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India’s geopolitical choices till 2040

Trump

Every passing day, America plays the truculent, ageing diva on the wane, whilst China exudes a quiet, confident gravitas. Their chosen global roles, however, do not reflect the fundamentals of either country.

America is one of the few developed countries with a robust economy, relative to its overwhelming size. It grew smartly at an average of 2.5 per cent over 1990 to 2016 (versus world growth 2.8 per cent). In Europe and Japan, ageing and poor economic policies are slowing down the revival process, post the 2008 slowdown. But America, thanks to its ‘open-doors’ policy for talent, its zeal for innovation and a super-educational architecture, has rebounded –– even though President Trump continues to play to the injured sentiments of middle America, which sees growth and jobs as a zero sum game.  But psychologically, America is shrinking into a smaller island of prosperity than it needs to be. The mood of the nation is to cut its losses overseas, lock the doors and count its millions. This is akin to voluntary national euthanasia.

China Russia

China, despite much less going for it physically, is psychologically expansive in its ambitions – eager to fill the gaps opened up by a receding America. In 2016, GDP at US$ 9.5 trillion (constant $ 2010) was roughly where America was in 1990. Despite high levels of inequality, which concentrates the incremental growth and wealth at the top, President Xi enjoys enviable domestic support. The average Chinese is gung-ho about occupying centre stage in global affairs.  Strategic allocation of its surplus for investments overseas has created an alternative variety of quasi sovereign international finance which, to put it bluntly, seeks to “immizerise”- to twist Professor Bhagwati’s signature concept-  the beneficiary nations who accept its cheap loans.

China investment

Inability to repay the loans followed by benevolent ever-greening of the loans, will bind the beneficiary nations into a long-term, largely one-sided financial relationship, reducing once independent nations to vassals. The Chinese will try and stretch out this symbiotic arrangement till they either supersede or take control of the United Nations and related institutional arrangements for management of international affairs. China might become the largest economy by 2030, and by 2040 indentured nations will have little choice except to bow to Chinese dominance, much like an addict wanting her next shot at any cost. It is unclear, however, if China will have the staying power to continue to splurge cash on winning friends till then.

Their game plan is not very different from what America itself followed post-1945. Financing the reconstruction of Europe and Japan bound these countries to America, creating a politico-economic group which represented 66 per cent of world GDP in 1960. Back then, America itself accounted for a heady 40 per cent of world GDP.

G7

This set of “friends of America” (FOA) still account for around 58 per cent of world GDP. But America’s share has shrivelled to around 18 per cent of world GDP. This is the core of President Trump’s angst. Whilst the FOA group has grown significantly since 1960, under American protection, they continue to be free riders when it comes to spending big bucks on global security. Indeed, avoiding large outlays on defence expenditure has enabled these economies to divert resources for growth and social welfare.

The truant behaviour by POTUS at the Quebec G7 meet should be viewed in this context. One can even make the argument that the trade wars are not so much directed at China but at America’s own allies – a wakeup call to start paying the bills for global domination. America is set to become an international wallflower after a half century of global domination.

China grew spectacularly at just under 10 per cent per year over 1990-2016. But to achieve somewhere close to the critical mass – 30 per cent of world GDP- needed for global domination, it will need to grow for twenty more years at 4 per cent above the rate of world growth. But unlike America, it does not yet have a set of permanent allies, who could pump up the group share.

SCO

India is a likely candidate for such friendship. Russia and India share traditional bonds which have deepened through the purchase, by India, of defence equipment. A bloc comprising China, India, Russia and Iran (CIRI) can pump up China’s economic heft to around 45 per cent of world GDP by 2040. China and India, respectively, would account for around 30 and 10 per cent of world GDP.

Admittedly, CIRI would be a grouping of convenience. The Friends of America group, in comparison, are glued together by history, culture, religion & race (other than Japan) and the liberal democratic State architecture.

It is unclear which way India should turn. India will be an easy fit into the FOA group because of shared liberal democratic values; history and language. India could bring to that group the demographic energy, at a scale they lack. But it is in the CIRI group, that India could play the more substantive role, including by providing much needed soft power to pull-in other nascent liberal democracies. In neither group is India likely to be the decisive partner over the next 20 years, which hurts our ego.

switzerland

A third pragmatic option is to play Switzerland on an international scale. Remain a neutral, trusted adviser to both groups – neither antagonistic nor subservient to either whilst remaining focused on shared economic growth domestically. International credibility to chart this principled course would depend upon developing a domestic eco-system reflecting these principles. This course suits Indian aspirations for leadership best. But are we, ourselves, ready to live by an elevated moral and human code?

Also available at https://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/opinion-india/indias-geo-political-choices-till-2040/

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Economy, India, politics, world affairs

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India’s 50-50 reforms

half reforms

Unlike politicians, who can choose their targets, business leaders have to dance to the tune of  shareholders, who buy or sell, based on the existing or the future bottom line. In politics. it is relatively easy to change the goal posts or indeed, shift the goal itself.

Changing goals

In India, the current metric for political performance, is jobs. Self -selected by the Bharatiya Janata Party, this may become a self-goal because even globally, there are few, near-term solutions.Prior to jobs, in the noughties, it was all about boosting economic growth — where again headwinds have built up. Before growth, it was about ending poverty in the 1990s. Earlier, in the late 1960s and till the mid-1970s, it was about boosting agriculture, becoming self-sufficient in food and avoiding famines. Even further back in the 1950s, heavy industrialisation and infrastructure were the mantra. Of course all these are part of development. But sequencing matters. Also, pancaking more reform targets on the existing ones, confuses even the reformers.

Partial success abounds, but excellence less visible

Seventy years on, we are only narrowly competitive in manufacturing; our infrastructure is vast but shoddy; agriculture has low productivity levels; 40 per cent of us are either poor or are vulnerable to poverty; we are still stretching for sustained real growth in high single digits; unemployment is rife and the participation rate in the workforce is a low 44 to 48 per cent, with women faring worse than men.

This is not to trash what we have achieved. But it is useful to look beyond the efforts made by the successive governments, at the outcomes and ask the question, why are the results always worse than expected?

Elusive transformative change

Tribal protest

Transformative change is disruptive. We have been slow in embedding credible instruments to mitigate the cost of disruption. This increases the risk perception of change, leading to a public push-back on reforms. Consider how poorly we acquire land in public interest. The instruments for identifying, determining and managing the acquisition are loosely supervised, at the cost of ensuing inequity and poor transparency.  Massive amounts of mineral resources continue to lie buried in tribal areas, whilst tribes prefer to eke out a subsistence level traditional life, rather than participate in the process of development. The overriding fear of every property owner, or occupier, is of being gypped in the process of acquisition, by forces beyond their control. In a democracy we cannot ignore insulating people, especially the poor, from the cost of disruption.

