Modi Will Win A Second Term In 2019

Modi Will Win A Second Term in 2019

It is the vainglory of ambition that provokes an ailing Sonia Gandhi to stubbornly project her electorally incompetent son as the next Prime Minister. He will, she asserts, and her servile Party echoes it, head an elusive and as yet non-existent Mahagatbandhan.

As if this is a contagion contained in a northern silo, Mamata Banerjee, a provincial satrap in the East, is attempting to make Kolkata the epicenter of Opposition unity.

There are more aspirants in the East besides Banerjee, in Odisha, and Bihar, for example, though they haven’t declared their intentions so far.

In addition, there are kings and queens without crowns, making up at least two contenders in Uttar Pradesh. One or is it two more come from Maharashtra in the West, and a couple from the South too.  

There are also, at last count, two elders eyeing the main chance if the numbers throw up the opportunity after the votes are counted.

The would-be Gatbandhan or Mahagatbandhan – will there be one, two, or none, may not have much of a policy position, besides getting rid of Modi, but is certainly bristling with prime ministerial contenders. 

There may well be two formations, if eventually there are any, because some like Chandrashekhar’s TRS want to  maintain an “equidistance” from both Congress and the BJP.

And in order to assert their claim to the top job, each aspirant is determined to contest as many seats as possible, outside of their native power bases. This naturally sets up inherent stress and strain over the seat-sharing, and makes it very difficult for the loose partnerships in the making, to produce results in the electioneering. The much cited bye-election successes of unity, may not work across the board.

The BJP is watching all this carefully but is also getting on with their business at hand. This includes as much governance as possible in the remaining time, and also the sensitive matter of seeking and probing the political space for new allies. It is however being careful to not ruffle any fresh feathers. Modi is clearly not interested in triggering any sympathy wave for those in the Opposition today.

Will the forthcoming assembly elections in three important States queer the pitch, and breathe fresh life into Opposition efforts at unity? This particularly if the BJP loses any, though it may well churn its state leadership to stave off anti-incumbency blues.

Can we give credence to the reports that suggest that the general elections may be brought forward to the winter of 2018, thereby possibly clubbing, some, if not all the similarly scheduled assembly elections alongside? The EC has indicated, several times, that it may be in favour of holding simultaneous elections.

This would tend to merge the regional and national narrative, and forge a more unified perspective, while losing nothing of the local focus in the bargain. However, some would argue that it will be difficult for regional parties to survive under this dispensation.

Having  said this, today there is only one truly national political party extant,  because the Congress neither rules significantly in the States, nor has a large presence at the Centre.

Others are indeed one state regional parties, virtually ignored outside their home states. Though it is often argued that a vibrant Opposition is essential, judging from the present composition of parliament, this does not have to necessarily go hand-in-hand with significant national presence. For decades, Congress ran a virtual one-party rule, because the Opposition, was both weak, and fragmented.

When INC stopped obtaining majorities, it leaned on the Left to both promote a mutually accepted brand of socialism, and to give itself much needed stability in government.  And then came the coalition era, arrested by the Modi win after 30 years.

Today’s NDA policies have retained the emphasis on uplifting the poor, as in the socialist past, and indeed millions have been lifted out of abject poverty. In fact, with healthy GDP rates obtaining from the mid-eighties onwards, the process has been accelerated, to the extent that despite a population of over 1.3 billion, India no longer houses the maximum number of the very poor.

In a policy departure from the Congress ruled past however, the nature of help given to the poor has changed, from massive, if leaky subsidies and handouts, to a more sustainable form of development. This includes facilities and infrastructure in areas that have been neglected for long years, and yes, better targeted subsidies.

The BJP is working hard, with some good results so far, on an updated version of self reliance which is encapsulated in its Make in India initiatives.

While Prime Minister Narendra Modi never tires of listing the government’s many achievements in almost every speech he makes, the important takeaway is that the NDA has a policy line, and is doggedly implementing it.

The Opposition has little beyond a desire to remove Modi in particular, and the BJP/NDA/RSS combine in general. This is a tremendous weakness. It makes it very difficult for the voter to entrust the government to it. Why the Opposition does not realize it needs a policy vision is a mystery. It considers its job is done by issuing a dozen or more manifesto documents before the elections, and a common-minimum programme after, in the event it  is in a position to form the government.

The logic that is being applied is that of the compelling arithmetic of their strength in combination. But, surely it realizes that election voter behavior is an emotional response from the people to the options before them.

Modi is much better placed than the disparate or combined Opposition to sway the voter in his favour. This despite the fact that the Opposition has a large number of  well-known leaders. They are almost all seen to be power-hungry and corrupt.  

Modi is much ahead because of his personal popularity and integrity, despite his government’s failure so far to deliver on many of his promises. The pulse of the people seems to suggest that they are willing to give Modi more time so that he can implement more of his vision for the country.

Today, in a neat reversal of fortune, it is the so-called secular Opposition which is seen to be divisive and violent, anti-national and seditious, deeply frustrated to be out of power.

It is trying very hard to create trouble , exaggerate and highlight negatives, and portray the government as inimical to the “Idea of India”. But at the centre of its psyche, it is terrified of being relegated into insignificance, or land up in jail, should Modi win again.

