governance, political economy, institutional development and economic regulation

Book Review: Paying the price for aid

May 23, 2018

AID

Three themes undergird the author’s exhaustive narrative of the politics around foreign aid in India between 1950 and 1975, during the early years of the Cold War — the people who made key decisions; the domestic context and, finally, the geopolitical incentives that shaped donor responses.

The deal makers

Indian officials come across as being surprisingly entrepreneurial in securing aid. Mercifully, unlike more recently, the political and bureaucratic manoeuvring was almost never for personal gain, other than managerial satisfaction at seeing pet projects fructify.

Homi J Bhabha lobbied for civilian atomic power at a time when hydro and coal-based power was the norm. P C Mahalanobis, a physicist turned statistician, institutionalised centralised planning as a scientific prerequisite for development. C Subramaniam as minister for food ushered in higher agricultural productivity via the Green Revolution. Morarji Desai as finance minister and later prime minister promoted private Indian industry and trade, an outlier view, supported by G D Birla. B K Nehru — India’s economic ambassador to the US; John Mathai and later C D Deshmukh as finance minister, economist I G Patel and L K Jha as ambassador in Washington were more inclined to look to markets, international trade, the private sector and the criticality of macro-economic stability, all of which aligned more with the United States as a development model.

Jawaharlal Nehru and later Indira Gandhi as prime minister; Krishna Menon as defence minister, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and later D P Dhar, ambassadors to Moscow; Gulazarilal Nanda, deputy chairperson of the Planning Commission; K D Malaviya, petroleum minister; P N Haksar, principal secretary to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and later deputy chairperson of the Planning Commission and T N Kaul as foreign secretary were the top decision makers who leant towards the Soviet Union.

The domestic context

But individuals became important only because they seized the moment in a given context. Nehru was opposed to be seen begging for aid. It did not fit with his ideology of non-alignment. But India needed lots of aid. With overt political alignment unacceptable, the second-best option for officials was to conspire and reassure donors, that India’s and their interests were aligned.

America feeds India

The establishment of the Peoples Republic of China in 1949 spurred America to save India from Communism. American aid funded technical assistance, community development, large irrigation and flood control projects like the Damodar Valley Corporation and credit lines for the import of machinery by private industries. The PL-480 programme, starting in 1960, provided desperately needed food grains against deferred payments in rupees. The accumulated amount equalled 40 per cent of the money supply by 1974. The US government generously wrote the largest cheque ever, of $2.05 billion, converting two thirds of the outstanding balance into a grant for India.

But disjointed Geopolitical compulsions act as spoilers

But the Indo-American relationship was an uneasy fit. The 1954 treaty of mutual security between the US and Pakistan was an early spoiler. India’s denial of an endorsement for US military action in Korea and later, in Vietnam, rankled. By 1969, interest in India waned, as President Nixon focused on resetting relations with China. In 1966, India accounted for one-eighth of total American aid. By 1975 it had dwindled to one-eightieth.

Soviet Union industrializes India hoping to strengthen Indian Socialism

Soviet aid comprised projects to build industrial capacity. This fitted Indian objectives of backward area development via the creation of model public sector factories in the “core” areas according to the 1956 Industrial Policy. By the 1970s, Indian industry had caught up, whilst the Soviet Union had fallen behind in technology and run out of revolutionary fervour. Meanwhile, enhanced multilateral, soft credit from the World Bank under Robert McNamara introduced new options to source industrial equipment commercially and competitively.

The West – aligned with fPakistan, wary of China and needing its buying power –  fails to provide arms to India 

The United Kingdom, the ex-colonial power, was best placed to meet India’s defence needs. But it was unwilling to supply arms against rupee payments. Military aid from the US for India was a non-starter, given that Pakistan was a close ally. The 1965 Indo-Pakistan war did not help. In 1971 the US-China détente prompted Henry Kissinger, secretary of state, to convey that America would not come to India’s assistance, against a Chinese attack, in response to India’s military action in Bangladesh. In comparison, the Soviets were generous – supplying military assets more modern that those supplied to China; readily accepting technology transfer and payment in Indian rupees. Consequently, the Indo-Soviet defence partnership has endured.

An informative, closely referenced read for diligent students of South Asian political economy, the author posits that India paid a price for foreign aid, which subverted indigenous institutions of collective decision-making, like the Planning Commission and the Cabinet. This assessment seems overblown. Institutions evolve and adapt. Their efficiency must be measured from real outcomes, not the stated objectives or the rigidity of the institutional framework.

The race towards assured mutual destruction in South Asia was fueled by competitive arms aid but civilian aid strengthened India

However, unregulated military aid has sparked off an arms race and contributes massively to the regional welfare loss from insecurity and high defence spend. But just as surely, civilian aid cushioned the negative impact of natural and economic shocks, boosted infrastructure and enhanced human development — all of which helped preserve the integrity of India’s nascent democracy. Individual, institutional or national egos were bruised in the process. In hindsight, that is a small price to pay, for what is today a sustainable and increasingly equitable, growing economy.

Adapted from the authors book review in Business Standard, May 23, 2018 http://www.business-standard.com/article/beyond-business/paying-the-price-for-foreign-aid-118052200013_1.html

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Book Review, bureaucracy, Business, Democracy, Economy, India

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What Karnataka foretells

May 19, 2018

File picture shows Prime Minister Narendra Modi drinking green tea during a tea ceremony in Tokyo.

The tea leaves, following the Karnataka elections, are as muddied as they were before it — a hung House, a history of unstable coalitions and in your face examples of money power and shabby politics all around.

Modi government a bell-weather for fiscal management

The BJP not getting a majority has spooked the financial markets. Frankly, it matters little which party or parties have a majority as long as it or they live through the five-year term, thereby allowing the outstanding administrators which Karnataka has to go about their jobs and for business to plan ahead. The Narendra Modi government is a bellwether for markets simply because it has demonstrated vastly superior capacity to get the rusty levers of government working.

Only Janata (S) gains from the mess

The only real gainer in Karnataka is a regional party — the Janata Dal (Secular) under the leadership of H.D. Deve Gowda, a former Prime Minister of India (June 1996 to April 1997) and his son H.D. Kumaraswamy. The latter was chief minister of Karnataka (February 2006 to October 2007), courtesy a power-sharing agreement with the BJP after the JD(S) walked out of a similar arrangement with the Congress in 2004. The record does not inspire confidence in its commitment to political stability.

Germany lived for six months without an elected government, why not Karnataka?

Having said that, Karnataka is not a backward state where political stability is critical for survival. Germany took nearly half a year to form a coalition government after inconclusive elections in September 2017 without any adverse economic consequences. Karnataka, like Germany, has a high capacity to absorb the absence of elected government. It is above the median, amongst Indian states, in its socio-economic indicators. It is one of the four major national hubs for the tech. industry. Services account for 60 per cent of the state’s domestic product. Per capita income is 20 per cent higher than the national average.