Public trust and credibility in short supply

Managing change successfully, requires a governance system good at modern parenting rather than a patriarchal approach to directing and controlling people and events. Our governance systems still follow the colonial legacy of collaborating with entrenched elites to get things done, somehow. Those affected at the bottom become a hindrance rather than participants. There is very limited institutional appetite or capacity to deal directly, as a change agent, with those who are most affected by change. Even when specific processes, like consultation are provided for, the approach degenerates to ticking the box, rather than using the opportunity to gather feedback on the process, test assumptions and obtain buy-in for the way forward.

“Accountable discretion” is not an oxymoron

It does not help that there is a near ubiquitous ban on the transparent use of executive discretion — prompted by misuse of the privilege in the past and a judicial preference for impossibly rigid rules, regardless of their negative impact on implementation.Consider, for example, the burgeoning non-performing loans of banks. The rule bound approach to bank lending insures the lender- manager, if sufficient security against the loan existed, on paper, when the loan is approved. The focus is on achieving secured lending targets rather than adding economic value. This makes gold plating of projects, to increase the notional value of an asset, a mutually convenient tactic between the lender and the borrower, especially at times when the real lending rate is low. Never mind that it can adversely affect the project’s viability and thereby the repayment capacity of the borrower. The public sector no longer trusts its employees. But ending supervised, executive discretion has significant efficiency costs.

Chasing impossible scale 

We succumb easily, to the insidious temptation to effect instant change at sub-continental levels, rather than build change, bottom upwards, block by block. India is heterogenous without parallel. For us, the political model should be Europe, rather than China. Multi party politics in India requires sufficient elbow room for diverse political agendas. The political architecture may prescribe the objectives and principles of public management. But being flexible in program implementation is a must.

The Constitution fixed past challenges, but under-provides for the future

Our constitution reflects the challenges faced at the time of independence rather than today’s priorities. Integration fears at the time led to a centrist constitution. This is what enabled the Union government in 1959 to dismiss the first elected E M S Namboodiripad government of Kerala. The governor of a state, appointed by the President, acting on the advice of the Union government, is another centrist feature as are the emergency powers of the Union government.

Overlapping mandates

The capacity constraints existing at independence shaped the lop-sided division of mandates between the Union and the state governments, with the former unduly burdened. The sub-state or local government came into existence only through a 1993 constitutional amendment.Delhi is a good example of poor inter-governmental allocation of mandate resulting in a governance logjam. Overlapping mandates confuse citizens. and reduce accountability. Consider that Members of Parliament get elected by getting drains made and Members of Legislative Assemblies by promising higher prices for agricultural products or by proposing a separate flag for their state — all areas outside their mandates.

Poor arrangements for resource management

The constitutional scheme for recruitment and management of the bureaucracy is unduly complex and diffuses accountability. Officials must be “owned” by the level of government they serve. Fiscal resources, at every level of the government, must be aligned with form, which should fit the functions executed at that level.

Avoid the Banyan Tree 

banyan tree

The top-down, centrist approach has the disadvantage of an overblown apex crushing the little people below. Remember, nothing grows under the Banyan tree.Change, sensitive to mitigating the costs thereof, flexible implementation of norms driven from below, with primacy for real value addition can deliver 100 per cent results in reforms.

 

Adapted from the author’s opinion piece in the Business Standard, March 27, 2018 http://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/india-s-half-baked-reforms-why-are-the-results-always-worse-than-expected-118032601102_1.html#

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BJP, bureaucracy, Democracy, India, jobs, Law and regulation, poverty, Public Institutions

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Trump’s – “ugly American” redux

Trump

President Donald Trump’s administration is showing its a mean. mercantilist machine. Unsurprisingly, for it, international trade is a one-way street, with exports increasing wealth in America, at the expense of the importing economies and imports stealing American jobs. The psychosis is familiar territory for India and scores of developing countries. What is truly unusual is the conversion of the United States of America to this flawed concept and the abandonment of the open economy model, by the erstwhile foremost exponent of this philosophy.

Nǐ hǎo ma America

In today’s topsy-turvy world, Mr Trump is aping the Great Qing emperors of China during the mid-19th century. At that time China was more than willing to sell Chinese silks, ceramics and art in exchange for silver, but felt no need to import any foreign goods or influences. The result was a burgeoning trade surplus. It took export of cheap opium and gunboat diplomacy by the Western colonial powers to balance the trade.

Emperor Quinlong

Unlike China under the Great Qing, the United States runs a massive trade deficit equal to around three per cent of its GDP. This is normal for many developing countries but unusual for a “great power”. American consumers are accustomed to the “opium” of cheap imported goods. It helps that the appetite of foreigners for AAA-rated US dollar securities finances the deficit. But what matters to Mr. Trump is protecting US jobs. Hence the plan to reduce the deficit, particularly versus China, by $100 billion. Hiking import tariffs on metals significantly is part of that  endeavor. Mr. Trump hopes that metals, being intermediate goods, the resultant rise in price of final goods will not be immediately visible. More bizarre tactics may follow.

Jobs for the boys, at any cost 

But higher tariffs will rob both American consumers via higher prices eventually and jobs in ancillary, user trades, which are sensitive to price rise. All this, just to keep jobs alive on life support, in the metals production business. This is bad politics and worse economics – at best a short-term tactic — to signal the Trump administration’s sympathies for Republican rough-necks. The economy wide negative impact will be diluted over time. Mr. Trump believes in deals. So expect to be able to evade the higher tariffs if you are willing to buy enough of iconic American products – like Harley Davidson motorcycles, stetsons and Boeing aircraft.

The US remains the biggest single country, market. It imports $2.7 trillion of goods and services. But the European Union’s market for imports is much bigger, at $6.7 trillion. Japan alone imports $0.8 trillion and China imports $2 trillion worth of goods and services. So the US is steadily dropping away from being a dominant market for world exports.

India is not the target, but we suffer collateral damage

The new import tariff of 25 per cent on steel and 10 per cent on aluminum are of marginal consequence for India. Our share in world steel exports is just 2.5 per cent. Steel exports to the US, over 2012-16, averaged around 6.5 per cent of our total steel exports. We also export metals to other big markets like the UAE, Europe, East Asia and South Asia. Our share in world aluminum exports, averaged 1.5 per cent over 2013-16. The share of the US in our aluminum exports is significant, at 10 per cent. But our largest importer is South Korea, with significant volumes also exported to Mexico, Malaysia, the UAE and Turkey. Indian exports to the US are not of the scale where they could threaten the economic security of American industries. Also, our special relationship with the US, since the 2005 US-India Civil Nuclear Agreement, the shared commitment against terror and common military logistics arrangements, can facilitate privileged access to the US market.

The US – a willful ally

The elephant in the room is US intransigence, amounting to the “ugly American” behaviour. Starting with the US walking out of the 2015 Paris climate change agreement; and its recent regressive approach to immigration — in sharp contrast to responsive European policies; and its most recent arbitrary protection via high import tariffs of steel and aluminum manufacturing jobs — all these have damaged its “soft power”.

