Modi Is Not Doing Enough To Win The Propaganda War

Modi Is Not Doing Enough To Win The Propaganda War  

The Bihar Legislative Assembly rout for the NDA, coming on top of the Delhi Assembly debacle, has many reasons. In Bihar, a most important factor was a spectacular consolidation of the opposition mahagatbandan vote.

It is undeniable that the BJP was not able to read the mood of the electorate, and performed poorly as a consequence. But it is also losing the propaganda war to the opposition in general, and this too, without a proper fight.

Apart from the daily media and opposition slamming that has become routine ever since May 2014, the Bihar election is a microcosm of all that has gone wrong on the electoral front.

This, even though the Delhi election was no slouch in terms of mishandling, over confidence, changing horses in mid-stream, infighting amongst the contenders etc.  

Tellingly, there has been no course correction between the two elections despite a gap of several months.

There were a number of unnecessary and provocative statements made by various people in the BJP, the NDA, the RSS, the Sangh Parivar during the Bihar elections.

From outside, conflicts with the government line in the FTII and censor board, its line on cow slaughter, a shrill ‘intolerance’ campaign, accompanied by   a sudden Awardwapsi protest, all surged and died as soon as the election was done with.

While all of it had the makings of a ‘manufactured protest’, the government was unable to counter it, till almost the end of the five stage Bihar election. When the BJP sponsored counter-blast, finally surfaced, it was a case 0f too little too late.   

Then, what has since turned out to be a ‘personal enmity’ murder at Dadri of a Muslim father, and the beating up of his son, was blown up as a ‘beef’ issue, and projected as a communal lynching, provoked by the BJP.

The ruling party of course did itself no favours, with its culture minister rushing to Dadri, only to make a number of insensitive statements. Other stray murders were woven into the media narrative, while wilfully ignoring killings of Hindus and even members of the Sangh Parivar.

The specifics, naturally multiply when there is something at stake, but it is clear that prime minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah, who jointly spearheaded the Bihar campaign, are suffering from an ongoing and undefended image problem.

The midas touch of Amit Shah who had delivered 71 out of 80 parliamentary seats from Uttar Pradesh, has apparently gone with the wind. Now he apparently reeks of arrogance and alleged high-handedness.

But long before this latest setback, Modi decided he did not need the high powered professional image management and public relations support that he appointed and used during, and prior, to the general elections. He must have thought so because of the strength of the win in May 2014.

So, in an ill-advised move, Modi jettisoned all of it overnight. He decided to rely on his personal charisma plus the efforts of the sarkari media  apparatus, (DD, AIR and the I&B ministry), to carry the day. He even allowed his brilliant election strategist to slip away to the Nitish Kumar camp without demur!

To expect the ‘Modi magic’ to sweep all in front of him, as it had done during the election, now in government, was wrong. Modi forgot how much professional effort had gone into building that ‘magic’. And also that he was regarded as an ‘untouchable’ for a very long time after 2002.

At first, the naked stance seemed to be work, as a number of assembly elections were won and/or governments formed, most creditably in J&K and Maharashtra.

But, simultaneously there was a mismatch between the stoking of expectations and delivery in governance.

In day-to-day working, there has been a tinkering and unexpected timidity, even red-tape, rather than the efficient Modi touch. This combined with a lack of big bang reforms has been disappointing. Even the initiatives that have seen the light of day, do not seem convincing in terms of their implementation any time soon.  

Besides, who is there from within the BJP to tell Modi where and when he and his newly appointed and largely inexperienced cabinet, are slipping?

The HRD minister Smriti Irani keeps going from gaffe to gaffe without remedy. Finance minister Jaitley is seen to be over cautious, physically unwell, and ponderous. Home minister Rajnath Singh is seen to be weak and not particularly effective. Even defence minister Parikkar brought in especially from Goa, seems to have disappeared into the maws of his ministry. Only the feisty and fast-talking highways minister Gadkari  and power minister Goel seem to be getting somewhere. Modi himself seems to be covering a lot of ground, but at the expense of governance and the fulfilment of promises.

The opposition and hostile private sector media have gone to town criticising the prime minister, his government and party. Modi doesn’t counter all this, ignoring it as so many sour grapes. The bad press flies relentlessly and unfairly in the face of the actual progress being made, being far better than that of the UPA!

But Modi has no answer for people in his flock talking out of turn. Neither does he have a damage control mechanism for all the skeletons that tumble out of ministerial and chief ministerial cupboards.