Yogendra Yadav, a veteran political analyst, has rightly said that the hung Assembly in Karnataka is a routine affair. It acquires significance only because of what it might foretell about political economy responses at the national level. Shorn of all jargon, the question is — will the BJP continue its reformist economic agenda or will it be abandoned for more populist measures, in the run-up to the spate of Assembly elections and the national election in 2019?

BJP’s desperation for power a self goal

Mr B.S. Yeddyurappa, the state BJP leader, on being invited by the governor, Mr Vajubhai Vala, to take charge as chief minister, quickly declared that farm loans, possibly amounting to `250 billion, are waived, even before he could prove his majority. This could be a panic attack, foretelling that the BJP may not find the numbers to cobble up a majority. If it does not, the unseemly political manoeuvring to gain power will be a self-goal.

Will Modi’s reforms take root?

The two biggest reforms that have been initiated by the Narendra Modi government are incentivising formalisation of the economy via the Goods and Services Tax and using the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Act to end the long festering, toxic ecosystem of Indian banks, which spawns stressed assets. Both actions increase tax revenues, reduce the pressure on public financial resources and control black money. These are signature reforms with significant economic gains. Imposing penalties on businessmen, who misuse or default on bank loans, has enormous popular support. Neither is likely to be abandoned by the Modi government.

The next two important achievements have been taming inflation whilst playing a careful sherpa to economic growth. Low international oil prices helped finance minister Arun Jaitley to liberalise the petroleum retail price regime whilst simultaneously raising additional revenues to reduce the fiscal deficit from 4.4 per cent of GDP in 2013-14 — the final year of the UPA — down to 3.5 per cent by 2016-17, where it has remained in 2017-18. Further reductions are tough. Inflation is likely to edge up to five per cent this fiscal driven by the oil price increase, whilst the fiscal deficit shall increase to four per cent of GDP.

Piyush Goyal a hard taskmaster – will not let tax revenue slip

Image result for free photos Piyush Goyal

It is unlikely that the new, interim finance minister, Piyush Goyal, will countenance any further deviation from the path of fiscal consolidation, lest it erode India’s credit rating. He is likely to keep inflation in check by adjusting Central taxes on petroleum to avoid the full impact of the oil price spike passing through into retail prices. But this revenue sacrifice will need correspondingly higher collections of income-tax and GST — a task that the present finance secretary Hasmukh Adhia is adept at. Monetising existing infrastructure assets, to get additional fiscal resources this year, will be an extension of what Mr Goyal was already doing as railway minister.

The blessings of a cheaper Rupee

It is not all doom and gloom. The rupee exchange rate has adjusted to more realistic levels as foreign investors reallocate their “hot” money to higher return jurisdictions. This is a blessing. Letting go of the fetish of a strong rupee can boost exports; contain imports; make domestic production more competitive and induce additional flows of long-term foreign direct investment into projects. Higher international oil prices also mean more net inward remittances from our citizens working in the Gulf countries, which will balance the external account.

Focus on budget announcements for liberalising agriculture

Quickly implementing the progressive announcements of Budget 2018-19 for agro-processing, liberalisation of domestic agricultural markets and agricultural exports — which has not been in the news since — can illustrate that the government walks the talk on a sustainable doubling of farmer incomes.

Pursue enhanced health care capacity 

Investing more in primary health via well-equipped “wellness centres” and insuring the poor against the ruinous costs of hospitalisation, via Ayushman Bharat, are powerful, scaled-up initiatives, which should be foregrounded.

Actions speak louder than words

If the BJP has a long-term economic vision for India, it needs to shun acting in a purely transactional manner in the near term, with an eye to squishing out all political opposition. It has taken the lead at the national level in ensuring probity. Doing the same in the states can show that the BJP rubber is meeting the road.

Adapted from the authors opinion piece in The Asian Age, May 19, 2018 http://www.asianage.com/opinion/columnists/190518/what-ktaka-foretells-not-all-gloom-doom.html

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Resurrecting ghosts is bad politics

May 9, 2018

AMU

One wonders whether Muhammad Ali Jinnah would have been disappointed or elated at a band of misguided, ultra-right Hindus, objecting to his portrait hanging in the students’ union office of the Aligarh Muslim University. Disappointment, at becoming a hate object, would fit well. the elegant, urbane man with a taste for fine suits, that Jinnah once was. Elation would align with the politician, who fueled the creation of Pakistan and who could now turn around and say – see, I told you so.

Zero-sum world view, led to partition

After all, it is a belief in the irreconcilable co-existence of Hindus and Muslims in one country, which led to the creation of Pakistan. The breaking away of Bangladesh from Pakistan, should have put an end to the unfortunate idea that only an Islamic state can assure a secure future for Muslims. Wars between Pakistan and India have deepened the distrust of the larger “Hindu” nation across the border. To be fair, we in India, have also not done a good job of forging a national identity, so compelling, that other social allegiances – religion and caste, fade in comparison.

It is true that professional, social relationships and regional affiliations – culture, language and food – often paper over the underlying segmentation of caste and religion. But seven decades of hotly contested electoral democracy has fed on and deepened the fissures, rather than cemented the gaps. In India we tend to avoid head-on collisions, preferring to skirt around intractable problems and hope that time will solve them.

Our history bears this out. Consider that a deeply traditional society was assumed to have magically evolved, on the eve of Independence, into a rational, scientific and liberal society, resonating with the personal beliefs of a microscopic, western educated elite, which was dominant in the transition from colony to independence.

If Jinnah’s vision, etched out in the constitutional assembly of Pakistan in 1947, of a Pakistan, which would not make a distinction between citizens on religion, sounds hollow, so too does our avowed adherence to secularism – the constitutional roots of which remain shallow.

India bends to avoid breaking

India is a “soft” state. The rule of law is not absolute. It has a time dimension. It is considered administratively wise to allow it to be bent, in the expectation that, with time and changed circumstance, the weight of institutional rigidity would bring it back to its rightful place. Inevitably, such flexibility in the application of the rule of law allows free play to mala-fide interests and dilutes the credibility of State actions.

Democracy can deepen divides

Democracy has unexpectedly, sharpened religious polarization. The good news is that it has also deepened caste polarization. Baba Saheb Ambedkar’s pessimism about Dalits getting justice via democratic institutions, without suitable tweaks and safeguards for positive discrimination, resonate much deeper today, than they did in the rosy-tinted period post-Independence.