 

Of course, the US has the firepower, bolstered by its $600 billion defence expenditure, to promote “gunboat” diplomacy. But faced with China’s relentlessly expanding economic muscle which makes it an implacable adversary in the superpower sweepstakes, the US will be hard pressed to convince its own allies that it can back its brash words with action.

Indians have indelible memories, from 1971, of the threatening deployment of the US Seventh Fleet in the Bay of Bengal seeking to prevent the liberation of East Pakistan by the Bangladeshi Mukti Bahini from the oppressive, quasi-colonial rule of the Pakistani-Punjabi mafia — a long-time close US ally. It was only the counter deployment of Soviet nuclear submarines and warships, in response to a request for help from India, which rendered the USS Enterprise and the rest of the Seventh Fleet toothless. If the US was not willing, in 1971, to face down the Soviets, to help its ally Pakistan, then how credible is its willingness and ability to come to the help of India in facing down a possible threat from China?

mujib

China, our awesome, prickly neighbour

In a networked world, trade, investment and security are intertwined. The US views China as its primary adversary. Luckily for it, China is several thousand miles removed from the American land mass. But China lurks on our northern borders. It spends $180 billion on its military alone — almost equal to the total budget of the Indian government. Whilst, lining up to seek favourable trade terms from America, it would be foolhardy to provoke a trade war with China. India did well, recently, to dilute the potential use of the Dalai Lama’s April 19, 1959 flight to safety in India, as an irritant for “Emperor Xi”.

Navel gazing better than eye-balling

Modi emerging

Prudence lies in following the Chinese strategy of subordinating muscular diplomacy to economic growth till the time is ripe. It remains in India’s interest to adhere to the open economy model. We have limited capital and governance capacity. We must be frugal in allocating them to first build our domestic infrastructure and facilitate private investment, whilst keeping our markets lightly regulated and open to competition and foreign investment.

Let us not obsess about job creation or force-feeding the formal economy. The US creates two million jobs in a year. Non-farm jobs are scarce everywhere. We should become better at generating fiscal resources to redistribute as income support to the “lost generations” of unskilled, unemployed Indians who are older than 50. This will boost domestic demand and fuel economic growth, far better than resorting to failed economic solutions — such as protectionism, subsidies and publicly financed businesses to chase impossible dreams.

Adapted from the authors opinion piece in The Asian Age, March 17, 2018 http://www.asianage.com/opinion/columnists/170318/ugly-american-is-back-shun-all-the-failed-ideas.html

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Economy, India, jobs, Trade, world affairs

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Union taxes are scraping the bottom

old men

The introduction of a 10 per cent tax on capital gains (with effect from April 1, 2018), accruing from the sale of equity, after holding it for at least one year, has generated a great deal of angst. But it is unconscionable that stock market investors who have earned windfall gains of 30 per cent over the past year should mind paying three percentage points out of that windfall as tax.

The government has gone further and “grandfathered” from the tax all equity-related capital gains accruing till January 31 — the day prior to the Budget 2018-19 proposals being made public. The stock market slid by about six per cent thereafter. Future gains will depend upon better profitability in Indian corporates; the options for alternative risk-free returns in developed markets (US treasuries, for example, which are likely to have higher spreads) and growth in India.

Even wealthy Indians dislike taxes

The new long term capital gains tax is not onerous in the present context. But at the heart of the discontent with it, is a corrosive aversion to pay tax, even by the very wealthy. There are good reasons why we are habitual benders of the rule of law.

To find the reason for this national shame, look no further than our political leaders. The Election Commission turns a Nelson’s eye to the yawning gap between actual election expenditures and the income of parties on the books. The recently introduced Election Bonds are unlikely to bring about a transformative reform.

No crony capitalist wants to be identified while buying these bonds from designated banks. Privacy of information arrangements are easily breached, to ferret out who contributed how much to which party.

Demonetisation did throw up big data on the ownership of cash. But following up on suspected tax evaders is quite another matter. The options of bribing their way out or legally delaying a final decision reduces the incentive to respect the rule of law. We are then back to square one. During the demonetisation of November 2016, 99% of the cash came back into the banking system, because tax evaders innovated, on the fly, to escape the tax net.

No wonder then, that the tax revenue at the Central level is stuck at just below 12 per cent of GDP with an additional 10 per cent in the states and local governments.

scraping bottom

Growth need higher public spends

The conundrum is that higher growth needs higher public spends of around 6-8 per cent of GDP on infrastructure, health and education. India has underinvested in these for decades. The real problem is that tax revenues are difficult to increase with 40 per cent of the population being either poor or vulnerable to fall into poverty.

China innovated best-fit solutions to boost public revenues

China had the same problem. Their solution was to decentralise development decision-making within a broad party line of priorities. Local government and local party offices worked together to monetise government assets — principally land — for private development projects. The proceeds from such monetisation generated the resources to finance infrastructure and increase spending on health and education. Without a doubt, the dynamics of working with the private sector also lined the pockets of party and government officials. But both were held to account if there were failures in achieving development targets.

India too is turning away from template solutions

The good news is that India is changing. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made chai vendors respectable. Our next Prime Minister may do the same for pakora sellers — much derided today by some, who look down their noses, at anything but formal sector jobs. But Shekhar Shah, director-general of NCAER, a New Delhi economics think tank, cautions that formalisation, China style, can be a double-edged sword.

Formalisation of work and rising inequality

Yes, formalisation does improve work conditions and facilitates production at scale. But formalisation is often linked to capital intensive production, which results in disproportionate benefits to those, with access to capital. Unless managed with great care formalisation takes away from rewarding livelihoods for people in the bottom 40 per cent with traditional or low-level skills. President Kagame of Rwanda — till recently a darling of donors, because of his rapid adoption and implementation of the “doing business” type of performance metrics — runs a spotlessly clean capital, Kigali, with neat markets. But this is at the expense of street vendors who were priced out by the prohibitive cost of a licence.

Innovations in public finance lacking

We need to innovate, to increase government revenue, without trying to copy China. The 15th Finance Commission could be crucial in tweaking the transfer of resources to states and local government in a way which incentivises them to generate more local revenues. That is where a significant contribution to aggregate government taxes can be made, as suggested by the Economic Survey 2018-19.

Every Rs 100 spent from the budget can leverage an equal amount from the private sector.

The mantra for government spending is simple. Big ticket public development spending (both revenue and capital) must generate at least a similar level of private investment as extra-budgetary resources. Funding the premia for providing health insurance to 100 million poor families is one such scheme which can change mindsets and provide the forums for productive collaborations between the Central and state governments and the private sector. There is enough fat hidden away in the 2018-19 Budget to fund the scheme.

The National Health Insurance scheme can lead by using insurance permia to establish private or not-for-profit hospitals  

A ready market already exists — in urban and peri-urban areas, covering around 40 million poor families, as private hospitals are accessible. With an annual premia amount of Rs 20,000 crores, a similar sum as private investment can be leveraged in new healthcare facilities. Insurance companies, which will enjoy the bonanza of publicly-funded premia, will need to work with the healthcare industry to enlarge access to hospital facilities in under-covered areas. Similar state-level health insurance schemes should be allowed to lapse. States should divert their funds instead, to primary care, nutrition and public health.