Though what we have is a thriving democracy despite its pitfalls - in an era of relentless 24x7 media coverage, combined with a very savvy social media, no artificial construct can withstand immediate scrutiny.

More than a billion cellphones, many of them smartphones, keep people informed on the move, and the Indian voter, traditionally well-informed even in the old radio only days, is able to make up his own mind.

He is also less amenable to being herded and intimidated, though perhaps easier to bribe. Elections today are enormously expensive affairs for more reasons than one.  

Apart from domestic policy, in which “Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas” has been the Modi leitmotif, despite propaganda to the contrary, Modi’s foreign policy success is something the nation is justifiably proud of.

After the somnambulism of the past UPA decade, India is very much on the map once again at the forefront of nations.

The UPA left the economy in a looted shambles in 2014, at its lowest growth point in a decade, and the NDA has nursed it back to a measure of health now.

However, the massive NPA’s in PSU banks are an advertisement for what could  happen once again, if a rapacious Mahagatbandhan get their hands on the loaves and fishes of office!

Let us assume there are two kinds of politicians- those who seek power in order to make money, and those who genuinely want to serve the people. While the BJP/NDA cannot be viewed in terms of absolute probity, it is clear where the bulk of the crooked reside.

The Opposition may be good at fooling itself about its prospects, but cannot do very much to fool the public. Modi will win again in 2019.

For: The Sunday Guardian

(1,387 words)

July 24^th, 2018

Gautam Mukherjee

BOOK REVIEW: APEX HIDES THE HURT BY COLSON WHITEHEAD

BOOK REVIEW

TITLE: APEX HIDES THE HURT

AUTHOR: COLSON WHITEHEAD

PUBLISHER: FLEET/HATCHETTE INDIA, PAPERBACK, 2018

PRICE: Rs. 599/-

What’s In A Name?

The prestigious New York Review of Books calls this book by Colson Whitehead written in 2006, published in hardback first in 2007 by Anchor Books, “A brilliant , witty and subtle novel”. And in this instance, it fits the bill exactly.

It is a story of a young man who creates brand names for products and even places looking for a makeover. The protagonist’ s fancy  work name is, a little improbably: A Nomenclature Consultant.

However, the name of anything or anyone, the reader will realize, goes a tremendous length of the way to the future success or failure of that which it adorns. It is not an easy thing to come up with. It is a gift if one can do so with some flair, and encapsulates insight, catchiness, recall, aspiration, promise, reassurance, freshness and many other intangible things.

Colson Whitehead, the author, who lives in New York City, has written seven previous books, the last of which, called The Underground Railroad, won the Pulitzer Prize and the American National Book Award in 2016.

The striking and highly visual turn-of-phrase Whitehead employs with such apparent ease is a constant delight in this slim volume.

For example, he describes an “establishment” by writing: “that dressed itself in rustic sincerity,” but, “where expense crouched behind the subterfuge of calligraphic price tags”.  

And again, elsewhere: “the tallest building on the square, the looming accusation”. There isn’t a page in this 212 page paperback that does not reward the reader with this kind of style and mastery of the use of language.

You don’t read a book like this for plot, though there is a slim plot in it. There is an unsentimental poignancy:“The  things you name go on without you” says the protagonist, who does not care to reveal his own name but goes on at length about the necrosis he developed in a toe. It had to be amputated but it all began with a neglected stubbed toe. The protagonist limps, and his toe hurts all the time. This limp and missing toe is a metaphor for his personal struggle as a solitary, if brilliant misfit, that has difficulty walking.

The social commentary in the novel is sometimes banal, but also subtly fascinating and humorous. It constantly paints a picture. There you see the quirks of small town Middle America, its somewhat stifling rigidities, its inelastic Community, the individuals bracketed by that context.

This is central to the novel because that’s where Whitehead sets it, in the town of Winthrop. A town that is looking for renewal, a new image, a surge of visitors and business, only, maybe. Not everyone in the Community is not on board for the new name.

There is a frowning Black barman who makes a powerful if indeterminate Winthrop Cocktail, at the oldest building in the town, its hotel. 

The protagonist calls him Muttonchops. He says: “I’ve worked here ever since I was a boy. Used to have a shoeshine over in the men’s and that’s where I got my start. Liker my father and his father. And then they moved out here, behind the bar. They were bartenders behind this very bar and now I’m here too. My family goes back to the first settlers. This was a colored town once. Founded by free black men and women, did you know that?”

The title of the book then- Apex.  The protagonist describes it: “the summit, human achievement, the best of civilisation, and of course, something you could tumble off of, fall fast”. But “Apex was a name you could rely on”. And like Band-Aid, it hides the hurt- that is the hurt of its history, or is it histories? And it is how he covers his hurt toe also.

The protagonist had a stipulation before he took on the job of finding a new name for Winthrop that skirted around New Prospera, Freedom, and even Struggle, especially Struggle, that seemed to encapsulate the work and lives of its original free black settlers.

Then, much later, came the White Winthrops, with its various sections of the family enterprises and their opinionated executives and advisors.

