Game-Changer Battles In The War For India

Game-Changer Battles In the War For India

Which narrative is going to work with the voters? Is it the positivity of  Prime Minister Modi’s health insurance scheme, aimed at 50 crore of the poorest of the poor?  

Or is it Congress President Rahul Gandhi’s high decibel accusations of corruption at the highest level of government in the Rafale fighter deal?

Can a corruption allegation, even if it is mostly a charge of crony capitalism, resonate with the voting public?

Is the Congress and Communist call for a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe, or exhorting the Chief Vigilance Commissioner (CVC) to confiscate the Rafale files, in the national interest?

Particularly since the weapons configuration on the 36 ordered fighter jets is a secret between seller France and buyer India, and one that both Pakistan and China are keen to learn about?

Another possible motive of the Congress, quite obvious to many, is to deflect attention from several corruption and tax evasion investigations, involving the top echelons of the Congress leadership. Creating a hullabaloo over Rafale, they are probably hoping, will muddy the waters in their favour.

This campaign rhetoric has already been going on for some 4 months without gaining much traction, but the Congress and its president seem highly committed to keep up the pressure.

However, since the principal opposition party seems to have no hard evidence in its possession to substantiate its ever wilder allegations, a legal offensive against the government appears difficult.

Meanwhile, a thousand people had already availed of “Modicare” as the international media would have it, with its echoes of Obamacare, in the first 48 hours since launch.  

The ambitious and gargantuan scheme is more properly called the National Health Protection Scheme (NHPS). It is also being referred to as “Ayushman Bharat” and lately, the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Abhiyaan (PMJAY).

Modi himself dubbed it a game-changer, implying that this is a  non-discriminatory, “sabka-sath-sabka-vikas” horse, that he intends to ride into victory.

The NHPS is slated to benefit 10.74 crore families at first, thereby an estimated 50 crore people, with a fully government funded health insurance cover of up to Rs. 5 lakh per family per year. It will cover secondary and tertiary care inclusive of hospitalization. It will, at full stretch, cover a population comparable to that of Canada, Mexico and the US combined. And it will certainly boost the healthcare insurance industry to unprecedented levels with an attendant growth in jobs.

The  Congress, and some other opposition elements, have been quick, perhaps out of a foreboding panic, to cast doubts about  the feasibility of its funding and implementation, calling it a “hoax” and an election season “jumla”.

The PMJAY is ten times bigger in terms of cover, than existing healthcare schemes for the poor in some states, no greater than Rs. 50,000 per family. However, this scheme, like almost any other, does not cover as many poor people as some of the dissenting states would like.

And as usual, despite healthcare being a state subject neglected by most for over 70 years, some dissenting states want the Centre to take on more than the 60:40 cost split of it. They have suggested 75: 25 instead, and demanded inclusion of many more numbers of people in their state.

Let us see how swiftly this massive and countrywide scheme rolls out.  It has been accepted by all in its present form, except for Telengana, Odisha, Kerala, Punjab and Delhi. However there are signs that these states too may soon come on board if their comments and objections are addressed.

And also because they will not want to be caught on the wrong foot if PMJAY succeeds as expected by the government.

Nandan Nilekani, of Infosys fame, who was instrumental in building the Aadhar infrastructure and the Goods and Service Tax Network (GSTN), has been asked to work out the distribution for NHPS by Niti Aayog, the government’s primary think-tank. As he has the requisite experience to handle such a huge scheme, and has accepted the challenge, good outcomes may be anticipated.

The opposition, out-classed on this initiative, is in any case finding it difficult to come together owing to differences between its various leaders and their priorities.

The only thing they theoretically agree on is that they want to remove Narendra Modi from the prime ministership.  For some, like Congress President Rahul Gandhi, anyone else in BJP will do, if push comes to shove.

In terms of a policy beyond this, the opposition seem to have found nothing  to project. The Congress promises to dismantle GST if voted into power while being ambivalent on its own leadership role. Irrespective, it says it will grant special status to Andhra Pradesh. It loses no opportunity to malign and  cast aspersions on the RSS ,sides with the separatists in J&K, and the Maoists in Central India too.