Nor did he reckon with the professionalism of the Congress onslaught once Rahul Gandhi decided to launch himself in a new improved version after his mysterious holiday. This was so effective that it completely put a stop to legislation in the parliamentary session past; and threatens to do so all over again.  

The BJP has no media houses of its own, nor is it doing anything significant to build its media muscle. It is as if it does not understand the importance of such a thing, or is deluded about its potential.

While Modi is indeed very popular on social media with over 16 million followers on Twitter, he cannot afford to ignore the magnitude of hostile electronic, digital and print media bombarding him and his government/party on a daily basis.

Modi’s image and aura is definitely suffering in the domestic sphere, though he is wildly popular with the diaspora wherever he goes. In fact, after the vicious propaganda he is subjected to at home, it must be a relief to lap up all the adulation he receives from the Indian community abroad.  

In sum however, the prime minister and the ruling party cannot afford to be helpless in the face of all this. It needs to deploy significant resources to fix and keep building its image, with a counter media narrative that is both effective and sophisticated.

For: The Pioneer

(1,108 words)

November 22^nd 2015

Gautam Mukherjee

BOOK REVIEW: Narendra Modi, Visionary Extraordinaire

BOOK REVIEW

Title: NaMo.   A Name. A Cult. A Visual Delight-A Fan’s Passionate Confession

Author: Aroop Datta

Publisher: Aroop Datta, 2015

Price: Rs. 785/-

Narendra Modi : Visionary Extraordinaire

It is not every day one finds oneself reviewing an unabashed paean of praise, even if the subject is indeed a remarkable achiever, and our current prime minister.

One who boasts of the biggest parliamentary mandate, and the first clear majority in thirty years.

Amongst the torrent of almost non-stop superlatives from the author, Aroop Datta, there are highlights from the much discussed Gujarat model.  The Gujarat model is an economic formula that is beginning to show signs of being replicated at the centre, despite criticism from certain quarters for its top down approach.

This first point being mentioned here hasn’t yet begun to happen in the other states, but the broad framework for a modernising of agriculture has indeed been talked about extensively by NaMo.

With 60% or more of Indians living in rural areas, either engaged in agriculture or in the task of providing various services to the rural economy, this 17% odd contributor to the nation’s GDP, must be reformed radically for optimum results.

Here is the statistic from Gujarat under the stewardship of Narendra Modi: ‘Over 1 million hectares of land came under drip irrigation’. This, during his 13 years at the helm, as contrasted with just 12,000 hectares in the period 1960-2001. This process, optimising the use of water, has transformed Israel, where the technology was first used extensively, that too in the desert. It is particularly relevant when large parts of the country are still rain dependent.

Land brought under agriculture itself in Gujarat, also increased from 106 lakh hectares to 145 lakh hectares. It remains to be seen what will be done nationally now, albeit via the increasingly empowered state administrations themselves.

Electricity supply has always been a favourite topic for NaMo the politician, because he clearly sees it as a prime mover of development, along with roads and other infrastructure.

Electricity provision was expanded dramatically in the NaMo years, till the entire state of Gujarat now enjoys a very creditable 24x7, profitable, electricity supply, and on an universally paid-for basis.

At the same time, Gujarat’s solar park is Asia’s largest. At the Centre too, Narendra Modi is working very hard, through his dynamic Power minister Piyush Goel, to transform the fiscal health of generation/transmission/discoms, and supply of electricity throughout the country; just as in Gujarat.

Solar power too has now got Andhra Pradesh, Telengana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh as well as Gujarat planning to execute mega solar projects of more than 500 Mw capacity each. Others are likely to join the bandwagon as the cost of solar generated electricity has fallen so that it can be sold at below Rs.5 per unit. Nuclear power too is coming on stream at a faster pace now.

Another major NaMo theme is the working to raise per capita income throughout the country. He has implied on multiple occasions that it is the key to development and prosperity, particularly when applied to ‘where a majority of global population lives’.

During Modi’s time in Gujarat as chief minister, the state had a per capita income of Rs.89,668/-, second only to  that of Maharashtra at Rs. 101,314/-. This, with a population  of 60 million people for Gujarat, as compared to 112 million people in Maharashtra, all as per 2012 figures.

Aroop Datta has made the format of his book reflective of the considerable ground the prime minster has covered in his 18 months in office, placing photographs on most of its coffee-table book pages, covering NaMo’s myriad initiatives.