The protagonist’s original stipulation, before he goes down on the bus from New York City, said that the town had to keep the name he came up with unilaterally, after all his research and investigations were done with - for a year. This, even if some in the decision-making positions did not like it.

The protagonist didn’t expect to get the job after this demand, but the clients agreed to it quite readily.

The protagonist describes the name America, after Amerigo Vespucci, to give the reader an insight into how he thinks and comes to a decision: “ He couldn’t argue with America. It was one of those balloon names. It kept stretching as it filled up, getting bigger and bigger and thinner and thinner.What kind of gas it was, stretching the thing to its limits, who could say. Whatever we dreamed. And of course one day it would pop. But for now, it served its purpose. For now it was holding together”.

Eventually, he leaves an envelope “at the front desk” addressed to the City Council. Whitehead does not make clear what is in it. Did he call the town Apex or did he call it Struggle- “the anti-apex”, which he allowed “got to the point with more finesse and wit”.

“They will say,” said the protagonist to himself: “I was born in Struggle. I live in Struggle and come from Struggle. I work in Struggle. We crossed the border into Struggle. Before I came to Struggle. We found ourselves in Struggle. I will never leave Struggle. I will die in Struggle.”

He leaves after depositing the envelope, heading for the bus stand with his luggage , showing the middle finger to Muttonchops in his bar as he passes.

Apex- probably not. Struggle it is.  Memorable, isn’t it?

For: The Sunday Pioneer, AGENDA, BOOKS

(987 words)

July 21^st, 2018

Gautam Mukherjee

Politics As Make-Believe

Politics As Make-Believe

Is Politics about reality or perception?  If both, then is it led by perception as reality catches up after a lag, or is perception the entire game afoot?

Is yesterday’s news as stale as yesterday’s reality – in our short-span-of-attention times? This is a TV generation via satellite, brought up on drama, the telling visual, and rank opinionating just as much as reportage. Print and the digital word tries to make deeper sense of things, but how many bother to read reasoned arguments?

And if it is perception that is paramount, is its sole purpose to retain and enhance power? Or even create an opportunity where none existed? Contradictions, misinformation, unkept promises, U-turns, unconstitutional behavior, soft sedition, anti-nationalism under the guise of freedom of expression, everything, and anything, goes.

US President Trump has been taking his executive use of power to unprecedented levels as the international media watches in consternation. He has taken studied and demanding postures at NATO asking its constituents to pay their fair shares of the associated expenses. A demand that has never really been made, ever since Captain America helped a shattered Europe and Japan back on to its feet after the end of the WWII.

In Britain, its so-called ‘oldest ally’, Trump has shown his disdain for its messy and inept handling of its Brexit ambition. He returned its bad manners on petulant display during his recent visit, by hardly bothering with the protocol associated with its 92 year old queen.

The UN too was earlier put on notice about ponying up the money for its various expenses, in a manner quite similar to the broadside at NATO.

The aggressive stance has marched on with continued and enhanced trade sanctions on China, to right by this method a huge and stubborn trade deficit. Nothing done by previous administrations has persuaded or fazed the one-sided trade practices of the Chinese. Trump has also shown the flag to North Korea with some preliminary results towards its defanging. And ditto in the South China Sea, that is, after all, an international waterway, and not China’s exclusive stretch of sea seen as private pond.

Similar tariffs have been threatened and even started in for Europe, now contemplating big taxes on US imports of BMW and Mercedes cars.

Canada, that got by on neighborliness thus far, has also been asked to mend its advantage-taking and  freeloading ways.

Mexico of the “wall” is on notice and under pressure from the latter days of the Trump campaign itself. The Wall is still in Trump’s mind as opposed to under construction, but he’s not joking on illegal immigration and trade practices inimical to US interests.

Trump has also refused to worry about the dictacts of the WTO. He has walked the US out of the Paris climate talks too, even as the twitterspace is ablaze with suggestions that he may be insane and /or senile. However, Trump’s personal confidence is immense, and he gives as good as he gets in terms of the abuse.

Is all this disruption then designed to change everything at once?  Or it it merely aimed at getting Trump reelected to a second term? If his voters stay strong, does he have to care about any other force? Sanctions against China, for example, were said to have hurt American farmers who export their produce through value-adding intermediaries to China. But, they seem content to stick with Trump despite Chinese predictions to the contrary.

The red-necked Middle American Caucasian, the typical Trump voter, likes his style, and credits him with fulfilling his election promises. They think he is a welcome departure from the professional politicians, with or without billions of dollars like Trump, that have been POTUS before him - from either Party.

The Opposition Democrats, much of the left-leaning media, are mostly aghast and wondering how to deal  with this very different style of politicking. And indeed, the two houses of Congress have been rendered into helpless spectatating.

Trump makes his unexpected and unpredictable moves at considerable speed, in his highly personalised manner, and they don’t know what to do, particularly because his voters seem to be sticking with him.

Here at home, Narendra Modi plays it a little differently. He has fulfilled only a fraction of his copious election promises. And has no apparent difficulty in making bushels of new ones too. He seems to not care whether Parliament functions as long as the Opposition gets the blame. He has done little for his erstwhile core constituencies and gone after the vastness of the poor as a substitute. But, his popularity ratings are still in the Seventies. The biggest business houses are in his corner with open wallets.