Another opposition stalwart and PM aspirant Mamata Banerjee of TMC, highly dependent on her Muslim vote bank, never tires of calling the BJP communal. She professes determination to oppose the work of the National Citizens Register (NCR) in Bengal, deeply rattled by its implementation in Assam.

Significantly, Dalit leader Mayawati’s BSP has recently formed her own alliance with expelled Congressman and tribal leader Ajit Yogi in Chattisgarh. She has, by this action, sent out a signal that she will negotiate hard for the requisite number of seats to contest in other states as well, or possibly go it alone.

BJP, on its part, is definitely feeling the heat of a weakening rupee, high oil prices, a skittish stock market, a persistent NPA problem, a moribund property market, low export levels, a high import bill, widening fiscal and current account deficits, little private sector investment, and other economic challenges brought on by the global scenario.

Will it pull off any other bold initiatives like the Triple Talaq Ordinance in the remaining months? Can J&K be trifurcated into 3 union territories? Will the long- awaited temple at Ayodhya commence its construction?

The sense one feels however is that these things will probably have to wait, because the government does not want to unleash unforeseen forces at this late juncture.

But, politically, it is still in a better position to pull off a victory in most of the assembly polls coming up, and in the general elections of 2019.

If a second term does come about, it will usher in the first government that is not Congress or Congress led, to be in power for a consecutive decade.

Narendra Modi has often stated that he wants to transform India. Some of the work is done. All of India’s villages are electrified, high level corruption has been eliminated, the North East of India is now in the mainstream, infrastructure has been given a massive push, the administration and systems have been largely digitized, Indian diplomacy and foreign policy has been refurbished, the economy has been revived from its lows.

But of course given another five years, many pieces of the unfinished jigsaw  will be put in place- housing for all, smart cities, rural infrastructure, food processing and value addition, more of India’s armaments made in India, an economy doubled to $ 5 trillion with all its attendant benefits, a modernized railway, inclusive of dedicated freight corridors, bullet trains, and many more metro systems around the country.

This is therefore the last chance of the opposition to return the country to its own comfort levels and it seems certain that it knows it.

(1,239 words)

For: My Nation

September 25, 2018

Gautam Mukherjee

Aadhar Has You On The Grid

Aadhar Has You On The Grid

The Supreme Court is due to take a final call on the limitations to be imposed on Aadhar in the light of its earlier ruling on Privacy as a fundamental right. And, of course, its interim ruling, permitting it to carry on doing its job.

It seems improbable, given the pace of the Judiciary, that this important judgement will be handed down in the next few days during the remaining tenure of the present Chief Justice Dipak Mishra.

This is pertinent only because CJI Mishra is perceived to be inclined to the ruling government view that Aadhar is an important means to put every legitimate citizen on the grid, and should be allowed wide-licence to operate.

However, his designated successor, Justice Gogoi, due to take over after October 2^nd, is expected to take a more nuanced view, given his reportedly left- liberal leanings. He was one of the four senior-most judges of the Supreme Court that rebelled against the  current Chief Justice, and held an unprecedented  press conference at the Press Club of India in New Delhi, challenging the CJI’s right to allocate cases to “junior judges” as the “Master of the Roster”.

Being a constitutional matter, it will, of course, be decided by a fairly large bench, hopefully allowing for different views to be expressed and considered, as part of its composition and process towards a final judgement.

Of course, parliament has been made supreme since the Emergency in the Seventies, and will, if necessary, have the legislative last word.

There is a considerable clamour from the Opposition, sections of the media, and the Left-Liberal element at large, that Aadhar should be revoked, or failing this, made voluntary in all cases. This, rather than mandatory in given instances, or indeed universally, as is demanded by some others.

Given that the same Left-Liberal element supports the case for “Urban Naxals” out to murder the Prime Minister being referred to as “Freedom of Expression/Human Rights Activists”. And refers to Islamic terrorist organization members, such as those in Hizb Mujahideen, as mere “workers”; not a lot of support can be expected from such quarters.

Aadhar is more or less essential today to access most goods and services, make investments, buy assets, or file taxes.

This will remain as a “voluntary” requirement no matter what the judiciary pronounces, short of scrapping and undoing the enormously expensive exercise that has already been completed. This, going by the interim  judgement, and the national interest, is extremely unlikely.