Dalit empowerment has created a conundrum for traditional Hindu society. It upends the gentlemanly agreement between Dalit and upper caste political elites, to co-exist without upending the basic power structures which bind down the ordinary Dalit. For example, grooms must not ride a horse to their wedding in emulation of a custom, which was the traditional prerogative of prosperous upper caste people or display and fire into the air in celebration, at Dalit weddings.

Everyone is relatively better off

Admittedly these are mere, distant pinpricks when viewed from above. The helicopter view of Indian society remains positive and progressive. Urbanization evens the score for Dalits. The enormous expansion of the service sector has created jobs which are skill based, caste-neutral and anonymous. Similarly, exports offer opportunities for good jobs in handicrafts, textiles, leather, metalwork, carpentry – areas where Dalit and Muslim communities dominate.

Communalism, casteism and low development feed off each other

Luckily for us, much of the religious and caste angst is in the backward areas of the north and central India, where human development indicators are low and per capita incomes are below the median level. In 2007-08 India’s median Human Development Index (HDI) was 0.47. The states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, comprising 41 percent of the total population, were well below the median.

Curiously, Pakistan in 2010, with an HDI of 0.53 was worse off that the border Indian state of Punjab at 0.61 (2008) but better than Rajasthan at 0.43 (2008). Bangladesh, in 2010, with an HDI of 0.55 was better than the Indian state on their border – West Bengal at 0.49 (2008). Cross territory comparisons are notoriously misleading. But it is startling than even several decades after political separation, the cross-border differences in South Asia are less stark than those within the country. India has made significant strides in improving human development outcomes since 2008 and achieved an HDI of 0.62 in 2015 with focused attention on backward regions. The Modi governments program of targeting around 15 percent of the total number of 640 districts for accelerated support, will further even out the spatial distribution of development and income.

In 2014 the Modi government came to power on the back of an impressive record of achievement at the state level in BJP rules states. A host of development initiatives have been unleashed, which seek to sustain macroeconomic stability, raise incomes, roll out infrastructure and reverse the ravages of environmentally unsustainable development. There are more successes than misses. This is solid ground on which to go to the people in the general elections of 2019.  It is unwise to fall into the temptation of maximizing political gains by departing from the narrative of achievement.

Also available at the TOI Blogs May 9, 2018   https://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/opinion-india/resurrecting-ghosts-is-bad-politics/

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So, you want “good” jobs.

May 6, 2018

toyota

Growth with jobs is the new Eldorado. At its core, the raging debate around job creation in India is really about how far India has traveled down the conventional path of industrialized development and its proxy — long-term employment, with defined benefits and social security. This metric of economic performance is anachronistic in the post-industrial ecosystem.

Long term, formal employment is declining even in the developed economies. The future of work is casual, possibly off-site, with skill sets and job descriptions that are constantly adapting to technology and re-schooling a necessity even for the middle aged. We may never ever reach the copybook stage of industrial age employment. India, unlike China, is largely informal and ineffectively regulated for work standards and safeguards. Out of a workforce of around 427 million, formal employment is just 14 per cent at 60 million.

Mind you, there are 972 million people more than 15 years of age who could work. But the lack of opportunity in the workplace and cultural constraints keep 56 per cent of then (a vast majority of them being women) at home. This probably explains our penchant to get to a higher level of formalized employment, say 60 per cent of the workforce, and thereby resemble a developed economy.

Statistical jousts around employment

The ongoing statistical debate between government economists (of the Niti Aayog and those in the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council) and external experts (from CMIE, for example) revolves around the number of jobs created since 2014 as an index of economic performance. The CMIE data, based on quarterly surveys, shows that net-job creation in 2017, over the previous year, was just 1.4 million, primarily due to large job losses of seven million among young adults (aged 15-24) and three million among veterans (aged 65 or above) significantly diluted the positive impact of an addition of 12 million jobs in the age group of 25 to 64.

The government appears disinclined to trust large surveys. It prefers to rely on the monthly payroll data. There is the inexplicable issue of just 12 per cent of women, of 15 years and above, being part of the workforce in the CMIE survey data. Gallingly, 21 per cent of Saudi Arabian women work. Can it be that 88 per cent of Indian women above 15 years actually do not wish to work? Compared to such quirks in the CMIE survey data, there is a comfortable certainty about the payroll data. The only problem is — payroll data is unlikely to provide the granularity required across a largely informal economy.

Even if one is disinclined to believe the outlier estimation by economist Surjit Bhalla, of an addition of 15 million jobs in 2017, the good news is that data from the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) shows an addition of three million jobs during the six months till February 2018 — an encouraging growth of 10 per cent per annum over the 60 million employee accounts. It is unclear, however, if these are all new jobs. The digital outreach, increased tax oversight and the GST implementation are all encouraging formalisation of operations, including payments to existing informal workers. Payroll data from the New Pension Scheme for government employees shows a similar happy trend, with an addition of 0.4 million employees to the base of around 5 million employee accounts.

It remains unclear where this statistical jousting is leading to, except to the scoring of political brownie points with the relevant political constituencies.

Workers under threat – too many, chasing too few jobs

headload

For the large mass of workers, a “formal” sector “good” job in the classic industrial sense of the term is becoming increasingly unlikely. Humans are under threat. Karl Marx was on the button, two centuries ago, when he intuited that it is humans who add value in the economy. We still do. But we became so good at extracting value from human effort that we have marginalized ourselves.  Machines today, substitute for all but the most advanced cognitive human skills. Once machine learning becomes deeper and autonomous of human effort, technology czars like Ellon Musk, presciently point to a dystopic, machine versus man future for the planet.

We do not have to imagine what it will be like in in 2050. Even today, deepening levels of worker anxiety about retaining a job affects large swathes of the developed economies. Indians and others in the developing world are already well acquainted with this syndrome. We hesitate to take medical leave even when we are sick. And if you think that happens only in the informal sector, think again. Even politicians and senior government officials fear being nudged out, merely by not being visible.

Low levels of formal employment require enhanced government intervention. As work becomes intermittent or irregular, even for skilled employees, the potential loss of income must be cushioned by social protection schemes to keep individuals and families afloat.

Listen to the Jholawallahs

Dreze Aruna

The NREGA program is a basic form of such cushioning, which benefits around 20 million manual workers. Jean Dreze is right when he asserts that access to work is more than just another way of putting public money into needy private hands. Aruna Roy has the same message. Collectives have a dynamic, which empowers the marginalised. They provide institutionalized support for challenging traditional, arbitrary and often illegal entitlements. They also establish a new and healthy tradition of direct democracy.

The early noughties presented a future which looked impossibly bright and full of possibilities, girded by shining bands of opportunity crisscrossing the globe. That vision has now dimmed. The environmental, cultural and institutional limits of globalization are now visible. We would do well, however, not to be blindsided by the inevitable ratcheting down of global aspirations. It could turn out to be a hard landing for the overly ambitious.