Government should pull out of being the interface with citizens for service provisioning 

The government must, in a sequenced manner, pull out of the business of direct provisioning of services, except in disaster situations. Central,  state and local governments must learn to use the power of public finance to leverage private capital and management. A big push for outsourcing public services might be the only way to fill the financing gap between aspirations and today’s sordid reality.

Adapted from the author’s opinion piece in Asian Age February 13, 2018 http://www.asianage.com/opinion/columnists/130218/innovate-outsource-to-fund-deliver-services.html

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Budget, India, Public Institutions, social protection, Tax

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Sustaining growth in an unfriendly world

unfriendly

Put it down to the heavy snow in Davos or to a rare case of blunt honesty by an international agency. Whilst sharing the good news of the revival of the world economy in 2017 and its expected continued growth till 2019 at 3.9 percent, Christine Laggard – the IMF Managing Director, cautioned that 20 percent of the developing world was not part of that revival, tempering the WEF celebrations with sobriety. Latin America and resource dependent economies, had suffered negative growth, even in 2016.

India’s growth angst

India’s angst is real with growth dropping to 6.5%, versus the 7% plus real growth of recent years. We are new to this business of high growth. The two decades from 1980 to 2000 only had a growth rate of 5.7 percent per year. It is only post 2000 that a growth rate of 7 percent per year become part of our expectations. In comparison, China’s high growth period of 8 plus percent per year – with minor annual deviations – began in 1977 and continued for over three decades till 2011.

Trade liberalisation and world growth – China timed it right

The 1970s and 1980s were a good time to grow. Under the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) the Kennedy, Tokyo and Uruguay rounds of negotiations (1963 to 1993) reduced average tariffs from 22 percent to 5 percent. World exports as a share of world GDP increased by 40% between 1972 to 1982 (from a level of 14% of world GDP to 19%). Over the next two decades, till 2002, world exports further increased by nearly one third to a level of 25% of world GDP. The bulk of Chinese growth happened during this period of trade liberalization.

India – a growth laggard, got the timing wrong

India lost the favourable two decades from 1962 to 1982 to domestic political headwinds. We liberalized, tentatively, from 1985. But reform put down roots only from 1992. By then world growth had tapered off. During the quarter century after 1992 till 2016, only in four years, did the world grow at 4% per year or more. In the quarter century before 1992 there were 14 years when growth exceeded 4% per year with 1964 being the high point at 6.7%. India has struggled against the declining trend in world growth to pull itself up. Fresh challenges can be expected over the next decade.

Can India replace the broken “open economy” model

The world grew rapidly using the “open economy” model over fifty years till 2008. Is it now broken? And did rising inequality within economies kill it? And are we now left only with the long, dark alley of “directed Chinese capitalism”, as a viable “growth model”?

Yes it can, if only we collected more tax revenues

India can offer an alternative model aligned with the “open economy, freedom, democracy” matrix, if we can boost our tax to GDP ratio to generate the resources required for “sharing growth”. The combined revenue receipts, in India, of governments at all levels is 22% of GDP.

Meanwhile public outlays are critically short in health by 4 % of GDP; education by 3% of GDP; infrastructure by 3% of GDP and defence by 2% of GDP. This adds up to 12% of GDP.

Around one third of the additional fiscal resources could come from continuing to grow at 6% per year – an achievable target. Another one third could be met from non-tax receipts like from privatization and savings on pro-poor subsidies by targeting and distributing them better, including digitally. But we cannot escape increasing our tax to GDP ratio (all of government) to 26 % of GDP.

The broad anti-corruption framework offers hope

The drive against corruption; stricter adoption of banked transaction norms and the increasing popularity of digital transactions and online marketing are expected to ensure that tax collection in fiscal 2018 meets the budgetary targets of Rs 19 trillion (including state share of Rs 6.7 trillion).

This is despite a reduction in the budgeted nominal growth of GDP over last year from 11.8% to 9.5%. This buoyancy gives hope that continued rationalization of tax rates; improved assessment and review processes and fairer and faster settlement of tax cases will induce better tax compliance.

Specific incentives for officials can seed growth filters in local decision making

We should learn from China how to devise local incentives for enhancing revenues. 99% of the 50 million Chinese officials are locally recruited and are never transferred away. They are truly a “permanent” bureaucracy.

Secondly, a significant part of their pay is linked to the fiscal health of their local unit. A healthy unit means higher bonuses and benefits for employees. Fiscal downturns bring austerity even in the take home benefits for employees. This close and sustained identification of officials with local offices and the localities where they exist, creates a shared bond between citizens and the officials – all of whom sink or swim, together.

Recruit officials locally & keep them there, for better identification with local needs

In India, officials are birds of passage, even at the village level. Their take home pay and benefits are completely unlinked to the fiscal health of the local office or the locality they serve in. It is no surprise then that rent gouging is widely prevalent with no concern for making the locality or the employing organization fiscally healthy.

“Authoritarian” China is effectively more decentralised than “democratic” India

The Chinese government does not habitually, bail out bankrupt local governments. They must work themselves out of the holes they dig for themselves. At the same time, the government does not hesitate to formally allow policy departures, at the local level, driven by exigency. Ironically, this makes “authoritarian” China, extremely decentralized and participative, whilst India – part of the “free world”, looks hopelessly rigid and centralized in general. We must build up the bright exceptions.

PARAM IYER

 

No job is too dirty for me

Parameswaran Iyer, Secretary, Government of India, a sanitation specialist, recruited from the World Bank,  walks the talk, by demonstrating that composted pit latrines are no longer dirty. Commitment to field level results and competence in action.

 

Resilience to overcome future challenges comes from open-order economies, promoting innovation and flexible structures

The WEF has cautioned that the near-term future is full of security, climate, technology and economic risks. They advise that resilience is the best antidote to risk. For complex organisations, enhancing resilience means embedding flexible, modular structures and business relationships, which allow the freedom to alter the scale of operations to fit demand and to cultivate innovation and the capacity to work at “the edge” of the frontier. Tellingly, none of this is aligned with a heavy top down, centralized, cookie-cutter, approach. Change is upon us. We must bend lest we break.

Adapted from the the author’s opinion piece in TOI blogs, January 28, 2018 https://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/opinion-india/sustaining-growth-in-an-unfriendly-world/

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Democracy, Economy, India

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Xi and Modi – joined at the hip

xi-jinping

Prime Minister Modi and scores of democratically elected leaders, must envy Xi Jinping the President and “uncrowned emperor” of China. The serried rows of compliant and attentive members of the People’s Congress, seated, as if pinned, to identical red upholstery; displaying endless patience through Xi’s three and a half hour over-long, speech, without once dozing off or interrupting with a “point of order”. All this must seem like a dream to our leaders, used as they are, to rambunctious legislatures, more eager to speak- often all together – than to listen.