It is therefore a mystery why the vilification campaign against Aadhar persists with dark innuendoes of a fascist, “big-brother-is- watching” intent. Will the government use Aadhar to target dissidents or just the terrorists and illegals? Will it use it to monitor everyone’s financial dealings to catch malfeasance, or blackmail those it wishes to intimidate?

It could, of course, well do all these things, and other governments, including Democratic ones, have been known to do so, and more. But nevertheless, isn’t it necessary, this kind of threat, at least in part, to keep the good, law abiding citizen safe and secure? Hasn’t the crooked element, the gamer of the system, the criminal, the cheats, forgers, thugs, terrorists, illegals, seditionists, spies, the treasonous, and so on, got away with impunity, despite being in plain sight, and for much too long?

The government, in the interim, has more or less assumed that it can make Aadhar mandatory and ubiquitous, though there is a preceding, if perfunctory, “voluntary acceptance” clause.

There are a lot of illegal aliens, the subjects of the NCR mappings, however imperfect, conducted in Assam so far. That illegal aliens also have Aadhar cards is a worry, but  not a problem that cannot be solved via adequate cross-referencing of other data like ancestry and settled domicile to establish citizenship.

The dimensions of the illegal aliens problem is large, at an estimated 5 crore people, and poses a substantial security and demographic risk/threat. Particularly when they are also allowed to vote on the strength of their genuine identity papers but obtained by questionable means.

This commonsense argument against, outweighs the so-called humanitarian angle towards illegal “refugees”. It outweighs also the economic argument, from those who would have soft borders, as if we were a budding EU, rather than a country besieged with two hostile neighbors. The biggest of them, in fact, in cahoots with each other, and growing their influence with other minnows in the area as well.

This despite a more or less constant subversion and terrorism, sometimes using networks of illegal aliens, many of whom are from the minority community, hard to ferret out from minority ghettos, and easily radicalized to boot.

And then there is the more cynical aiding and abetting of illegal aliens to bolster vote banks in border states such as Bengal, alter demographics altogether, as in  Assam and other North Eastern States, and even plant Rohingyas all the way across, in Jammu.

But quite apart from the fate of Aadhar, the electronic and digital mapping of individuals and their secrets, in the age of nearly a billion smart phones in use, is so widespread, that the Privacy argument, in practical terms, is already dead in the water.

The biggest tangible success using Aadhar so far has been in the direct disbursement of subsidies via authenticated bank accounts of the poor. Because it has rooted out many false identities, middle men, and duplications from the system, thereby saving the exchequer crores of rupees, it does not agree with those who were milking the earlier system.

It is necessary to note however, that the data on Aadhar apart, the government is within its constitutional rights to conduct  various forms of surveillance to protect its   integrity in terms of National Security.  

Biometric data is the incontrovertible proof of individual identity. This has long been known and applied in the issuance of a number of European visas as well as in other sophisticated security systems gateways.

The United States, the oldest Democracy, even as India is the most populous one, has long collected and used  Aadhar style data via its Social Security numbering system. It also has covered almost every square inch of its territory via satellite and terrestrial surveillance cameras. Things on the move are tracked too via GPS and other systems. Even facilities underground, or in the deep sea, are monitored today. There is therefore nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. Similar methods and devices are used all over the world in all kinds of political systems.

Despite this, there are security breaches, electronic data hackings and subversion, while ever more sophisticated anti-hacking and anti-data theft systems are being constantly developed.

India has little choice, in a globalised world, but to follow suit. This is a Digital Age and the analog argument cannot hold water any more.

Of course, it is understandable that the stripping away of the erstwhile power to manipulate data to suit oneself is a massive change in the game that is hard to digest for some. Wanting to go back to paper ballots is part of this longing. As is the attempt via outfits like Cambridge Analytica to use personal data clandestinely to influence elections. 

International hackings into military hardware, banking systems and political data banks is also potent enough to develop crack units to conduct Cyber Warfare in turn.

The Digital Age is throwing up its own challenges, to be sure, but there is literally no going back.

Possibly, the only way to stay anonymous today is to never use anything with electronics in it. But is this at all feasible for any length of time?