Adapted from the author’s opinion piece in The Asian Age, May 5, 2018 http://www.asianage.com/opinion/columnists/050518/jobs-nature-of-work-it-may-be-time-to-rethink-basics.html

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Are Marwaris taking over our heritage monuments?

May 1, 2018

Red fort

Someone else, better equipped and trained should do this routinely

Somebody needs to fund heritage preservation. Why not the Marwaris and Banias? After all they funded the National Movement for Independence. But try telling India’s die hard, Left Liberal crowd that a person in desperate need of a public toilet, does not care, whether the plaque above it gives credit to a public-sector company or a private entity. An especially abled person, with a yen for travel, couldn’t give two-hoots who paid for the ramp that makes heritage monuments accessible on her wheel chair.

None of this will wash with those who hold public management of “national” monuments and public sector white elephants dear to their heart. They would rather see them collapse, gradually, than hand them over to the private sector for making them user friendly.

Our heritage, our identity

Last year, in September, the government launched, what should have been an innocuous and much needed initiative to seek non-state (private) interest in providing better facilities at our heritage sites in exchange for on-site advertising. This is explicitly not a revenue generating partnership. No additional fee or charge, unless approved specifically by the government, is to be imposed by the non-state partner.

ex-IAS, Minister Alphons, off to a good start

Things moved surprisingly fast after ex-IAS KJ Alphons got elected to the Rajya Sabha from the BJP and joined the government as minister for tourism. Thirty-one entities have been shortlisted to “adopt” 95 monuments and sites across India.

These entities called “Monument Mitra (friends)” are required to prepare a vision document detailing what needs to be done to improve the visitor experience and how they would go about doing it, as a part of their corporate social responsibility (CSR).

The good news is that, this time around the public-sector has been spared the near compulsory burden of footing the bill. Most of the interested entities are private companies except NBCC (India) ltd. – a construction PSU for the Old Fort, New Delhi and the State Bank of India Foundation for the Jantar Mantar complex, New Delhi.

Dalmia Bharat Ltd for the Red Fort

But the selection which grabbed the headlines was the one signed with Dalmia Bharat Limited for the Red Fort in Delhi. Left Liberal sentiment was outraged at this seeming mortgage of India’s iconic heritage fort, to the Dalmia’s – an old Calcutta/Delhi based family business.

It is unclear, why the Dalmias are interested in the project, except to generate goodwill with the government and amongst citizens in their home city. The potential for getting a free Dalmia promo in the national TV reportage of the annual Independence Day spectacle at the Red Fort on August 15, might have also been a motivator.

Keeping art and heritage “aficionados” out of the process, generates suspicion

The vision document or the MOU, spelling out what the company intends to do has not been publicly shared. The Committees reviewing the expressions of interest; the vision documents and approving the MOUs consist only of the relevant government departments, to the exclusion of non-state actors, particularly from the extended arts, architecture and culture community in Delhi.

As expected, exclusion breeds unnecessary suspicion and distrust. The Modi government seems to shy away from the active participation of non- state actors in decision making. The previous government of Sonia Gandhi-Manmohan Singh went overboard in the other direction, possibly to deflect any blame from itself. A healthy balance between the two extremes would help.

The Dalmias – hard nosed businessmen, far from the sensibilities of culture.

Ramkrishna Dalmia, a Marwari from Rohtak, was the founder of the Dalmia group. Thomas Timberg notes in – “The Marwaris” that, like all entrepreneurs of the early 1900s he made his money from speculation in silver and then went on to become one of the three largest Indian industrialists along with Tata and Birla. But unlike the other two groups, the fortunes of the Dalmia’s have waned.

Dalmia Bharat Cement is a listed company with a market cap of just around Rs 220 billion – around one half of the smallest 100 top listed BSE companies. Its CSR focus is on energy conservation, rural development and solar power applications. Providing and managing visitor facilities for a significant historical monument is a significant departure from its main line of business. Of course, that is no reason to dismiss the effort outright. But it does raise doubts about their ability to perform, to satisfaction, even if the intent is genuine.

Not too many private takers for cultural spend

Government argues that corporates are not exactly lining up to spend scarce money on historical monuments. They must make do with those who are interested, even if they will have a steep learning curve. Mechanisms for technical support to the Monument Mitra and oversight of their activities, are being put in place. Cultural czars however, thumb their noses at such amateurish attempts to break into the rarified world of culture, art and heritage architecture.

To be fair to the government, not all selections, have the same problem. The well-known Aga Khan Trust – which restored Humayun’s Tomb in New Delhi, has been selected for the Aga Khan Palace in Pune; The premier hotel chain ITC and a GMR entity (builders of the Delhi airport) have been selected for the Taj Mahal and so on.
Dalmia Bharat Limited – a cement manufacturer and infrastructure developer – is an outlier for the Red Fort. One wonders why the government does not share the rationale on which the decision was made with interested citizens. This would allay fears.

Marwaris

Suspicion of the Bania (India’s mercantile caste) is deeply imbedded in the Indian psyche, possibly anachronistically. Even the Marwaris and Banias might have moved on from the rapacious image that Left Liberals have of them. We shall know soon enough. By Independence Day, August 15, 2018.

Also available at TOI Blogs https://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/opinion-india/are-marwaris-taking-over-our-national-heritage/

 

 

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An “Ambassador” amongst “box wallahs”

April 28, 2018

Rasgotra

Maharajakrishna Rasgotra, India’s foreign secretary from 1982 to 1985, records that in 1948, contrary to the popular perception, the wealthy “Doon School wallahs” preferred to join the domestic services, where they could keep an eye on their assets, and that the IFS boys were at a premium only amongst the urbanised, “sophisticated girls of marriageable age and their even more pretentious socialite mothers”! Things have changed considerably since then. Ambitious Indian girls and boys now routinely choose to work and live abroad, on their own steam, rather than as “diplomatic baggage”.

But true to nature’s rule, when one door shuts, another inevitably opens. Losing out in the marriage market place has been compensated now for the IFS by  major Indian corporates wooing them post-retirement. Just-retired foreign secretary S. Jaishankar has been picked up by the Tatas to head the group’s  overseas operations, reporting to Mr N. Chandrasekharan, the executive chair of the board of Tata Sons, the holding company of all Tata enterprises. The board already has two retired civil servants — Ronen Sen, a ex-IFS officer and former ambassador to Washington, and Vijay Singh, an ex-IAS officer who served as defence secretary. But unlike these board level directors, Mr S. Jaishankar will be more substantively involved, with a hands-on role, as the President of a business vertical. “Descent from heaven” is how Japanese business describes the practice of absorbing retiring senior bureaucrats, who have held key positions, to cushion them from a hard landing in the real world.