The Opposition, on the contrary, is disunited, despite its pretensions, and unable to make a dent. There is property damage, bloodshed, death and propaganda, but no gains politically for the Opposition worthy enough to put them back in the saddle.

Modi is clearly seen by the masses as its best bet in 2019.  He is perceived to be an honest man in a highly corrupt political space, and the public is determined to trust him. He rides much above his often hapless Party and its fringe groupings, along with his trusted Party President Amit Shah in tandem.Both enjoy the solid backing of the parent RSS and its formidable organisation.

Dissidence within the BJP from the side-lined LK Advani camp cannot touch his popularity. The criticism of the Opposition led by a shrill Rahul Gandhi and Mamata Banerjee, and their out-sourced trouble-makers, is seen to be coming from corrupt and self serving politicians. Besides they are mostly dynasts from “family owned” political parties.

There are more Generals than foot-soldiers amongst them, each with a separate, difficult-to-reconcile agenda. There is no-one credible to take on Narendra Modi. Old war-horses with ill concealed ambitions may say never die themselves, but don’t really stand a chance.

Traditional efforts to divide the polity along religious lines, once attributed to the Advani-Vajpayee led BJP and the RSS by the so-called secular ruling parties, is fraying at the edges. Now even the Communists are climbing onto the Hindutva bandwagon!

Even Muslim unity in terms of vote banks is under potential threat as the BJP works to give power over their own fate to Muslim women. Congress and others are seen to be favoring revanchist Muslim/Christian attitudes, upheld solely by their men and their priests/maulvis.

Real work, apart from infrastructure development that does not talk back, in terms of bringing economic offenders to book for example, is being given a soft touch by the Modi government.

This, perhaps because it is wary of creating any kind of sympathy wave when it is clearly enjoying “advantage Modi” with a fast growing economy to boot. The same may be said about a long list of unrequited hopes- education, health, jobs, security, all mostly given the go by.

 This, as the Opposition, whose track record is no better, tries to coalesce around a cause, any cause, with sufficient traction.

Winning and winnability is everything in electoral politics. And the perception is that Modi will win again in 2019 against an Opposition that is far from united.

(1, 194 words)

For: My Nation

July 19^th, 2018

Gautam Mukherjee

BOOK REVIEW: THE PRESIDENT IS MISSING (A NOVEL) BY BILL CLINTON & JAMES PATTERSON

BOOK REVIEW

TITLE:  THE PRESIDENT IS MISSING - A NOVEL

AUTHORS: BILL CLINTON & JAMES PATTERSON

PUBLISHER: CENTURY-PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE UK, 2018

PRICE:  13.99 POUNDS STERLING IN FLEXIBACK

A THRILLING AND PACY SAGA OF CYBER WARFARE

This is a first novel from the former two-term President of the United States Bill Clinton, in collaboration with James Patterson, who holds the Guinness Book record for the most no.1 New York Times bestsellers. Patterson has sold over 375 million books worldwide.

Why has the former POTUS co-authored this novel? One, because of his obvious drawing power, and second, because he knows first-hand the intricacies of how the US government and White House works. It lends the novel considerable plausibility of course, even if it has been imbued with a preachy- let’s build a better world quality- that more morally ambivalent thrillers might have excluded.

But it is highly relevant to our times, because its subject matter is echoed by an increasing number of alleged cyber-warfare news reports from all over the world.  In reality, bank accounts have been emptied. Aeroplanes have mysteriously crashed. Identities have been altered. Vital defence software has been compromised or stolen. National elections, most recently, the election of President Donald Trump has been allegedly influenced by Russia.

Russia and China are indeed rumored to be the aces at this form of 21^st century warfare via the internet of things(IoT), and the “dark web” even as America   and others scramble to catch up. Without an effective counter to this breach of systems, the helpless vulnerability of the electronic universe is starkly exposed. Of course, each level of threat is superceded by fresh challenges further down the pike, but as a problem it is here to stay, and this novel highlights this fact.

This even as the over simplification of the cyberthreat in this case is often reminiscent of a popular quiz programme, with its young techies and search for a clue dynamics.

Patterson keeps the narrative gripping with consummate skill throughout, and the book is certainly a page-turner.

The main proposition is that a deadly virus, developed by Islamic terrorists, The Sons of Jihad, could bring every internet-based system in the US and everything elsewhere linked with it, to a standstill. That means all financial records and backups, the electrical grid and transmission disabled, ditto the water purification systems, dead cellphones, defence and nuclear weaponised equipment  beyond the reach of its prompts and commands and so on. 

All the software could be deleted, rendering all computer systems, cloud storage and back-up systems lobotomized and turned into vapour and plastic shells.

The thriller in the book is in how can it, code-named “Dark Ages” by the protagonist and his core investigative team, be stopped, or fooled? The principal protagonist is the fictional President Duncan, who sets about personally thwarting the plot, playing hero to the Jihadi villains led by a shadowy Suliman Cindoruk, his name anglicized to a T.