(1, 267 words)

For: My Nation

September 13^th, 2018

Gautam Mukherjee

Oil On Fire: The Open-Market Illusion In Statist Fetters

Oil On Fire: The Open-Market Illusion In Statist Fetters

Prime Minister Narendra Modi needs to be reminded that when he personally made the call for removing the remaining fuel subsidies, at the beginning of his tenure, he made no mention of imposing fresh indirect taxes on fuel.

Of course,   even in the erstwhile subsidized regime on fuel, the tax collections on sale of fuel far outweighed the outgoings.

The impression given by Modi however was that he was encouraging the free-market, and that Indians would henceforth pay whatever the international prices dictated. Tickers at the pump would be revised daily or more often, and it would be a two way street.

But did the Prime Minister think the whole matter through? Because what the public got is its fuel, no longer subsidized, and at twice the international prices!

This is proven by the rates at which our exports of refined fuel  are effected, before the imposition of a plethora of Central and State taxes! The public has been made the victim of a statist confidence trick in which the Finance Minister raised excise duty 9 times in the 50 months of this government, followed by State imposed ad valorem VAT, additional taxes et al.

And the State on its part, has done absolutely nothing, for over a quarter century since liberalization, when fuel demand began to grow as the stifling controls of the Licence-Permit Raj were dismantled.

Nothing at all, to develop a strategy to manage contingencies and unforeseen exigencies of international oil prices. This even though oil is the country’s largest import, at over 80% of its ever expanding requirement. An import that involves an estimated $87.7 billion till March 31^st 2018,  up 25% on the year before, and likely to go up another $30 billion this current fiscal. We are currently the 3^rd largest global importer of crude, importing over 220 million MT annually.

The Modi government, which the public was hoping would be a departure from the lackadaisical strategic planning of the past, has unfortunately been a let-down too.

Where was the attempt to create a contingency Oil Import Fund when this government enjoyed two years of low crude prices? Did its think-tanks conclude that international crude prices would henceforth always be low?

For the military, and as a host for other countries, India has begun to stockpile crude in underground reservoirs. But for itself, as an economy, and for the public, it has no strategic vision, apart from attempted sourcing at better prices,  and bagging oil exploration contracts abroad.

Why are there no bio-fuel refineries even though bumper sugarcane harvests struggle to find takers and need massive government subsidy and support prices? Other estimates conclude 58% of our vegetables and fruit spoil for lack of modern cold chain facilities and this waste too could also become biofuel.

India could meet perhaps 20% of its present needs for crude if not more if it had the right policies in place, implementing them with a will.

America has found its own way via high-tech shale-cracking, to become crude self sufficient and a net exporter. India, on the other hand, has been left behind by countries like Thailand, which has plenty of biofuel availability at its pumps. Union Minister Gadkari recently promised Indian biofuel by that magic year 2022, India’s 75^th as a free country. A date which appears to serve this government’s future wish-list in all matters!

Also consider that when it comes to the over 7% fall in the rupee and counting, against the dollar, the Thai Baht has fallen only 1.24%, by reducing its linkages with the US dollar. 

The government tries to justify holding the line on these rapacious fuel prices by saying the taxes raised are going into infrastructure development etc. without once being either transparent or specific. It also says it has repaid the oil bond borrowings of the UPA to pay for the erstwhile subsidies.

Highly educated apologists of the government try to keep their finger in the dyke by invoking all kinds of macro-economic scaremongering, hinting darkly at a stock market and economic collapse if the government does not hold the line.

The fact is, the stock market has lost over 2% in just two days, obviously unimpressed by the government’s policy actions, and interest rates are likely to go up too.

The suspicion remains that at least a proportion of the fuel taxes goes to pay for a bloated political and bureaucratic apparatus, that has never once, in the 50 odd months of this government, attempted any form of cost-cutting or austerity.

Instead, there have been salary and pension enhancements for itself with metronomic regularity, not once but several times- pay commission revisions, MP and MLA emolument revisions, allowance and perquisite revisions and so on.

It is time to hold the Modi government to account for ignoring the wishes of most, if not all of urban India, most affected by unprecedented fuel prices.

The CAD and fiscal deficit, the inflationary effect on everything via fuel as a vital input cost, is to be ignored only at this government’s peril. Rating agencies are already downgrading India and foreign capital is fleeing.

To be so obtuse about this matter in an election season, is inexplicable, unless the Modi government is banking heavily on the TINA factor .  