Jaishanker Modi

Mr S. Jaishankar is reported to have said he was happy to join “the Tata Group… India’s most respected brand globally”. Just this simple endorsement of the Tata business leadership, from a recently retired foreign secretary, who was selected personally (unusually) by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2015, to replace a serving foreign secretary, Sujata Singh, is sufficient to justify the Rs 6 crores that he is speculated to be paid per year. As far as value for money in advertising goes, it can’t get any better for the Tatas.

Despite the 1991 liberalization, Indian business remains constrained by red tape at home. Overseas, it is an orphan, with little formal support from its home government. Blame our perverted colonial legacy for this. The British came to India to trade, profit, export and rule. They used every trick in their mercantilist book of “free trade”, including the selective use of state power and the law, to benefit British companies. But, in a classically hypocritical stance — which incidentally appealed greatly to the convoluted sensibilities of upper-caste Indians, the average British officer feigned a horror of being in bed with business interests. The “boxwallah” was an inferior being as compared to his Army or civil service brethren, who were on a morally superior mission of civilizing India.

Colonial hypocrisy persists – “it is not the business of government to help business”

This “red line” between government and business, which Free India inherited, though always surreptitiously porous, has long since dissolved for India’s domestic service cadres — except for odd cases of the most particular officers. The foreign service, however, has taken to these new commercial roles, over the past decade, as the overseas business interests of private Indian corporates have expanded. This is a welcome outcome of liberalization.

Talk of being a market-led economy is hollow, unless the government works actively to grow the Indian private sector at home and abroad. At the most minimal level, this involves opening doors abroad for our businessmen. This is what retired IAS or revenue service officers having been doing for business interests, at home. But opening doors is low-level stuff, albeit with high personal returns. More potentially transformative, is the opportunity to develop an institutionalized public-private partnership, around the human resources required, by “India Unlimited” to become an A-level international player.

Big is not beautiful

With 162 missions overseas, the Indian Foreign Service looks extremely stretched, with just 600-plus serving elite officers. Expanding the service — using the existing generalist skills-based platform on which it is recruited and trained — would be a costly mistake. It would be far better to add the human resources, specifically needed in the ministry and in the missions overseas, through multiple entry options – lateral contracting, deputation from other services based on relevant skills and selective promotion from within.

Create a new position-based Apex Public Service Ecosystem

The origin of an exclusive service for external affairs, as opposed to a combined one for political and external matters lies, in the Government of India Act 1935. The idea at that time was racist. A separate “political” wing to deal with Asiatic powers — namely the Indian princes (there was already a separate home department for police and security matters) and a “foreign” wing to deal with the European powers.

Is it time now to end this farcical divide. “India unlimited” should have a seamless, internationally competitive and standards compliant architecture. inside, out. An integrated, elite Apex Public Service ecosystem for the Government of India, consisting of no more than 3,000 officers, could be a targeted support mechanism. Selected by the UPSC on merit, at mid-career, with a minimum experience of 10 years, it would provide the specific position-based skills and expertise, required for formulating policy and representing India at technical negotiating fora in trade and intellectual property; fiscal management, including tax; economic development and technology; social protection; human development and human rights.

ambassador

A foreign secretary has boldly and transparently opted to step directly into an executive role in an Indian corporate entity. Over the last decade retired IFS officers have taken to self-acquiring a life long title, copying the US practice, of “Ambassador” – a reminder perhaps of their once hallowed status as a flag officer oversees. Now, many more may cross the divide between them and the “boxwallahs”. But till it becomes common to see retired IFS folk jostling amongst the corporate crowd, it will be odd to see an “Ambassador” parked at Bombay House, the Mumbai headquarters of the global Tata empire, rather than at Birla Building in Kolkata, which is the original owner of the brand.

Adapted from the authors opinion piece in The Asian Age, April 28, 2018 http://www.asianage.com/opinion/columnists/280418/govt-india-inc-time-to-diffuse-the-red-lines.html

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bureaucracy, Business, India

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Lives dedicated to change India

April 26, 2018

RTI story

This is not a glib account of mobilising the rural poor, penned by a peripatetic babu or a drive-in-fly-out development expert. It is, refreshingly, a record of activists, who elected to spend the better part of their working lives making a difference, bottom upwards, and three decades later remain rooted in their karmbhumi — village Devdungri, Rajasthan.

school for democracy

Some came from well-off urban backgrounds and yet stuck it out in the harsh and relentless realities of the rural poor. This testifies to their commitment. But even to attribute high moral incentives to them, betrays the tinted glasses of this urbanised reviewer. The authors do not vent their frustration, voice their regrets or betray even a whiff of resentment against an uncaring world. What shines through instead, is their quiet joy and fulfillment, at doing something useful.

Aruna Roy, for all her careful attempts to disperse the credit, is the central figure. Born into a family of lawyers, she drifted into the elite Indian Administrative Service in 1968 but resigned in 1975 to work with the Social Work and Research Center (SWRC) in Ajmer. Clearly, goaded by the need to be more immediately and directly involved with real people in rural India, she left SWRC in 1983. Nikhil Dey — recently returned after college in the United States, seeking something beyond a comfortable life, became a friend; Shanker Singh, a local village official’s gifted son, adroit puppeteer and communicator extraordinaire, completed the group which bonded and decided to check out the rural empowerment landscape in Jhabhua, Madhya Pradesh. That seed did not flower. But bonds between the three deepened.

They resolved, in 1987, to put down roots in village Devdungri, which today is part of district Rajsamand in the Mewar region of Rajasthan. This was close enough to Shanker’s village, Lotiyana, to give the group an entry into rural life through his local bonds of kinship. Here, in a mud hut, rented from his cousin, the small group lived like the villagers around them and awaited a gradual immersion into the rhythm of village life and hopefully, local social acceptance — their doors and hearts open. Trust and credibility is central to an activist’s effectiveness.

MKSS

Meanwhile, the group refined the credo of their concerns. These coalesced around the need to enable the rural poor and marginalised, to look beyond their sordid reality of traditional social and cultural constraints, to understand and avail of, the constitutional rights available to them, within India’s democratic and institutional architecture. The disastrous drought, blighting the region, presented an opportunity. The standard mechanism for drought relief was to initiate civil
works.

By 1983 the Supreme Court had directed that public works must comply with payment of minimum wages. But this was rarely done. The group resolved that getting workers minimum wages would be their central concern. A related opportunity arose due to the tyrannical ways of a local sarpanch who misappropriated village development schemes for personal benefits and whose benami holdings encroached on village land.