And of course, there is a high profile mole or two in the US government. When they are outed, can they be punished, or will the political fallout be far too great? Are there echoes of this democratic dilemma here in our own country when it comes to bringing high-profile political figures down to custody on criminal charges? There is however, no point ruining the reader’s delight with any more detailed revelations on the plot.

There is cyberterrorism centre-stage, but also old fashioned assassins to shut the mouths of those in the know of the string-pullers behind the scenes. As well as Secret Service operatives and Commando to stymie and remedy their doings. All this, accompanied by the plethora of resources such as surveillance cameras, helicopters, drones and Hellfire missiles, that any militarily mighty US administration can bring into play. There are the German and Israeli heads of government appearances in conference,  top-level stoic Russian denials of skullduggery.

The Russians are not only the usual suspects with their Iron Curtain era dreams of bringing down the United States, but in the end, the novel stars the amazing Poirot-like detective skills of the storybook President himself. Also, the amount of intelligence the fictional President can ingest on the move is formidable. Not only is he in Bruce Willis style Die Hard action continuously, but his brain is ticking over making sense of the puzzle and providing accurate and effective leadership. 

This with an armed forces background and heroic combat action in early life. But now, a debilitating disease, kept under wraps from the public, has ruined the President’s platelet count. It renders him fuzzy and dizzy even as he solves problems through his mental fog like an Einstein. He is however running on fistfuls of steroids, and that may be the secret of his being able to stay on the job.

However, all the detective work President Duncan of the book puts in, is not all that convincing. Presidents of the United States have to be finely-tuned political animals to reach up to the pinnacle, yes. There is little room for much else, even from their previous lives before politics took a hold. For them to be Hercule Poirot  and Miss Marple simultaneously is decidedly far-fetched.  Still, winning the cyberwar, not single-handedly, but certainly as the captain in the captain’s chair, shoots the fictional President’s popularity ratings from 30% up into the eighties.  

Is this then, a true top-drawer thriller?  Who financed the Jihadis? Was it a disgruntled faction of the tentacular Saudi royal family? What did it hope to achieve- again a rather naïve notion that “destroying” America was destroying Israel in the West Asian theatre too, as if it was a two-for-one McDonald’s combo. And who hired the assassins? Would it be the diabolical Russians after all?

There is a widowed father as President and an only daughter for the emotional quotient, some bad judgements and betrayal of trust added v in to keep things real and prevent the fictional President from tipping into paragon of virtue territory.

Last word- the cyberterrorism theme is timely in this readable book, so why quibble about the implausibilities of the plot?

For The Sunday Pioneer  AGENDA BOOKS

(983 words)

July 8, 2018

Gautam Mukherjee

The Energetic Modi Doctrine Has Rejuvenated India's Place In The World

The Energetic Modi Doctrine Has Rejuvenated India’s Place In the World

The first 100 days of a newly elected government are its honeymoon period. AB Vajpayee in his boldness and wisdom went nuclear-weaponised within days of taking over at the head of a bulky coalition.  And this, along with The Golden Quadrilateral system of highways, has probably become the Vajpayee government’s lasting legacy.

The nuclear weaponisation of India was certainly a tipping point, thrusting it into the leading ranks of nations with a “credible deterrence”. It also put paid to Chinese inclinations to seriously dominate India. This, while also keeping nuclear Pakistan (which followed suit with a slew of its own nuclear tests), at bay.

President Clinton and others may have slapped economic sanctions on India in the aftermath, but at home, Vajpayee walked on water. Vajpayee had done what no Indian Prime Minister before him had dared to do. But Vajpayee took the risk, changing India’s status into that of a select few nations who could make and deploy nuclear weapons. Today we have a triad capability- we can launch from land, sea and air, simultaneously if need be.

Based on Vajpayee’s bold move, predicated on Indira Gandhi’s “peaceful nuclear test” of years before, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in UPA I was able to  get India waivers from the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) with promises of the requisite technology/fuel/spares on an ongoing basis.

This, in order to buy and install multiple and “clean” nuclear power plants in a power hungry country. India was acknowledged as a responsible nuclear power that had no truck with proliferation, with the help of President George W Bush.

It is only now however that two Russian made nuclear power plants have been operationalised at last. The ones from France, and ironically, America, have not fructified yet. India, meanwhile is working on its own Thorium based reactors as there is a large supply of the fuel in country .

Meanwhile India is still trying to join the NSG as a full member, but is being stymied by China, because the induction must be unanimous.

But if nuclearisation was the big game- changer in Vajpayee’s term, the equivalent in the Modi government is a completely revamped and reenergized foreign policy. In four years, it has yielded substantial dividends, including the highest level of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in India’s history.

Modi won in 2014 with a thumping majority and promptly invited the heads of SAARC to his swearing-in ceremony. Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan attended, along with almost all the others. And, there in one fell swoop, the Modi Doctrine was born, even before the ink was dry on his signature in the Presidential ledger.  

Narendra Modi had, by inviting the regional assembly, already signaled that he was going to revive and hopefully transform India’s approach to its neighborhood.  True to this intent, and many other global bilateral and multilateral goals, Modi has worked on his foreign policy with zeal ever since.