But apart from the shocking lack of anticipation, evident in  the government’s bumbling responses under attack, this vexed issue of retail fuel pricing has quite a policy history. Diesel in particular, along with its cousin Kerosene, were long thought to be a poor man’s fuel, even though heavy transport and trains used Diesel too. And so, they was highly subsidized. The limited Kerosene in use today continues to be so.

Petrol came next, but in the old Swadeshi/Socialist days, there were only a restricted number of cars and two-wheelers produced, and waiting lists for new ones ran into years.

Aviation fuel and aircraft parking charges, were, and still are, outrageously priced in India. It is still treated as a luxury item that facilitates air travel by the rich.

Gradually, over a decade after liberalisation, people could not only buy freely and “off-the-shelf”, from a wide selection of transport options, but banks eagerly financed them with affordable EMIs.

As cars, motorcycles, scooters, grew in number alongside trucks and buses and expansion of the rail, metro, road, waterways, aviation, port sectors - the subsidies on fuel started to burgeon. Successive governments struggled to finance the fuel subsidies, and increasingly on LPG for the poor, as the gas finds off-shore made it available. The LPG direct subsidy to the poor is the largest remaining chunk still operative.

As the predecessor governments started to both raise prices and take subsidies off in miniscule doses, the consuming public was not unduly upset. It started with the more elite petrol and aviation fuel, and then expanded gingerly to diesel, kerosene and LPG too.

International crude prices raged high through most of UPA I & II, and prices of fuel in India crept up steadily.  But it is only now that the free-floating pricing from the oil marketing companies and not the Petroleum Ministry, plus choke inducing government taxes, have resulted in hefty, daily upward price revisions!

Today, the Central and State governments do occasionally tinker with fuel prices by up to 3-4 rupees, fearful of public anger, but this is far from adequate to control the Frankenstein monster a lack of foresight has created.

To sacrifice the micro in favour of confusion over macro economics, is an old BJP failing. It resulted in ending the tenure of AB Vajpayee, despite his failed “India Shining” re-election campaign in 2004.

And now, seeking approbation from FIIs, WB, IMF, international rating agencies like Moody and Fitch, is seemingly being given priority over working for the relief of the Indian people.

There is, in addition, probably a confused socialism at play. The BJP seems content to ignore the aspirations of the urban masses and classes, even though it forms almost half the electorate, in favour of a mythic solidarity with the rural hinterland. Is this not over confidence gone horribly wrong?

The BJP, says its Party President Amit Shah, expects to win handsomely in 2019, and rule for another “fifty years”.

But how does clubbing an opportunistic Opposition agitation for a cut in fuel prices, with the genuine demand for relief from the hurting, angry masses, help in the reelection endeavour?

(1,397 words)

For:  The Sunday Guardian

September 12^th, 2018

Gautam Mukherjee

BOOK REVIEW: TRAVELS ON MY ELEPHANT BY MARK SHAND

BOOK REVIEW

TITLE: TRAVELS ON MY ELEPHANT-AN INDIAN JOURNEY

AUTHOR: MARK SHAND

PUB LISHER: THIS EDITION:SPEAKING TIGER PUBLISHING PVT.LTD,2018.

FIRST PUBLISHED BY JONATHAN CAPE 1991,PUBLISHED AGAIN BY ELAND PUBLISHING LTD. IN THE UK, 2012

PRICE: Rs. 299/- FOR THIS EDITION

A White Knight For The Endangered Asian Elephant

Mark Shand, overflowing with an endearing, if aristocratic, noblesse oblige, British upper-class, was the late brother of  Camilla, Duchess  of Cornwall, the future queen of England.

After an epic journey through rural Odisha, as newly trained White mahout, atop his female Indian elephant, christened Tara, he wrote this wonderful book that captivated the world.

It was published first in 1991, became an iconic bestseller, won Shand the Travel Writer of the Year Award. It became the purpose, via his Charity, “Elephant Family” which evolved from this journey, of the rest of his relatively short life.

It is however a toss-up between being a book about travel, camping, rivers, ponds and architectural monuments on the way, and the relationship between Shand, his educated Marathi companion Aditya, his frequently drunk mahout teacher Bhim, a couple or three other assistants, Gokul, Idrajit, Khusto, and the very expressive thirty odd year old elephant.