In both cases, empowering the poor meant getting access to the government records of money allocated by the government for different schemes; the amounts spent, on what and when. At that time ordinary citizens could not access these records as a right. Often mistakenly, even a list of Below Poverty Line cardholders was conveniently construed to be secret. Consequently, in any dispute with government entities — around wages or non-inclusion for welfare schemes “the villagers were always the liars”. They had no way to prove their case because the truth was hidden inside the official records, to which only the government had access.

Getting the dispossessed to appreciate that access to information and knowledge is vital, was the easiest part. The awareness that local government intermediaries were swindling them kindled anger, and sometimes outrage among villagers. While the immediate oppressor is visible and becomes vulnerable, the veiled support of those higher up in the hierarchy, maintains the status quo. Getting villagers their rights, means changing the status quo from the top.

The political vehicle used by Aruna and her activist colleagues to generate awareness; the desire for change and an ecosystem for long-term support to deliver rights to the rural poor was the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS). The artful, determined and collaborative way in which it was constituted, and the strategic depth of its functioning is a delight to read. The ideological roots of the MKSS lie in the life and thoughts of Gandhi ji (non-violent protests against government apathy), Babasaheb Ambedkar (equity and dignity for all) and J.P. Narayan (social and political revolution within constitutional constraints).

The movement for access to political and social rights, formally started in 1987, expanded organically over time from the village level to the state level by the mid-1990s and finally to the national level by 2005, when the Right to Information Act was passed by Parliament. Parivartan, the Delhi-based NGO, headed at the time by Arvind Kejriwal, evolved its strategy of “direct democracy” from the MKSS methodology — a mix of rootedness in organising the poor from within; high moral, ethical and personal values; imaginative use of local folklore and theatre like the Ghotala Rath to lampoon corrupt politicians; careful research to unearth government information to pinpoint negligence, fraud or corruption using the vehicle of Jan Sunwais (public hearings).

Less successfully the MKSS also branched into directly managing kirana (provisions) stores in villages as a competitive force to make local traders less rapacious and reduce their profit margins. While useful as a temporary local intervention to break a trader cartel in a small village market, this model proved difficult to scale up. The MKSS also dabbled in village-level elections to get some of its well-intentioned members, elected and collaborate with like-minded parties. But it is far from transmuting into a political party.

Aruna and the team

Aruna, 41 years of age in 1987, is 72 today, Shanker is 64 and “young” Nikhil is 55. During the last three decades of their struggle, the Right to Information has been embedded into the accountability structure of the State, bringing the much-needed transparency. But making the State accountable to the people, in real time, is a broader unfinished task — top-down accountability and bottom-up participation, both need deepening. The good news is that the indefatigable trio is upbeat about conquering this frontier too.

This book is a must read for cynics, who want their optimism restored; those eager to share the pain and the joy of activism; organisational behavior “experts” and budding activists looking for pathways to India’s development.

Adapted from the author’s book review in The Asian Age, April 22, 2019 http://www.asianage.com/books/220418/read-it-to-know-the-pain-and-joy-of-activism.html

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corruption, Democracy, Economy, elections, Environment, India, jobs, Law and regulation, politics, poverty, Public Institutions, RTI Act, Secularism, social protection

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What the cash crunch foretells

April 22, 2018

Parliament's winter session

Conspiracy theorists are hard at work to identify the drivers behind the ongoing cash crunch, that has left the automated teller machines (ATMs) in cities and towns across large parts of the country dry. There is much finger pointing between the Reserve Bank of India and the commercial banks, both private and public sector, each accusing the other of being responsible for inefficient operations. It is unusual to see this level of discord, bordering on acrimony, between a regulator and the regulated entities.

Commercial banks bear the brunt of fuzzy policy objectives

The banks allege that the supply of high-value notes has dried up. The Bank Employees Union alleges that a shortage of imported printing ink at the currency press in Nashik could be one reason. Alternatively, this could be a covert attempt by the government to correct a problem dating back to the November 2016 demonetisation — the incomprehensible introduction of a Rs 2,000 note to replace the Rs 1,000 note as a measure to reduce black money. Phasing out the offensive new high-denomination note and stepping up the printing of new Rs 500 and Rs 200 notes instead is a more obvious and welcome blow against black money. The Ministry of Finance says Rs 70,000 crores worth of such “Hi-Value” notes can be printed in just one month. The value of such notes in circulation on March 31, 2017 (the last public data available) was Rs 7.5 Lakh Crore or ten times the value of such notes printable in just one month. So why a shortge ?

RBI waffles with poor communication

The Reserve Bank, unconvincingly, denies that there is any cash crunch and alleges the inefficiency of banks in properly allocating the available cash. Could this be a surgical strike by the banks and ATM service providers who have got unsettled by the criminal investigations into fraud or are upset with the March 2018 decision of the RBI to end the incentives for installing cash recyclers and ATMs for low-value notes? Was it their intention to embarrass the government by engineering a cash crunch to coincide with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visits to Sweden and the UK for the Commonwealth Summit? Possible, but far-fetched.

Cash remains king

cash is king

The most plausible reason is that the economy is reverting to its pre-demonetisation levels of cash held by the public of around 12 percent of GDP versus the hugely constrained post-demonetisation level of 9 percent of GDP in end of March 2017. Expectations were exaggerated on two counts. First, that the black economy would permanently be reduced. Second that digital and banked transactions could become uepreferred options. The second has indeed proved true. The use of cash by those who declare their incomes to tax, or even those below the tax levels, has reduced significantly.

But the big stick and carrots embedded in the Goods and Services Tax to incentivise the switch to banked transactions are not widely experienced yet. Systems and reporting compliance are clunky and curiously disadvantage the small, honest entrepreneur. Other small businesses may be unviable with a tax load.

RBI – bitten by the bug to ration currency, & create the “statistical” basis for “digital victory” 

Anecdotal evidence of how cash transactions are done show that post demonetisation, Rs 2000 has replaced the earlier Rs 1000 note as the preferred stock of currency held by high value entities and individuals. Unfortunately, RBI has squeezed the printing of this note. Prior to demonetisation, for every Rs 1000 note available, there were three Rs 500 and three Rs 100 notes. Post demonetisation, for every Rs 2000 note available, there are eight Rs 100 notes but just two Rs 500 notes available. RBI has curiously enlarged the relative supply of the highest value note (which is used mostly for individual stock of currency)  at the expense of having more transaction related currency in Rs 500 notes- possibly hoping that transactions would move to digital rather than remain in cash post demonetisation.

More importantly, not only has the overall quantum of currency, relative to GDP decreased, but even the share of Rs 500 and Rs 2000 notes, by value, in the total stock of currency has decreased, from 86 percent pre-domentisation to 73 percent in end March 2017 – possibly in expectation of individuals banking surplus stocks of money.