Other economic points that Datta makes are the sharp fall in WPI to its lowest  level in 9 years, a reduction in trade deficit, to its lowest in 17 months, and a high level of Forex reserves at $343 .2 billion , a 47% increase for the January-April period in 2015, compared to  that of a year before. Datta’s book was published in August 2015.

The many visits abroad made by the prime minister, criticised predictably by the opposition, have nevertheless resulted in a surging of FDI. According to this book, it has grown by 36% year-on-year between April-January 2015.

It is telling that almost any commentary on Narendra Modi is framed primarily in terms of economic progress rather than political ideology, despite his early RSS background, and the efforts of the opposition to brand him communal. This naturally augurs well for the country, if Modi in turn strives to make his  inclusive and all-embracing economics work for himself and the BJP politically.

His ‘Sabka saath, Sabka vikas’ slogan is not only emotive and evocative, a good vote catcher too, but flies in the face of more divisive and majoritarian agendas that elements in his party and the Sangh Parivar may espouse.

Also, in an India that is in transition from its socialist past towards a more pragmatic market influenced future, a clash of ideologies rather than an emphasis on Modi-style pragmatism, can be deeply counter-productive.

More and more foreign commentators are excited about the economic prospects of India going forward, particularly because of Modi and his obvious sincerity of purpose. This bracketed within the context of a world economy that has slowed considerably, is particularly attractive.

With 3.5 years available to him in this, his first term of office, there is every hope and not a few green shoot indications that the pace of economic reform and dynamism will accelerate to over 8% per annum from the respectable 7.3% GDP growth expected in this fiscal.

Aroop Datta has demonstrated his complete faith in the leadership of Narendra Modi via this adulatory contribution.

For: Sirfnews

(922 words)

November 19^th, 2015

Gautam Mukherjee

7th Pay Commission Report:Equitable Pay Hike & Consumption Stimulus

7^th Pay Commission Report: Equitable Pay Hike & Consumption Stimulus

The tabling of the report of the 7^th Pay Commission appointed by the previous UPA government in  February 2014, on the 19^th of November just past, has spread good cheer amongst the central government employees.

It recommends a 23.55% hike in salaries/allowances/pensions in monetary impact terms over the existing slabs. The Commission, headed by Justice AK Mathur, has just submitted its report to the finance ministry, for implementation effective January 1, 2016.  

The government, on its part, and in its inimitable fashion, has immediately decided to set up an implementation secretariat headed by the expenditure secretary, overseen by the cabinet secretary, who will also, with the help of another committee, look at further suggestions from stakeholders.

The report specifically calls for an increase of 16% in basic salary, 63% in allowances and 24% in pensions. A pay commission is set up by the government to revise salaries allowances and pensions of its central government employees, once every 10 years. 

Annual increments, between pay commissions, have been retained by the 7^th Pay Commission unchanged, to a quaint 3% per annum!

Obviously, the government works to a different HRD rhythm from the private sector, but then its employees can’t be fired, nor held particularly accountable for lapses, delays and general non-performance.

The only solution that has been effective in other countries is to hive off all non- essential government activity to the private sector. But this too, is a veritable can of worms to implement, due to patronage systems and embedded vested interests.

But as long as one retains these lakhs of sarkari employees, it is necessary to compensate them, as near as possible, to an adequate level.

Looking on the bright side, once this set of enhancements kicks in, there will be a balloon of lump-sum arrears payments as well. These could go towards the purchase of appliances and consumer durables, of course. Some of it may well be invested as seed money towards big ticket purchases such as a primary or secondary home. This, in turn could stimulate the moribund housing industry, according to some hopeful real estate experts.

Coming on the heels of the long pending OROP promulgation for soldiers, the 7^th Pay Commission recommendations will probably help the GDP grow by a fraction of one percentage point as well.

The total disbursement against the 7^th Pay Commission is pegged at just over Rs. 1 lakh crores, and this is not expected to significantly affect the fiscal deficit either.  

This government, in an effort to stimulate the economy, which was struggling out of a low of under 5% GDP towards 6% when it took  over in May 2014, has been pouring substantial monies into infrastructure, in a classic Keynesian action.

Helped by substantially lower oil prices, reduced inflation, and some green shoots in terms of the economic revival, this fiscal is hoping to clock about 7.3% in GDP, and there is every expectation that this could rise to 8% in 2016.

The government has also been making yeoman efforts to commission many big ticket projects, stuck for want of government approvals, or finance. The prime minister personally has been canvassing fresh FDI all over the world, and this has begun to show results far in excess of the situation a year ago.