The elephant, in particular, scrawny, under-fed, injured from ill-fitting leg irons, is rescued by Shand when he buys her for Rs.1,01,000 when that meant 4,000 pounds sterling.

There is also some of an Englishman’s musings over the onward progress of a beloved former colony, a patchwork of social and cultural history, and amusing anecdotes and conversations with the people Shand met along the way. Of course, he keeps saying how well everyone, particularly in officialdom, treats him and his entourage. And well they might, given his own eminence, that of his exalted friends, and the officials, including the police, tasked to help him along the way.

Through it all, there is a genuine eagerness to learn, contribute, and share, that sparkles through the narrative. This was one “Raja-Sahab” who wasn’t afraid of laughing at himself and the sight he presented.

There he was, stripped to the waist, bandanna on head, rocking on his cushioned howdah,  callused and bleeding bare toes used to steer the elephant from behind its ears. Shouting out bravely, doing the best he could with Hindustani mahout commands.

From a life of begging and party tricks, going largely hungry for half the year when it wasn’t being used at weddings, Tara gradually develops an unmistakable mischievousness, dignity, and grace under the ministrations of Shand and party.

Time and again Tara escapes, particularly when being given a bath, and has to be coaxed back with the intuitive moves suggested by Bhim the senior mahout, sometimes, even after going AWOL for a night or two. And so, they travel, at a pace of perhaps 4 miles an hour.

Mark Shand, died in 2014, at the age of 63.  But before he passed on, he had already raised more than 10 million pounds sterling to help the survival of the Asian elephant, under pressure from growing urbanization and destruction of  its habitat.

The money has been used, mostly in India, to relocate and resettle people living in the jungle and to facilitate the creation of elephant corridors so that the pachyderms can move about freely from one protected forest to another.

It all began with the journey described most engagingly in this book. A progress through rural Odisha, from near the Sun Temple at Konarak, facilitated by current Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, a personal friend of  Shand’s, to the elephant fair at Sonepur, in Bihar.

At the Sonepur Mela, both master Shand, and Tara the elephant, by now deeply loved by Shand, are terrified at the prospect of selling Tara. Providentially however, Shand is able to gift Tara to the Wrights, old India hands, of Tollygunge Club fame, who were at the fair because they needed an elephant for their resort and reserve, Kipling Camp, in Madhya Pradesh.

Shand kept tabs, and went, more than once, to visit Tara, whom he credited with saving his “life”, presumably from the pursuit of non-stop hedonism. He is recognized by the elephant and finds her well looked after, content, every bit the pampered princess. “She wakes up, eats, sleeps, swims, has a massage, eats and then goes back to bed-day in, day out”.

It is not as if Mark Shand did not try his hand at various adventures. He went to Bali to sail a yacht to retrace an old romance starring a WWII pilot called Tyler, who settled with many apsara like local wives on an island called Renill - but unfortunately in the face of a typhoon. And then, there were travels on the moody Brahmaputra.

But in retrospect, it is animal conservation- mainly the Asian elephant, that became the nub of Mark Shand’s lasting contribution.

The relevance of this book, even 23 years after it was first published, was brought home by a recent news report on six elephants rescued by the authorities, two of them quite ill, being used illegally in Delhi by people who rent them out for weddings.  

It is, as if, nothing has changed for elephants ever since heavy machinery and tanks put them out of their primary business. Gone are the days when they moved logs, though they still might be doing so in Asia Pacific rain forests. But certainly, the days of Hannibal and Porus and their war elephants is long gone.

Now elephants are used in temple processions in South India, weddings all over the country to symbolize the God of new beginnings, and to amuse tourists.

Taking in elephants out of such servitude however, is easier said than done. Each elephant needs at least 1.25 acres of space, and lakhs of rupees to look after. They need specialised feed and care to thrive. To send such urban elephants back to the wild, apart from posing transport problems, needs a period of gradual psychological rehabilitation as well. Still, there is work that must be done, and urgently.

And yet, one can’t help thinking, here is a man like Mark Shand, sent down by Lord Ganesha himself, to make a case for the gentle giants, finding it hard to survive amongst India’s teeming millions.

(989 words)

For: The Sunday Pioneer AGENDA, BOOKS

September 9^th 2018

Gautam Mukherjee