China shines

china2

Clearly, China has something to be chuffed about. Its model of socialism with “Chinese characteristics” cut away the romantic nonsense of socialist collectivism and recognizes that private enterprise and (less strongly) markets, create wealth, rather than good intentioned, tight, public-sector management. By combining private enterprise with a strong government and political stability, the Chinese model borrows the best from different ideologies. China gets an A for creating national wealth and for distributing it – poverty was down to just 2 percent in 2014 versus 21.2 percent in India (per World Bank definition $1.9 PPP (2011) per person per day).

But a more benign social policy beckons 

dissent

But the jury is out on whether an authoritarian State can nurture citizen centric growth. How long can the iron hand of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continue to rule China absolutely? Will the Chinese middle class not replicate the autonomy and democracy movement of Hong Kong? These are current concerns. This much is evident, from the new Xi doctrine, spelt out on October 18 in Beijing, which espouses that the CCP must provide for the “happiness” of citizens;  remain closely in touch with their aspirations and monitor citizens perceptions better.

Bhutan: Democratising for happiness

king

China’s tiny, neighbor, Bhutan could teach China a lesson or two on whether “happiness” mixes well with absolutism. King Jigme Singye Wangchuck voluntarily abdicated in 2006, in the hope, that this would help Bhutan evolve into a modern, egalitarian, democratic country, whilst retaining its trade mark of happiness. The Bhutan constitutional monarchy is revered, like the British monarchy, which is widely respected and admired.

Wealth alone does not breed content

The Chinese quest for a prosperous, satisfied and happy populace living under the hegemony and parental control of the CCP, is self-defeating. The spirit of liberty and competition is not divisible. A market led economy cannot be sustained under monopolized political power. Where markets rule, they drive the political process. Where the State rules it drives business. Innovation does not thrive in eco-systems, where the freedom of thought is absent. China is much admired as the factory of the world. But it has grown because worker rights do not exist, access to legal rights is limited and public interest is expected to mirror the CCPs interest.

India and China: different strokes

Unlike China, India is determinedly heterogenous and multi-party. It lends itself to decentralized, democratic governance. It is tempting to infer, therefore, that India illustrates the value of democracy even in a poor, developing country.  The recent Pew survey showed that 85 percent of Indians trust the government, even though, 40 percent of the population is vulnerable to poverty; governments have been negligent in providing public services and human development indicators are worse than in sub-Saharan Africa. But, disturbingly, the very same Pew Survey also shows that 55 percent of citizens are comfortable with a more autocratic, “strong” government.

Nationalism rules

This swing towards authoritarian governments is not isolated to India. It is an international trend in reaction to the economic limitations of the open economy, liberal, democratic model for development, particularly with respect to containing growing inequality. It is not surprising, therefore, that President Xi Jinping should advise developing countries to look closely at the Chinese model, which comes with dollops of loan assistance, as an alternative to the more standard western model of development, advocated by the Multilateral Financial Institutions.

The country cousins meet

Xi and Modi

Prime Minister Modi was not just sharing dhoklas with President Xi in Ahmedabad way back in September 2014. There seems to have been a meeting of minds there. Like Modi’s vision of modernity, rooted in tradition, the Xi doctrine, also evokes the five thousand old civilization of China. Both leaders focus heavily on external and domestic threats to security. Both advocate much stronger oversight of the media, the internet and educational institutions, to regulate disruptive dissent. Like Xi, Prime Minister Modi has used the first three years to implement structural reforms. His high decibel war on corruption is expected to minimize the financial “fire power” of the mafia; bridle political opposition and improve public sector outcomes. Implementation of the long-delayed Goods and Services tax (GST) shall, like Bollywood, bind us more tightly and provide incentives to integrate further. Regions which are seamlessly connected for commerce tend to remain together. Like Xi, Modi views infrastructure as a “glue”. For Xi it is a glue to foster Chinese hegemony over its near abroad. For Modi it is a “glue” to bind the nation.

The Xi doctrine seeks to realize the ”China Dream” – a vision of a prosperous, environmentally clean country at the center of the world, contributing positively to mankind, by 2049 – the centenary of the founding of the Republic of China. There will be much to learn from China. There are two immediate take-aways. First, that it is futile to copy the political systems of other countries mindlessly. Second, that even authoritarian governments need to listen to the people.

lagislature

Indira Gandhi, turned away from absolutism and towards democracy, in 1977, by choosing to call for elections. This ended the two-year old national emergency. She gained personally and politically from this astute move. But it took an entire decade, till 1991, for the democratic apparatus to be used effectively, in public interest. We have not looked back since. India’s political architecture is finely tuned to the risk averse nature of its citizens. It charts the middle path to progress and shuns extreme options.

China will do well to study this option closely, as it seeks to move center stage in world affairs and looks for domestic pathways, to transform from being a single minded, ruthlessly efficient, economic, power-house to a house, fostering happy Chinese.

Also available at https://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/opinion-india/xi-and-modi-joined-at-the-hip/

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Democracy, Economy, India, world affairs

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Will NITI get it’s hands dirty?

Rajiv-Kumar-NITI

Rajiv Kumar, the new vice-chairman of the Niti Aayog, has made development of an organic, Bharatiya model of development as his mission. He is likely to encounter three problems in this endeavour.

A new, local model of development is doomed from the start in a globalised world 

farmer 2

First, in a post-ideology world, marked by rapid technological transformations, economic models become outdated even before they can be tested. In these uncertain times, feeling the rocky river bed with one’s feet carefully, while crossing turbulent economic and social currents, seems the wisest option.

Second, isn’t this what Bharat has always done. We have been obsessive about the “uniqueness” of India, which seemingly requires all international experience to be adapted for use locally. This is not necessarily a bad thing, though it has its downsides.

Scaling up rapidly more important than localisation

school lunch

Consider that in the five decades after Independence we have stuck, like leeches, to the Nehruvian development model of ersatz socialism based on a massive industrial public sector accompanied by the outrageous neglect of agriculture, private enterprise or international quality education and health facilities. This, when most other emerging countries, in East Asia, Southeast Asia and Latin America, switched over to a modified Anglo-Saxon, neo-liberal strategy from the 1970s and reaped the benefits of rapid growth.

To be sure, even after 1991, the reform model we followed was Bharatiya. Its core ingredients were incremental rather than big-bang reform — a strategy Russia followed with disastrous results — and careful sequencing of sector reform to minimise the pain from reforms.