He leads from the front, globe-trotting frequently, with his able Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj bringing up the rear with a remarkable human face and a concern for the humblest Indian worker stranded or in trouble abroad. She, in turn, works with her twin Ministers of State – one a former Army Chief, and the other a renowned Journalist and Editor.

This phalanx, ably assisted by the professional foreign service( IFS), and the National Security establishment spearheaded by the National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval, underlines the importance this government attaches to its international links.

Narendra Modi has carefully built upon old relationships with major countries such as Russia and the United States, but moved away from the old UN General Assembly non-aligned block and the post-colonial Commonwealth, despite the continuance of CHOGM.

He has replaced this with a more flexible and dynamic bilateralism, inclusive of many countries in Africa and West Asia. Our relationship with Japan is at an unprecedented zenith. Modi was the first Indian Prime Minister to visit Israel on a State Visit, and this has been warmly reciprocated. This, even as relationships with the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Myanmar,  Australia, are better than ever before.

At the same time, there are collectives and multilaterals that Modi has enthusiastically joined, most for the first time, including ASEAN, APEC, the EAS, the ARF, as part of the nation’s “Act East” policy.

Others are of course, the G-20, G-8+5 with the developed West,   the regional BIMSTEC that works better than SAARC, the G4 which tries to help each other become permanent members of the UNSC even as the UN loses more relevance everyday.

Closer to home, there is the very important BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and so on.

There are security related international organizations India has recently joined- the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), the Australia Group (AG),  and the Wassenaar Arrangement- these latter by invitation only. And guess what, China has not as yet been invited.

Soft power  initiatives like the World Yoga Day that was just celebrated on the Summer Solstice are unique Modi initiatives that have been well received. His constant harping on the scourge of global terrorism has resulted in much greater cooperation and sharing of vital intelligence between nations, including Islamic ones.

At the same time, Modi has made sure that this eager diplomacy has not made India a Nehruvian pushover. It is not the statesmanship label the Prime Minister is after, but greater connectivity and cooperation with multiple nations.

Some of this follows its own script. India enjoys excellent relations with Iran, buys oil from it in the face of threat of US sanctions, and has helped develop Chabahar Port, much to the benefit of land-locked Afghanistan. But India does just as well with Saudi Arabia simultaneously.

The military stand-off with China at Doklam and the surgical strike into PoK, are illustrations of India’s resolve in the face of obvious provocation. And despite a willingness to cooperate with China, there is no joining  of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) that runs from Xinkiang through Indian PoK all the way to Gwadur in Balochistan. Other Chinese attempts to encircle India on the high seas via Sri Lanka and the Maldives are also being countered.

Modi has lately also held one-on-one informal summits with President Xi Jinping of China and President Putin of Russia. More may follow, as it is a very good way of setting mutually beneficial agendas without ambient noise getting in the way. India’s blistering growth rate of  7.4% p.a. in a sluggish world economy, is pushing it towards the top.

The Indian diaspora around the world, and there are few places on earth where Indians cannot be found, is ecstatic. At last an Indian Prime Minister has recognized their salience and contribution. Modi’s considerable oratorical skills, his obvious pride in his country and its 125 crore inhabitants, makes for an inspiring tableau wherever he goes. And the fact that he still enjoys a 70% plus personal popularity rating at home is both impressive and heart-warming.

All in all, the unalloyed success of the Modi Doctrine, could have it go down in history as his best work, despite all the domestic initiatives taken and to be taken as yet .

(1,195 words)

For: New Start Up via Surajit Dasgupta

June 22, 2018

Gautam Mukherjee

Who's Afraid Of Narendra Modi?

Who’s Afraid of Narendra Modi?

Going into election mode in 2013, and winning, with the first majority in 30 years in May 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi projected himself as an incorruptible Robespierre-like figure, strong, clear-headed. He promised to shake up the Indian political firmament.

The voting public expected a fresh start and a renaissance rolled into one. The much talked about 56 inch chest was a symbol of the muscularity in governance that was anticipated.

The reality, since, has been somewhat less overwhelming. Surprisingly, and to his detriment, Modi as Prime Minister has made bold to disappoint almost every section of his admirers.

Beyond the invariably fiery rhetoric and the pleasing spectacle of our Prime Minister being treated well and with respect wherever he goes, little has happened that touches ordinary lives for the better. The Modi “Bhakt” is still stubbornly loyal, and consistently hands him 70% plus approval ratings saying he cannot be expected to do in five what has not been done in fifty. But this too could evaporate by the 2019 general election, especially if the BJP loses another state or two in forthcoming assembly polls.

As the only pan-India vote-catcher in the BJP, with only a motley crew in the supporting cast, it is astounding that he prefers to wag his finger at the electorate rather than addressing its needs.  

There is a yawning credibility gap. We are told here and in the cities of the world that the Indian farmer now has ample neem-coated urea. Cooking gas and electricity has touched the lives of lakhs of the poor. Bank accounts, mass medical insurance have come to millions, as has micro-lending to the pakoda seller, etc. . The Aadhar card registration drive has exposed much fakery amongst the takers of government subsidies and saved crores. The implication is that the bottom off the pyramid has been squarely addressed.