And now, here is an expected boost from the consumption side, once this extra money starts being spent by lakhs of central government employees (4.8 million serving plus 5.5 million pensioners). And also the OROP money from the armed forces veterans, against their own separately enhanced pension plans, come to fruition after hanging fire for 42 years.

Is the new minimum wage of Rs. 18,000/- applicable to the junior-most central government employee, a peon, fair for him or her to live with a modicum of dignity at today’s prices? The answer cannot be other than yes.

Indian government employees, like most all over the world, are not paid very well. Some media reports have been distorting the quantum of the revised pay somewhat, by comparing it to the minimum base of just Rs. 80/- , all of those 56 years ago.

Even after the revision, a Cabinet Secretary, the highest ranking central government bureaucrat, will receive 2.5 lakhs per month plus other perquisites, up from a very modest 90,000/- before the hike.

Interestingly, the 7^th Pay Commission under Justice Mathur has side-stepped the demand for lateral entry of experts from the private sector to the top positions being held overwhelmingly by the IAS cadre.

This might have addressed the efficiency issue that is at the centre of resentment in certain quarters when it comes to pay hikes for obstructionist, sometimes corrupt, and universally slow moving babus.

It has however recommended the introduction of performance-linked pay for all categories of central government based on key indicators, and a performance appraisal system.

This has been suggested before as well, but to little avail. The bureaucracy, particularly the powerful IAS, is apparently not interested in being made to work to any plan other than their own. The bureaucracy therefore, is mostly process driven. And it will not be easy for any power to change its ways to being focused on productivity and speed of implementation.

As usual, this quest for productivity and efficiency will have to be driven, to the maximum extent, by the political over-bosses, should they think it politic to do so, of course. Meanwhile, the babus have every reason to be pleased with Justice Mathur’s work.

For: Swarajyamag 

(909 words)

November 20^th, 2015

Gautam Mukherjee 

Stripped Naked In Fancy Clothes

 Stripped Naked In Fancy Clothes

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is off to a private lunch with  Queen  Elizabeth and yet another rock star reception at Wembley Stadium in London shortly. The latter, expected to be attended by 60,000 ticket-buying British of Indian origin.

The poor man certainly deserves a break away from his humiliations at home, and hopefully the extent of them won’t lead to any loss of enthusiasm on the part of his hosts. These are both the pitfalls and compensations of leading from the front.

Meetings with prime minister Cameron, his cabinet colleagues, and the leader of the opposition, other parliamentarians, nobs of the diaspora etc. are also part of the typical NaMo omnibus cum blitzkrieg foreign visit, now grown familiar in terms of its contours.

There will be inevitable and trademark talk of billions in future foreign investment, provided Modi can remove the hurdles and irritants that have kept them at bay so far.

The British will try to sell us things, instead, and we will probably end up committing to buying at least a few million worth. This is par for the course.

But the million pound question is whether Modi is a lame duck prime minister already, after just some 17 months in office?

Even before things turned difficult, Modi has demonstrated an unexpected timidity and caution as prime minister that was missing when he roared dynamism and spouted promises on the election trail in 2013 and 2014.

Observers and detractors have been mocking his lack of delivery for quite some time now. Lalu Prasad, who won the biggest share of seats for his RJD in Bihar, did an impressive stand-up routine on it at the hustings, mimicking Modi and ridiculing him roundly.

This was in Bihar, but also here in Delhi, in media and public discourse, the prime minister is the main target, because without him the BJP is considered easy meat. The rebooted Congress scion Rahul Gandhi spews contempt. The legion of Congress sympathisers chime in. But Modi keeps quiet and does nothing about it. The prime minister or his government also does nothing to either counter the mockery, or indeed set things right on the ground. What is the problem people think. But nobody seems to know. Is the man out of his depth?

The question now is, can Modi do anything legislative at all for the rest of his term? That is, without unacceptable levels of compromise, horse-trading, or sheer grovelling, in an attempt to garner opposition support.

Can Modi content himself with just passing only the innocuous bills, while the big ones, GST, land acquisition, labour reform, bankruptcy law reform, and others on the anvil for later, keep on hanging perpetual fire?

Has Modi been rendered as hamstrung as his predecessor Manmohan Singh as some have been suggesting by calling him MaunModi?  