It is unclear, however, whether Bharatiya incrementalism helped the poor. Chancel and Picketty (July 2017) estimate that over the period 1980 to 2014 the share of growth accruing to the bottom 50 per cent of adults was 11 per cent in India; 13 per cent in China and only one per cent in the United States. Meanwhile, the top one per cent of adults garnered 29 per cent of the growth in India. China did better by containing the share of this segment at 15 per cent, while the US did worse at 34 per cent. More worryingly, the next nine per cent of adults, from the top, garnered 37 per cent of growth in India, significantly more than in China (29 per cent) and the US (32 per cent). Where we failed spectacularly was in protecting the middle 40 per cent of adults, who got only 23 per cent of the growth versus 43 per cent in China and 33 per cent in the US.

Be shrewd and businesslike not ideologically shortsighted

One Bharatiya innovation which succeeded spectacularly was the phased introduction of currency and capital convertibility. This modified-market approach was validated by India escaping the ill-effects of the 1997 East Asian currency crisis. It is significant that Malaysia followed our innovative approach, endorsed by Jagdish Bhagwati, by reimposing capital controls after 1997, and Iceland did similarly in 2008.

Similarly, our choice of shying away from “big bang” privatisation of the public sector, unlike Latin America in the 1980s and Eastern Europe in the 1990s, worked well. We chose instead to liberalise controls over private investment, thereby enabling private companies to grow and compete with the public sector. This strategy has paid dividends in civil aviation, telecom, minerals and electricity generation. Incremental private sector investment now dominates these sectors and a competitive market-based economy has emerged.

Simultaneously, we contained the social cost of reforms. But a similar policy has not worked in banking. We were too hesitant to give up the political power which comes with the government owning public sector banks. Private banks today account for just one-third of banking assets. The massive economic problem of stressed loan accounts, amounting to around 14 per cent of publicly owned bank assets, is a consequence of our not following through by liberalising the financial sector. Bharatiyata has, unfortunately, become synonymous with crony capitalism in banking.

Aping the turtle gives time to pull a reform coalition together

The GST is operational today due to a strategy of incrementalism, driven by the need for building inter-government consensus. Early indications are positive both on the increase in revenue collected and the enhanced compliance by taxpayers. But the jury is out till the final results come in by April 2018.

In a nutshell, Bharat’s economic policies have always been unique and contextual. Some observers would even say we obsessively reinvent the wheel. It will thus be a tall order for the Niti Aayog to evolve a new Bharatiya model of development, which is completely unknown to us, or the world.

Don’t fix what isn’t broken

Third, do we need a new model of development? The existing model has served us well. The areas for deeper reform are well known and agreed. Indeed, many are already on their way. Hopefully the 15th Finance Commission will continue the task of decentralising fiscal resources, by increasing the share of devolved resources from the 42 per cent existing today towards 50 per cent. This would push the Union government to be more selective in its interventions based on the time-tested principle of subsidiarity — not doing anything that can be efficiently done at a lower level of government. The government is already allocating more resources to agriculture, education and healthcare, which had fallen through the gaps earlier, while also stepping up allocations for defence and infrastructure.

Avoid the temptation to centralise functions – There is enough to do for all.

At the helicopter level of grand plans and policies, there is no gap which the Niti Aayog can address. In fact, it would do well to exercise forbearance in areas where individual ministries are better equipped to take the lead. Where Niti can add value is in addressing the root causes of poor implementation. Tony Blair’s Service Delivery Unit did this to marvellous effect in the UK. Malaysia and Tanzania thereafter copied the template.

Check the plumbing in government. Massive efficiency gains are low hanging fruit

dirty

Niti should focus on the nitty-gritty of getting the plethora of good intentions, embedded in policies, implemented on the ground. This goes beyond close monitoring of targets or punishing laggards. The devil lies in clogged delivery chains, poor metrics to measure results and misaligned incentives, all of which need to be painstakingly mapped and then innovatively declogged. It’s a plumber’s job that needs to be done. Is the Niti Aayog willing to get its hands dirty?

Adapted from the authors article in The Asian Age, September 7, 2017  http://www.asianage.com/opinion/columnists/070917/is-niti-aayog-willing-to-get-its-hands-dirty.html

 

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bureaucracy, Economy, India, Public Institutions

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G 20 summit: Not India’s turn to eat

ivanka G20

President Trump’s implicit assessment of the value of the G20 Hamburg summit was best illustrated by letting his daughter replace him, whilst he was away from his seat at the summit and to spend double the budgeted time, holding President Putin’s hand. We should take note.

Did Trump try and devalue the G20, President Xi or both by letting Ivanka replace him?

Despite his oddities and his rhetoric, President Trump is a businessman. He cannot but recognize that his real fight is with China. So occasional side swipes to emphasize US dominance over China are par for the course. But the US is too fat to keep pace with China. Its entrepreneurial juices have dried up, bled by the strain of keeping the American Dream alive – an endlessly aspirational, middle class and a voraciously, acquisitive elite, albeit both sets being more meritocratic than elsewhere. But the strain shows. If there is no public money for infrastructure and Facebook needs to build a village to increase the supply of affordable housing in Silicon Valley, there is something very wrong with institutional incentives in the US.

The football “huddle” to plot strategy

Trump

President Trump’s instincts to deal with a problem is to “huddle” in a group of “familiar” friends. Co-opting Russia into a loose friendly alliance of northern hemisphere countries could be an outcome of such “huddling”. After all, there are the cultural bonds. The UK will be supportive. It was Tony Blair, who persuaded Russia to join the rich country club of G7, which thereafter became the G8. Russia was expelled, in 2014 over its muscular action in Crimea. But the G7 was already in decline, post 2009, whilst the G20 gained leverage, as a more inclusive forum with economic heft.

Russia better as a friend than an enemy

Putin2

Bringing Russia in from the cold, makes sense. It is no longer an ideological threat to the West – just a shade smarmier in its management style. But no more so than other upper middle-income countries. Its GDP, in constant terms, has barely moved from US$ 1.5 trillion in 1989 to 1.6 trillion in 2016 – though it has doubled since 1998, when it reached its nadir at US$ 0.8 billion. Russian expatriates live happily in the US and in Europe.

Hypertension, made in China

china air craft carr

Expansionist Germany was the muscular outlier in the early part of the last century. In the early part of the current century, it is China. Scale matters. Consider that the world’s largest mall, 19 million square feet of space, has come up in Chengdu, western China.

The Chinese manufacturing engine has surplus capacity to feed the world over the next decade with goods, targeted at the price points and quality requirements of local markets, across the globe.

China applies the late CK Prahalad’s principle of, “finding the fortune hidden at the bottom of the pyramid” by supplying consumables and consumer durables to 3 billion humans at the bottom of the economic food chain. And they do it better than local manufacturers, located in countries where the poor exist, including India.

India’s dharma

So where does this leave India? It is not in India’s DNA to kowtow. So, we are a poor fit with China. It is in India’s political DNA to be ideological. Remember Non-Alignment? Ideologically committed bureaucracies are a menace. They must be tamed. To come out tops, from the ongoing international churn towards a transactional future, we need to reign-in our tendency to grandstand. There is virtue in being supremely transactional. But transactions must be anchored in public interest. We have not been very good at that.