Why then don’t the rural/urban poor really think so. Why have prices of almost everything gone up for the housewife with new taxes that have been slapped on?  

His Finance Minister is busy managing the macro economy and there’s the real rub. Fiscal and current account deficits, foreign exchange reserves, and so on, are much better, but what has it done in tangible terms for the man in the street?

Many BJP voters, unwilling to vote for the other side still, have taken to sitting at home, as bye-poll results in Gorakhpur, Phulpur and Khairana in Uttar Pradesh have recently demonstrated. Even if there was no Opposition unity, would the BJP have won? The same thing happened in Rajasthan in a straight fight with the Congress, and, most tellingly, in the hard fought Assembly Elections in Karnataka. Despite pulling out all stops the BJP fell just short of a simple majority and could not cobble together a post poll alliance.

We have only seen a mild prime minister. One, curiously unwilling to rock the boat, of taking a hard line with lazy governance, wary of prosecuting, let alone jailing, the corrupt. One that lets parliament turn into a non-functioning fish market. One who shamelessly plays from the very song book of the Congress he reviled on the stumps.

What we’ve had, in reality, is a more dynamic Congress, without the high level corruption. Modi has also put through a mass of administrative reforms in the minor key, spoiling the effect by simultaneously extracting masses of indirect taxes in the name of everything, including “greening”.

There is an overarching impression that Modi won’t, or can’t, do much about many things affecting the public, including financial skullduggery, blackmail, lynching, rape and murder. There is no putting people in the police lock-up till bail is given or denied by a court. And its various enforcement agencies like the ED, NIA, CBI, the IT Department etc. and even the intelligence agencies move so slowly that it appears the prosecution of the formerly mighty is the last thing they want on their record.

There is, now, some new and some refreshed legislation on nabbing the corrupt and financially delinquent. But even though the law may be there, the efficacy is still a work in progress.

Four years on, the Armed Forces, granted their OROP demands by the Modi government, continue to be ill-equipped.

The traders and SME segment, long time BJP adherents, are yet to receive a single benefit. Instead they face sealings, fines, higher taxes.

Likewise, the middle class BJP supporter, who has had little beyond a direct tax cut, traded for onerous GST on all things, VAT, etc.

There have been no mega bold steps except GST and demonetization. The latter has helped damage Opposition finances for the suddenness of its implementation, but, in retrospect, that is about it. Cash in circulation is once again double that of November 2016. Digitisation has also increased, but not by as much as it was hoped.  

There are no new jobs in numbers hoped for, no defence manufacturing to write home about, next to no privatization or private investment, meagre exports, a languishing stock market - also bedeviled by fresh taxes. The real estate market is languishing, even as talk of smart cities swirls and eddies.

There is not even a single substantial Hindutva move made, unless cancelling the Haj subsidy is to be counted. There is a mess of three steps forward and two steps back in the Kashmir Valley. There is no effort to abolish Article 370 and 35A of the Constitution. No Ram Mandir. The judiciary is unreformed, partisan and obstructive.

Modi has indeed delivered a 7.4 % GDP growth through it all, touted as the highest in the world. The international rating agencies, World Bank, IMF and so forth like it. But, it is based solely on infrastructure spending.

Other programmes, such as the much vaunted Swatchh Bharat, financed by yet another cess, inclusive of its rural toilet-building programme have not worked very well.

Free-float fuel minus subsidies has been handled scandalously. As global crude prices were halved and quartered, the fuel consuming public in India were taxed to the nines.

Is it too late therefore for Modi to reclaim his credibility? It would certainly appear so, given the huge overhang of unfulfilled promises. Modi may therefore rely on the TINA factor alone to see him through. And, given the contours of the proposed mahagatbandhan, he may be right. However, it still leaves a feeling of being cheated, and raises some doubts about his future performance too.

Modi might very well win with the able support of Party President Amit Shah and the legions at the command of RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat. Still, because of the non-delivery and the mildness, his stature is much diminished. Nobody is afraid of Narendra Modi.

The same question was applied to Virginia Woolf, an English author of the 1920-1940 era, used as liet motif in Edward Albee’s hit play of 1962.

The play, and the movie that followed later, starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, was on marital strife. And the modernist novelist, feminist, Adeline Virginia Woolf, is actually a stand-in for “the big bad wolf”.

But the tragedy of the first term of Narendra Modi as Prime Minister is that there has been too much rent-seeking Red Riding Hood, and not a lot of the avenging Big Bad Wolf.

(1,212 words)

For: Surajit Dasgupta’s new launch

June 21^st 2018

Gautam Mukherjee

BOOK REVIEW:THIN DIVIDING LINE By PARANJOY GUHA THAKURTA & SHINZANI JAIN

BOOK REVIEW

TITLE: THIN DIVIDING LINE-India, Mauritius And Global Illicit Financial Flows

AUTHORS: PARANJOY GUHA THAKURTA with SHINZANI JAIN

PUBLISHER: PENGUIN PORTFOLIO, RANDOM HOUSE INDIA, 2017

PRICE:Rs. 599/-

The World of Hawala, Tax-Havens, Round-Tripping, Anonymous P Notes & The Vexed Question of Tax Competitiveness

There are a   plethora of almost no- questions asked “Tax Havens” both onshore and offshore, across the world. Many have been there for a century or more. Much of the money flowing through them is not necessarily ill-gotten, but seek to take advantage of the tax avoidance opportunities proffered. This naturally to the detriment of the taxation authorities in the  country of actual residence.