The ground reality is that the cash-based supply chain of goods and services is a subset of the demand for cash contributions, related to electoral politics. Highly contested elections are scheduled for mid-May in Karnataka and later this year in several other states. Cash resources will be needed to buy SUVs, print advertisements and motivate the lethargic population to vote.

Election Commission hesitates to adopt T.N. Seshan’s (ex-Chief Election Commissioner 1990-1996) muscular credo on mandate

ECI

Oddly, there is not a peep out of the Election Commission of India (ECI), which is charged with the responsibility of ensuring that election spending remains within the implausibly tight limit of Rs 20 to Rs 28 lakhs per candidate for Assembly elections. The EC has adopted an “end of the pipe” strategy. The intention is to catch the crooks once they show their hands via excess expenditure. A more proactive EC could have recognised the red flags of unusually high cash withdrawals unearthed by the media. It could have directed the Karnataka government to report on the ensuing potential for subversion of the code of conduct and the measures being taken to heighten border vigilance, to clamp down on cross-border transfers of cash. One can imagine former chief election commissioner T.N. Seshan diving through this open door for enhancing the regulatory ambit of the ECI. But today’s election commissioners appear to be content, at least overtly, with a narrower definition of their mandate, strictly as per the law.

RBI – a regulator at odds with its “caged parrot” status 

To speak the truth, the glory days of Indian regulatory institutions are over. Even the RBI, the first to be legislated into existence in 1934, is going through strained times. Demonetisation had spread the apprehension that the RBI was led by the nose from North Block in New Delhi. The extent of wilful defaults in the bad loans of public sector banks, often the consequence of ever-greening of impaired assets and plain fraud, also points a finger at the RBI for exercising inadequate oversight.

RBI governor Urjit Patel had appealed to the government through a public address on March 16 to bring public sector banks into a uniform regulatory arrangement as applicable to private banks. Domestic and international professionals support the broad thrust of a uniform regulatory arrangement for all banks. But the subsequent expose of the yawning deviations in ICICI Bank and Axis Bank from gold-standard board governance have cut the ground from under the governor’s feet.

Public credibility of commercial banks at its nadir

Mutual funds are upbeat about the prospects for equity investment in private banks. But the average person is inclined to quietly diversify away from private banks to the safe haven of public sector banks. Private insurance and healthcare are similarly perceived as being exploitative of the average consumer. It does not help that the Financial Resolution and Deposit Insurance Bill 2017 was worded so ambivalently that it fanned a deep seeded fear of savings deposits being sequestered as equity for resolving bankruptcy. Finance minister Arun Jaitley has been at pains to assure people that deposits up to Rs 1 lakh per account will remain guaranteed. But ministerial assurances provide very little comfort when elections are around the corner.

A common thread across this turbulence is uneven support from the government for beleaguered institutions and the absence of informed participation, quite unlike in the GST Council. RBI governor Patel bravely sat out the storm around the hasty implementation of the questionable policy option of demonetisation. But the Pandora’s box of crony capitalism has taken its toll. These are challenging times. Deeper bench strength, within the government, of trusted fiscal and financial expertise would help.

Adapted from the authors opinion piece in The Asian Age, April 21, 2018 http://www.asianage.com/opinion/columnists/210418/what-the-cash-crunch-foretells.html

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banking, BJP, Business, corruption, crime, Democracy, Digital connectedness, Economy, elections, India, Tax

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Lock your data & sell it

April 21, 2018

The concept of information asymmetry” was taught using the well-worn example of a secondhand car salesman who uses his insider’s knowledge to sell a “lemon” (a defective car) to the innocent buyer. The new-age example of information asymmetry relates to data.

rural data

Visionary business leaders know that “data is the new oil”. But the average person allows free access to his or her digital data merely in exchange for downloading and using an app, such as Facebook, Google, Twitter, YouTube or Amazon, for free. The asymmetry is that individual data is worth a lot less than data collected at scale. The latter generates enormous value by targeting advertisements and influencing minds. Resolving problems of information asymmetry is a typical regulatory function. But it has been managed lackadaisically in the digital world, at least so far.

Have judicial short cuts muddied the water for selling your data legally?

A Constitution Bench of India’s Supreme Court had decided on August 24 last year that the right to privacy was a fundamental right for every Indian citizen, akin to the right to life and liberty or the right to freedom of expression. The court had stressed, however, that it was not creating a new right and was not, therefore, judicially amending the Constitution. It was merely enumerating the core components of the pre-existing rights in Article 21 to life and liberty.

Life and liberty are recognised as natural or inalienable right. The State can only restrain them lawfully, going through due process, and then too only in a reasonable manner. The judgment serves well the purpose of guarding individual privacy against intrusion by the State. But it may have inadvertently created a problem for individuals who want  to sell their data, opinions or experiences. There is a long history of the right to sell your privacy, such as in publishing a memoir.

Natural rights being inalienable cannot of course be sold. You cannot end your life for money or any other inducement. You cannot also voluntarily revoke your right to liberty and become a slave, no matter how much the reward. Techies, some of whom work 24×7, would be surprised to hear this. Treating privacy as a natural right and yet allowing for its sale with consent will have to be judicially reconciled.

……..and governments looks to the Justice Srikrishna Committee for answers

ravi shanker prasad

Meanwhile, Big Data is too valuable not to be used by social media and digital search, share, see and sell companies. Explicitly contracting with users to compensate them for using their data is one way forward. The Justice Srikrishna Committee report will likely show the way to legislate the do’s and don’ts on data protection.

Public education on the uses & abuses of data would help

In the meantime, the government can help by educating the public about the consequences of clicking the consent button on websites and apps — something that we all do without a thought. Tech companies could also do better. At present, they do inform users about the type of data that they intend to access, but what is less clear is how they intend to use this data. A clear distinction must be made between three types of use.

First, using your private data to target advertisements of products and services that you may want. Second, using private data for generating useful secondary data for sale like analysis of market trends and forecasts. Third, selling raw private data to a third party.

The Aadhaar leaks and the leak by Facebook to Cambridge Analytica of the raw data of 50 million American users are the third type of use, which can only be termed mala fide. Since there was no consent, such leaks should have both criminal and civil consequences — punishing the offenders, including those who leaked, and the collaborators who used the data, and in addition compensating the victims. Mere possession of stolen lists of raw data should be punishable as dealing in stolen goods under the Indian Penal Code. The source of the leak should be booked for theft, or at the very least, for criminal negligence.

Using your data to drive advertisements to you is the least pernicious of the three types of use. You can always choose to not view advertisements. Using your data to analyse behaviour trends is also acceptable, if only aggregated, secondary data is made public.

Socially conscious “tech” should lead by paying for data use with consent 

James Madison, one of the framers of the American Constitution, had put it very well. For him, if there is a right to property, the right itself become property, which can be transacted. Applying this logic, one can make the right to privacy something that can either be enforced or alternatively, sold or gifted, at the will of the owner. This seems to be a practical approach.