Had we been better, we would have got rid of poverty faster than we have. We would have cared more about creating physical and social (education and health) infrastructure and jobs. And we would have exploited every growth opportunity, which came our way, rather than choose to sit out the 1970s and the 1980s on our elitist, immaculately manicured hands.

We do not have the luxury, unlike Latin America and large parts of Africa, of being natural invitees to the western, Christian table of nations. Nor do we fit the dismal, backward looking club of Islamic nations. And we are too large to be helped economically. So, like China, we have no option, except to fend for ourselves.
International trade is our entry point to becoming more competitive.

We need cheap Chinese goods more than China needs our market. We import just 3 percent of China’s exports. We should be trying harder to become part of global supply chains to pull-in foreign investment, technology, jobs and increase net exports. Our traditional links with Russia are valuable but need to be lubricated.

With the US and its West European allies, we share a tradition of democracy – a generic, clunky, artifact to safeguard citizen rights versus the State via an elaborate architecture of self-balancing, institutional power centers. These links can be deepened.
Going under the radar and setting-off no red alerts till we have accumulated critical economic heft is sensible.

Playing second, or even seventh fiddle, to achieve targeted outcomes is better than to compromise outcomes by being top-dog in process matters. But low profile economic diplomacy does not come easy to our colonial style Foreign Policy establishment. Best to remember that we rank seventh in nominal GDP and are a lower middle-income country. We should punch our weight. Doing more is unsustainable.

Adapted from the author’s article in TOI July 9, 2017Blogs http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/opinion-india/g20-trumped/

 

 

 

 

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G 20, India, Multilateralism

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New social compact : wooing the underdogs

voting

Do Indian voters remain deeply aligned with caste, clan and community (read religious) interests, as reported in the ongoing state elections? Possibly, yes, they do. Continued allegiance to traditional identities makes sense, if new ones never had the chance to take root.

Industrial work was one such silo-buster, as is urbanisation. Both, have had a limited impact on India’s social profile. Large, organised industry employs barely 10 million people, or just two per cent of the workforce. The impact of urbanisation is still far too recent to induce a change in social behaviour. Migration by men, for work in the urban, informal sector, has done a lot to contribute to the urban sprawl. But it doesn’t let new urban identities take root, as families remain village bound.

Modi – disrupting the status quo

No surprise then, if the 657 political parties (many are moribund) that are registered with the Election Commission vie for existing group interests as vote banks. There are only two examples in the past three decades which go against this grain of vote bank politics. The BJP came to power at the national level in 2014 by disrupting traditional identity-based vote banks. In a powerful outreach to young, aspirational India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi provided the instant hope of jobs through a government which worked for them, not against them. This enlarged support beyond the BJP’s traditional vote banks — upper caste and bania groups.

tea-3

Modi exults in the hard work and determination that enabled him to overcome his humble origins  – chaiwala (tea server) – in status quoist India. Mayawati – BSP and Mamata Banerjee – Trinamool Congress are female avatars of Modi.

It helped that Narendra Modi is himself from a backward caste. His is a rags-to-riches story. More important, he flaunts his humble origins and makes a virtue of his struggle to make good. More conventionally, he publicly dons the mantle of the selfless “sevak”. Anybody in the audience could be him, if they only had the gumption to succeed.

AAP – the new “Left”  

aap-uk

The Aam Aadmi Party had similarly disrupted traditional identity politics in December 2014. It fashioned a winning alliance of the urban poor and neo-middle class against the corruption of elites in the Delhi state election. This anti-establishment, anti-corruption model is now facing a test, for its resilience and appeal, in the rural settings of Punjab and the BJP stronghold of Goa — both of which are “rich” states.

Its a tough world out these

wire

Like the Congress during the post-Independence period, Mr Modi’s BJP is shaping a new India. It is an India that recognises today’s harsh international realities. First, unlike the rosy expectations of the 1950s, foreign aid, as an instrument of change, is dead. Economies need to fund their own development, by borrowing from the market or collaborating with foreign investors. This requires governments to bend before those who have the surplus capital; ship up to strengthen their own economies or continue to lag. Second, the consensus of the 1980s, that markets could substitute for the State’s inefficiency, is less credible, particularly after 2008. Strong states seem inevitable, albeit exercising judicious restraint while regulating markets.

A Nobel for the Communist Party of China?

china-politburo

For lifting more people out of multi-dimensional poverty that ever before; for adapting ideology to market realities and for standing true to their national objectives, the Nobel goes to ……. 

China has been the most successful economy, post 1990. It deserves a Nobel Prize for overcoming massive poverty and low levels of human development to become the factory of the world. It accounted for 1.5 per cent of world GDP in 1990 — the same as India. Since then it has cornered more than a fifth of growth in world GDP. By 2015 it accounted for 15 per cent of world GDP and has liberated nearly 300 million people — almost as many as the population of the United States — from poverty.

The Chinese story is of a single-party-managed mega-nation. By mixing market principles of merit and competition with the political energy of a proactive state, it has fashioned a massive politico-industrial machine. China has little patience with the effete romance of liberal idealism. Theirs is the classic hunter’s approach to life — smart strategy matters more than social ideology for filling your belly and remaining stronger than your adversary. This approach resonates in a world where persistent vulnerability to poverty; falling real income and increasingly skewed income distribution clouds even the rich world.

Where is the leadership in India?

tamil-nadu

Reverence for the absent trumps concern for the living, for gathering votes, in mystical India

Mr Modi’s world is that of realpolitik. Performance and outcomes matter the most. In contrast, the other national parties seem dated. The Congress — once a people’s movement, albeit led by professionals — is dormant. The Left is trapped in ideological echo chambers, seemingly unaware that organised, permanent workers are a diminishing vote bank. That economic forces have moved value addition beyond the spatially focused, integrated work areas, of the industrial age. The Lohia movements of the late 1970s rallied the backward castes into regional parties. But these lack vision, credibility or sustainability, beyond their narrow vote banks. The dalits have been transactional in their support for parties, although Mayawati has tried to substitute the Congress with a rainbow-style coalition. Muslims remain boxed into a defensive stance, perpetually seeking the status quo rather than transformation.

Where then do we turn to for leadership in India? The BJP is a clear and credible option. The mantra is that the government must focus on economic inclusion and social inclusion will follow. To take a practical example — higher government revenues from a more efficient tax regime can enable transfer of universal basic income to the poor and marginalised. This neatly avoids the clunky and inefficient option of physically providing cheap goods and services to the poor and caste or community-based support for the marginalised. It may also reduce corruption significantly by around one per cent of GDP.

A new social compact – trade entitlements for opportunity

taxi

The existing social compact between citizens and the State should be reworked. Will citizens be ready to give up their entitlements and de facto freedoms, in return for the State providing more economic benefits — security, macroeconomic stability, jobs, infrastructure and access to healthcare? With money and smartphones in their pockets, people — including the poor — will be able to shape their own societies, without being clouded by the past seven centuries of civilisational shibboleths dumped on them. Can Mr Modi get past the elites who benefit directly from the status quo? 2019 will tell.