Amit Shah has clearly failed twice in a row, and Arun Jaitley has not exactly covered himself in glory. The rest of the cabinet also seem lacklustre, though we are told Gadkari and Goyal are doing well. Mohan Bhagwat of the RSS seems disconnected to reality in most of his quaint pronouncements made at inopportune times.

The opposition, from within the NDA and the BJP/RSS/Sangh Parivar, and without, seems determined to box  him in, and render ineffective the first majority government in 30 years.

This is a growing and sinuous bandwagon, and include, so far, a revived Congress, Lalu Prasad/Nitish Kumar/ the Left/Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress, and the vocal and fluent Arvind Kejriwal, perhaps the BJD, and the NCP. There is friendly-fire coming from the Akalis and Shiv Sena, as well as from side-lined BJP people.

This, ironically, just as it managed to stymie the Rajiv Gandhi government in the eighties, attacking him from within and without too. This, despite the largest majority ever won by any government in independent India’s history.

Once the Bofors controversy broke cover, there was no going back. The personal targeting of the then prime minister, and his integrity, destroyed the rest of his five year term. It also turfed him out of the top job at the next  general election along with his  party.

Perhaps the Modi government will have to content itself for most of the time till 2019, not with legislative breakthroughs, but with those administrative and executive actions that do not need laws adopted or changed.

Not only was the last session of parliament a near washout, but the coming winter session beginning late in November, promises to be contentious too. It is more than likely that the opposition will up the ante and attack the prime minster directly this time.

After all, even a copiously passed law and constitutional amendment, like the NJAC Act, was overturned by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional!

Or, could it be, because a week in politics is a long time, that the BJP/NDA  will succeed in exploiting fault-lines within the opposition, and its opportunistic and unwieldy unity, as the time passes?  

Meanwhile, is there also a deeper point to make that is outside the cut and thrust of party politics?  Is there a bitter truth of the Indian political temper to comprehend? One that protects its freedoms zealously on the one hand, and cleaves to the socialist path of welfarism and subsidies on the other?

New-fangled ideas in the Indian context, of self-reliant vikas, that actually generates an income and jobs is just not generally understood or found palatable, because it does not manifest instantly like a hand-out does.

It takes too long to come about from the point of view of poverty stricken and often illiterate people, with few skills, and little ambition. It calls for many building blocks to fall into place, and others that obstruct progress to be removed. And then there is the inevitable gestation period.

Rich people, it is thought, can afford their patience. The poor can’t even see what it is that is being sought, and do not truly believe it will help them. And so, young and old, are content with hand-outs.

Modi’s 2014 elevation was a unique departure from the script, but the public who voted him in, as they never would have if anyone else was leading the BJP, expected to see a great deal of benefit accruing to them within these 17 months.

Instead they seem to have got a consistent dose of Hindutva policies, and a muddled, confused attempt at governance.

When the poor didn’t get the vikas plus ‘acche din’ as promised, they started believing the opposition that insisted that it was all a sales pitch and a confidence trick.

The vikas pitch, the principle point, chosen and aimed at the millions of youth in Bihar tirelessly by the prime minister in 30 well-attended rallies there, could not, any more, trump the age old caste tug of war.

Modi has lost most of his credibility without even realising it.

The other issues of reservation, communal polarisation, bad selection of candidates, too many seats shared with a non-delivering set of allies, etc. are the usual grist to any election mill. This muddle would have come up roses had the NDA won. The narrative always belongs to the victor after all, because everything else seems to be apologia and blunder.

Where can this government go from here after this referendum on the prime minister that now strenuously pretends it wasn’t?

Down the well-tried socialist path of course, where else, if it wants to keep winning any future elections? The line of distinction between the Congress and its friends, and the BJP and its allies, needs to blur. Any real second stage economic reform that comes about, given the current pass, will have to come, the good old Indian way, that is, by default.

The opposition, having smelt blood, is not going to ease up on the pressure.

They will, as Lalu Prasad has already declared, start an agitation from the prime minister’s constituency in Varanasi, that will resonate all the way to Delhi and Lucknow, right up to 2017.

And Lalu Prasad, who cannot be taken lightly after being the most accurate forecaster of the Bihar election outcome, wants the prime minister to resign and go back to Gujarat as soon as possible for promoting communal politics!

 It has often been pointed out, that India has grown economically, mostly through crises, and despite being let down very substantially by its policy makers.

What is clear now is that even with the best will and sincerity in the world, this is probably the truth. The future, and its treasures therefore, will have to be divined within this relative framework and set of references.

(1,434 words)

November 9^th, 2015

Gautam Mukherjee