Tech companies desirous of being legally in the clear could start compensating customers who explicitly agree to having their data analysed and outed as secondary data, or even given out raw. Paying users through discount coupons on purchases or even by picking up their Internet access charges could generate the underpinnings of consent and contract. If the user remains free to choose any transmission provider, despite the social media site picking up the monthly bill, the Net Neutrality principle, which had killed Free Basics earlier, could also be complied with.

Meanwhile, cryptographed network and analytics tech companies, launching soon, aim to provide a “question and answer” service. Customers could query it about specific markets. “Fetch”, one such tech company, proposes to provide the answers, using primary data from contracted-in data sets of other companies, while ensuring that the primary data is kept secure.

Keep regulation focused on efficiency and free of ideology

Till now, the government has sensibly regulated technology companies very lightly, in order to avoid killing the spirit of innovation. Those days are now over. The government must ensure the impending privacy legislation is fit for the purpose, but also provides for the potential to monetise private data. Not doing so would be a massive social loss.

Adapted from the author’s opinion piece in The Asian Age, April 3, 2018 http://www.asianage.com/opinion/columnists/030418/in-an-age-of-leaks-just-lock-your-data-sell-it.html

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Digital connectedness, Economy, India

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Getting nationalism right

March 30, 2018

nationalism

If the term nationalism and the sight of the national flag generates a warm, comforting feeling in your heart, your government is doing a great job. If, however, this term and the flag, leaves you cold, clammy and resentful, there is something the government is not doing right.

Nationalism – an abstract construct – acquires a real dimension on rare occasions, like when you need visas to travel; or if you lose your passport whilst abroad; deciding whom to root for in international cricket; when a hate crime is reported against an Indian citizen; when P.V. Sindhu shines in badminton; when a stranger turns to you for help with her mobile, assuming all Indians are techies or when a cortege trundles, past draped with the national flag.

In comparison, ethnic, religious, professional, social or economic ties are more immediate and experienced daily. Should it be otherwise?

Nationalism versus globalization

Till recently, nationalism was a waning concept, marginalized by the increasingly interconnectedness of the world. The two decades post 1990, saw the world became unipolar; international trade boomed; the threat of wars receded – except in a few fragile regions. Poets dreamed, and the world seemed united, in solving the collective action problem of global warming.

Nationalism, it appeared, had bowed down to globalization and become just a set of civic duties and rights for citizens – a sub-set of broader rules governing the entire planet. High border walls, to keep citizen from escaping abroad or stopping those wanting to get in, became an aberration. Foreigners eager to become citizens became a metric of a country’s success and in the United States, the reason for it.

India appeared well placed to walk the talk. Our constitution is an enabler to pursue globalization. Our history places us at an advantage. We are no strangers to foreigners settling permanently in India. Foreigners ruled India for seven hundred years prior to 1947 and were assimilated into the mainstream. India did not come ready-made in 1947. It has been built, since then, using a mix of persuasion, pressure and perquisites. Parts of the North East, which had remained restive, have now joined the national mainstream, driven by the pervasive influence of Bollywood, domestic economic migration and adaptive political alignments. The valley of Kashmir however remains an outlier.

Drivers for sustained nationalism

The best glue for national integration is the perception that every citizen and every region is getting more from the nation than they are giving back. A positive balance, for every individual and every region is possible because in economics one plus one is more than two. Collective decisions create opportunities for adding net value, which do not exist if individuals were to decide separately. Managing climate change – a negative externality – and the beneficial scale effect from integrated markets – a positive externality – are both examples of the benefits from collective action.

Nations with complementarities should stick together. Sadly, they often don’t because of political noise or perceptions of inequity. Consider that our trade with South Asia is abysmally low. Imports are less than 1 percent and exports 7 percent of our total imports/exports. But India is not alone in such errant political behavior. Brexit happened because Britons felt, or were made to believe, they were giving more to the European Union than they were getting from it.

Inequity and discrimination – a leading cause for nations breaking up

bangladesh

Nations can splinter if systematic inequity persists and not enough is done to address the problem proactively. The creation of Bangladesh in 1971 is one such example. Pakistan managed its province of East Pakistan (previously part of Bengal) on an extractive basis, like the colonial masters prior to independence in 1947. It did not help that the new colonial masters were heavy handed, often brutally repressive fellow Muslims from Pakistan who ignored the deep Bengali cultural roots of the region. A perception of inequity fed on the fact of cultural differences and significant economic disparity between the two regions.

In comparison, India has been better at managing actual and perceived inequity at the regional or provincial level. Quotas for recruitment of tribes into the civil services have benefited the North East areas. Special benefits built into the scheme for devolution of central grants and share in union taxes, make additional resources available in tribal areas for infrastructure development. Caste, in Hindu majority India, is a significant driver of inequity. But quotas in government jobs and special schemes for livelihoods for the lowest and mid-level backward castes have levelled the field somewhat.

Embedding liberal, democratic principles in nationalism is tough

MK Stalin 2

Democracy breeds contestation. Tamil Nadu is the economic and cultural powerhouse of South India.Tamil, claims to be older than even Sanskrit,  With firebrand DMK leader, M. K. Stalin annointed to succeed strongman M. Karunanidhi; intense infighting in the ADMK after Amma and film star Rajnikanth exploring political waters, expect populism and rhetoric to prevail. A favourite ploy is to play victim and seek special status for a pan-Dravidar region, comprising the six southern states (including Puducherry). The cone of south Indian states comprises 21 percent of the population with an outsized share of 29 percent in national GDP and higher than average social indicators. Industrialized southern states benefit from access to the markets of the less industrialized northern, central and eastern India. The underdeveloped hinterland is a source for cheap, unskilled, migrant labour and a market to absorb skilled southern migrant workers.

Liberal Democracy is under stress internationally. Nationalism, conflated with authoritarian, even whimsical rule from the top, is on the ascendant. President Trump’s America First is the most distressing example, because it is a betrayal of existing international compacts. Russia, under President Putin remains whimsically self-centered. China, backed by recent economic success and the ascendancy of “Emperor” Xi, represents the most troublingly compelling, muscularly proselytizing, alternative to the liberal, democratic model of nationalism.

Partnerships, across nations, can secure the liberal, democratic order

In this dystopic, political landscape, ageing Europe and Japan emerge as beacons of liberal democracy.  Partnerships with them and select countries in Sub Saharan Africa and the Asia-Pacific can provide demographic and market dividends whilst fostering our common political and civic values, rooted in the Magna Carta.

Also available at TOI blogs March 30, 2018 https://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/opinion-india/getting-nationalism-right/

 

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Democracy, India, politics, Public Institutions, social liberals

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