Adapted from the authors article in Asian Age March 2, 2017 http://www.asianage.com/opinion/columnists/020317/can-modi-revise-social-compact-2019-will-tell.html

 

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Democracy, elections, India

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Book Review: Just erratic not deranged

ghosh

Amitav Ghosh’s latest book—The Great Derangement—is an exploration of why contemporary culture, imagination and political systems have failed to prevent global warming, despite its cataclysmic long-term effects and disruptive short-term outcomes.

His choice of the book’s title reflects the conundrum facing poor nations. They are not the ones who benefited from the carbon economy. But to aspire to do this now, when there is no carbon space left, is a one-way ticket to self-annihilation. Hence, the derangement of the modern world, racing towards a future, where consuming itself becomes the only option. Curbing global warming means debunking the fundamental values on which the modern world is built. Central to this artifact is the notion that man is the centre of the universe. Non-human forces, like nature, have no place in this calculus of liberty and modernity.To recognise global warming as a problem, you first have to reject the paradigm that the unconstrained liberty of man is a leitmotif of human progress. Hence the unwillingness and the inability to face or deal with the problem.

Nature’s pawns

This is a cleverly crafted book, as would be expected from a novelist extraordinaire. Divided into three parts, it starts with “Stories”. This segment situates humans as powerless, organic sub-systems of a larger force—restless and dynamic nature. Stories of his family—climate refugees from Bangladesh; of self-doubt after a sudden, destructive tornado in Delhi; of raw beauty and sudden death in the muddy, torpid, densely tangled greenery of the Sundarbans reinforce that we are not masters of the universe.

Inequality and the urge to splurge

The second section on History, draws together three defining strands of the late 17th to the early 20th centuries. First, the availability and use of fossil fuels which were an important precondition for wealth and power. Second—the use of technology to improve productive capacity. Third—the growth of modern empires as the political mechanism for extracting the supply of raw materials; controlling access to technology and keeping overseas markets open for exported manufactured goods. Empires faded in the late 20th century but the extractive process continued. The elite—foreign and domestic—comprise not more than one fourth of the world population, but continue to become wealthy at the expense of the bottom three fourths.

gas-guzzler

The third section is on Politics. Ghosh argues cynically that so little has been done to mitigate climate change because the rich world will be able to insulate itself from the horrific outcomes. The shock will primarily be borne by the poor. Littoral countries like Bangladesh, Seychelles and Vietnam and poor communities, within countries, will be the worst affected.

A captive media

Ghosh believes the deafening silence in the media around climate change is because it has been bought out by the huge corporates who own fossil fuel assets. The silence in literature is because his peers—writers, poets and intellectuals—are bludgeoned into conformity by the formulaic path to success of shunning the unpredictable and situating a story within the predictable activities of everyday life, with the individual as the central character.

Can religion help where politics has failed?

Not much can be expected from politicians either. They are so immersed in “bio-politics”—catering to the short-term interests of a defined population of voters—that they have little appetite for long-term global risks. For what it is worth, differences in economic ideology across parties have become minimal in India. All the political parties which have ruled India since 1991 have adhered to the broad neo-liberal construct of economic development. So, quite possibly, the devil lies in the incentives created by this economic model to produce and consume in larger volumes. He cites the December 2016 Paris Agreement as subterfuge and doublespeak, promising to do much without, in effect, doing anything.

He compares this shallow and evasive, politically negotiated international agreement with the direct and forceful Encyclical Letter of Pope Francis issued at the same time. The latter fingers the ruling “technocratic paradigm” and the objectification of endless growth as the problem rather than the solution. It calls for tempering individualism with the balm of social and ecological justice. Ghosh notes that similar voices are being heard within the Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist faiths. This leads him to believe that greater community activism led by religious leaders could be the answer to mobilize opinion for definitive steps to abate global warming.

naga

Ghosh’s stand is unusual for a secular rationalist. But this is consistent with an approach which absolves religion of its divisive outcomes. He speculates (page 150) that Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by a former member of a Hindu party because he was perceived as weakening India by opposing industrialisation and consumerism. No references are quoted to support this “economic” explanation. The more usual view is to attribute the killing to Hindu apprehensions that the Mahatma was too politically accommodating of minority interest.Ghosh also seems to step lightly away from the conundrum that using religion for secular purposes is akin to riding a tiger, particularly in India’s surcharged environment, perpetuated by religious faultlines. Indira Gandhi paid the price for doing just that.

The world is increasingly more not less sustainable

 

cyclists

Ghosh’s rhetoric is elegant and elegiac. His reasoning is impeccably logical. But his morbid assessment of where we are today and of our future prospects does not triangulate with reality. The world is becoming less carbon-intensive. Every incremental unit of output requires less energy than the previous one. It is true that explosive economic growth in Asia since 1980 has negated this advantage and the global mean temperature continues to increase. But renewable energy options are being developed for air, road and marine transportation, thereby further diluting the link between the use of fossil energy and economic growth. Similarly, technology developments like LED lighting have vastly improved the efficiency of energy services. Climate risk is increasingly being factored into the cost of insurance and the hurdle rate of return for investors. This will drive smart green investments.

We are winning the war on poverty

International aid agencies, governments—of which China is the exemplar, and communities, all working in tandem, have successfully reduced poverty and are on track to eliminate it by 2030. Yes, inequality is on the rise but at a significantly elevated base income level. The opening up of international trade has diluted the link between political domination and market access. Even small nations like Vietnam or Mauritius have benefited from international markets. International trade has democratised resource endowment by making petroleum, minerals and metals available to resource-poor countries. Three out of the four largest economies today—China, Japan and India—are natural resource-poor. They have grown over the last half century by importing fossil fuel and technology. None of the three tops the charts in military might.

child

Choice and progress

The spread and deepening of democracy has expanded opportunities for the disadvantaged and smashed earlier glass ceilings, including for women. Adoption of the open economy model has expanded imported competition while deregulation has nurtured domestic competition, for the benefit of consumers. There is more choice today than at any point in history.The world is a more peaceful place than a century ago. That this holds true despite growing sectarian violence in India’s near abroad and an increase in the number of nations armed with nuclear weapons, illustrates the high stakes everyone has in an enduring peace.

Plurality rules

Today, plural models for progress exist. These models are not country or culture specific. They are instead domain specific. Of the top 20 corporates in the world which accumulated the maximum value over the period 2009-2015, not a single company was in oil or gas; as many as eight were in technology or health care. All of them excelled at the capacity to innovate, communicate and compete. It’s a new world out there which defies explanation using traditional paradigms.

None of this means that we are on top of the problem of global warming, yet. But just as surely, there is more light visible, at the end of the tunnel, than has ever been seen before.

telescope

Adapted from the authors essay in Swarajya October 7, 2016 http://swarajyamag.com/magazine/its-not-that-scary

 

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Economy, Environment

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