 However, global as the issue is today, what tickles and tantalizes people in India, are estimates that $62.9 billion or Rs. 400,000 crores is secretly stashed by Indians abroad by way of illicit funds.

This book is something of a companion primer to a documentary of the same name, concentrated quite largely on Mauritius. The authorities in Mauritius have framed their laws and practices in a way that there is no wrong doing as far as they go. Nevertheless, the “Mauritius Route”, with a double tax avoidance treaty, has been controversial since 1982, when Indira Gandhi was Prime Minister. The treaty lay dormant for almost a socialist decade, and was only operationalised with the advent of India’s liberalization in 1991. PV Narasimha Rao  was Prime Minister –assisted, of course, by his economist Finance Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh.

Soon, 40% of all foreign investment into India, now in many billions of dollars and mostly into the equity market, came in via Mauritius. How much of it is really Indian money turning white from black? All of it has been 100% exempted from capital gains tax for decades.

A clarification was issued to the Central Board Of Direct Taxes (CBDT), by the Finance Ministry when it was inspired to interpret the terms of the treaty differently in 2000.

The CBDT in its wisdom, tried to tax the capital gains of Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs), High Net Worth individuals (HNIs) etc. despite the Double Tax Avoidance Treaty with retrospective effect. That is, for all the years the FIIs and others using the route were active in India! This naturally raised a hue and cry and the then Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha was forced to intervene. The clarification issued  during the Vajpayee government, said that if an FII was able to establish its “tax residency” in  Mauritius, (which anyway did not have any capital gain s tax itself), then the CBDT could not tax it in India.

But all along the line, there had been criticism of the Mauritius treaty by large domestic institutional investors (DIIs), for creating an uneven playing field albeit to attract foreign investment. This view was echoed by Left-leaning economists, bureaucrats, lawyers, and politicians. It was seen by them to favour FIIs using the debatable argument of “tax competiveness” vis a vis other countries.

This too changed after the global economic crisis of 2008, when the prevailing sentiment underwent a sea- change. Now most developed countries began to call for an end to “tax havens”, because of their allegedly deleterious effect on their domestic economies.

India too decided to go in for a change under the Modi government which has mounted a fairly serious effort against black money, hawala, round-tripping using tax havens and so on.

It has gone ahead and renegotiated various avoidance of double taxation treaties, starting with Mauritius in May 2016. India imposed a withholding tax of 7.5% of capital gains for those using the Mauritius Route for the two years till 1^st April 2019, when the full tax rate of 15% will be applied on foreign investors on par with domestic ones. That is, from financial year (FY) 2020.

For the moment, India’s level of taxation is most competitive, and the move has been generally well-received, mainly because most developed countries have imposed a 10% tax on capital gains presently. After this, India went on to amend its tax treaty with Singapore which was also on similar lines.

However, many FIIs claim that the currency exchange rate risks of operating in a emerging market of about $ 2 trillion market capitalisatiion with the rupee constantly depreciating,  puts them at an additional disadvantage.  

It is difficult to say whether round-tripping of massive hawala funds is really all that bad. Despite the obvious money-laundering, the alternative is that all the money sent out of the country via hawala, fraudulent invoicing and other means, never comes back at all! 

This thought might be behind the government’s reluctance to ban anonymous participatory notes (P Notes), that are accommodated by the registered FIIs. Efforts to regulate and tighten the regulations concerning them have been tried in 2004, without much evident success.

The question of tax residency however has been made redundant. And companies using the Mauritius Route henceforth have to put in Rs. 27 lakhs into the equity of the Mauritius companies they set up. This puts paid to operating via the erstwhile “shell companies”.

The alleged abuses that have involved this infamous route are a morass of legal conjecture, litigation, arbitration, and elevation to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). That clumsy attempts at tax realization from Vodafone and Cairn Energy, some of it retrospectively, has damaged India’s reputation is undeniable.

Author Paranjoy Guha Thakurta is a prominent media person and educator. He has sharply-honed journalistic and investigative abilities. Guha Thakurta’s prose is lucid as he tackles a somewhat dry subject despite its cops and robbers undertone. He also has a proper grasp of the economics and evolving regulatory framework involved. This is, of course, not his first joust with the world of fast-and-loose Capitalism in book form.

His young collaborator on this book, Shinzani Jain, comes in for fulsome praise from Guha Thakurta himself . Again, Jain, who is studying for a Master’s Degree in Sociology, writes articles for a number of print and digital media offerings, and has co-authored another book on the related subject area of black money, cronyism and the damage it is doing to the Indian economy.

For: The Sunday Pioneer BOOKS

(976 words)

June 9, 2018

Gautam Mukherjee