Thursday 24 April 2014

Ab Ki Baar, Corporate Ki Sarkar

Big Business aur Industry ke Mitron!

First of all, let me thank you for your financial support and good wishes during the elections. Your money and influence has helped me put together important alliances in several states where we were in a difficult position. You have also helped break alliances of parties opposed to us in key states where we were weak.

Mitron, when I become Prime Minister, I will repay your kindness in every way that I can. My government will be of the corporates, for the corporates and by the corporates. I have already shown in the Fabled Land of Vikas, that big business houses can get away with anything. I promise to take this Vikas model all over the country.

Most of you know what I have achieved because you have personally gained from investing in my state. For the rest of you, I have just a few examples to give. Let me begin with the Tatas, who were pushed out of West Bengal by Mamata. I gave them cheap land, a virtually interest-free loan and I also paid for them to transfer their factory to my state.

The Ambanis, who get even more respect in my state than Sardar Patel did, have special status. I have ensured that public sector companies in Vikas Pradesh give Reliance cheap resources, even if they have to lose money in the process. This progressive policy meant to encourage Vikas has been unfairly targeted by the CAG. Despite that, I have not hesitated to give them ever increasing sops.

But, mitron, the best example of how I help my corporate well-wishers, is the Adani group. My friend is here in the audience and you can ask him whether what I am saying is true or not. I leased out land to them nearly 7500 hectares of land at rates between 60 paise to 25 rupees per square metre. The Adani group then rented out a part of the same land to the government company Indian Oil for about 700 rupees her square metre.

Mitron, in Vikas Pradesh corporates do not need to use their own money to make more money. We give you government money and government assets almost for free for you to utilise for private gains. This is the highest and most developed form of capitalism, mitron. Can anyone else give you this?

I promise you, when I am Prime Minister, there will be no need for environmental clearance, there will be no problem in taking over agricultural land, there will be lot of cheap financing, and SEZs will multiply across the country, so that you people can produce things without having to pay taxes.

Mitron, I believe in minimum government and maximum governance. It means governance that will ensure that the government is entirely yours.

Kyonki, mitron, Ab Ki baar, Corporate ki Sarkar.







Monday 21 April 2014

The Wife Dreams of RG

I woke up – or should I say was woken up – to find the wife typing away furiously on her laptop next to me. 
I looked at the clock – 03:42 AM.

“W-W-What are you doing?” I asked with one eye shut, to block off the harsh halo from the reading lamp behind the wife’s head.

“I just had the most amazing dream,” she said with a hint of manic glee in her voice. “I have to write it down before I forget it. You go to sleep.”

“What is it about?” I asked.

“I just dreamt that I was interviewing Rahul Gandhi. And, he said the most amazing things,” she said. “Now go back to sleep. Don’t distract me. You can read it in the morning.”

If we had been in the 19th century, she would definitely have rubbed her hands in glee.

I woke up again. This time the halo was sunlit. The wife had stopped typing and was now re-reading what she had written.

She looked at me. “Good. Wake up and read this.”

“Can I just get myself some coffee first?” I asked.

“No. That can wait,” she said smiling. But, I knew the smile meant I had to read it right then.

And, this is how the imaginary interview went.


TW: Rahul Gandhi, thank you for agreeing to speak to us.

RG: The pleasure is mine.

TW: When one analyses your speeches and interviews, there is a very clear message – the Congress has its base among the poor, the BJP among corporates. These are your very words in your interview to Aaj Tak. Yet, your government’s image is exactly the opposite. It is seen as a government that promoted crony capitalism.

RG: Unfortunately, our government failed to implement the policies of the party, which were outlined by my mother Sonia Gandhi. I cannot deny that. But, the overall thrust of our policies has been pro-poor, whether it is RTI, MNREGA or food security.

TW: MNREGA happened in UPA-1 and since then there has been a steady decline in the amount of money allocated to it by the various Congress finance ministers. Food security was supposed to have been launched in 2010. People were calling it the killer app of UPA-2. It hasn’t been launched properly even now.

RG: I agree with you. Our government should have been more pro-active in implementing the party’s policies. In the first five years, my mother played an important role as a guiding force behind the policies of the government, but in our second stint, her health did not allow her to play that active a role. I think, the party made mistakes in the choice of ministers and we put many technocrats in positions of authority. They were people divorced from politics and from what is happening on the ground. Our economic policies were far too pro-market and pro-corporate – much more than what my mother or I wanted.

TW: But, it is not just ministers. Even the Prime Minister was working at loggerheads with what the party wanted. Do you think it was a mistake to let Dr Manmohan Singh continue as PM even when he was clearly ignoring what the political leadership wanted?

RG: I will not take any names. Dr Singh is a highly respected economist. He has his own views about the economy. People in the party do not always agree with them. For instance, you are right that the party wanted the food security act to be speeded up, and also wanted more money allocated to it. But, the PM set up a committee under Mr Rangarajan, which opposed it. In effect, the policy got delayed, people did not get the right to food when they should have. When the economy was slowing down and inflation was going up, cheap food would have been a very important social safety net for the poor. But, the government had other ideas. In principal, there’s nothing wrong in that. A PM has to be allowed to have autonomy.

TW: Isn’t it ironic, that the PM hardly ever listened to the party leadership, was taking all major decisions on his own, and yet he has successfully painted himself as a puppet? Look at Sanjay Baru’s book. It puts the blame of policy failures completely on your mother’s doorstep.

RG: Look, I don’t want to comment on any book. It is the author’s right to write whatever he wants. But, I will repeat what my sister said the other day. Dr Manmohan Singh was the Super PM, not my mother.  

TW: Do you think you should have changed the PM in 2009?

RG: Changing the PM is not the issue. I think the party should have asserted its role in policy making. The party fights elections, is in daily contact with people on the ground. It gets feedback from the voters who have put their faith and trust in us. We let corporates and vested interests dictate terms, instead of the party. I will give you one example. We had wanted a mining policy where local adivasis would be given a share in the revenues. Our senior minister was replaced by the government in a cabinet reshuffle, and the entire plan was shelved. Instead we saw big corporates getting preferential treatment and being given mines out of turn.

TW: These are very strong words. Cabinet reshuffles are technically done by the PM. Are you saying that the party did not play a role in deciding who gets which ministry and the PM did it on his own?

RG: I think, the party did play a significant role initially. But, the last few reshuffles had been done almost entirely by the Government, on its own.

TW: By Government, you clearly mean the PM?

RG: I don’t want to take any names.

TW: Fair enough. I will not press you on that point, any further. But, why do you think the party lost control over the Government since 2010?

RG: You see, for that, you have to understand several things. My mother was unwell. I was busy trying to rebuild the party organisation in states where we had disintegrated – mainly UP and Gujarat. We were also in the middle of a global economic crisis. There were two ways in which different countries reacted to this problem. Some decided that the corporate sector needs more sops, and government needs to tighten its belt and cut deficits. Others, mainly in Latin America, decided that the state had to intervene and spend more. Oddly, if you look at history, you will find that the US actually decided to increase government spending and public investment after World War II. It is what helped them come out of the crisis and become an economic super power. But, the overall consensus among economists has been that spending needs to be cut. Unfortunately, for us, our Government also took that line.

TW: What would you have done if you had been PM?

RG: Well, first of all, I would not have cared about the fiscal deficit. I would have increased Government spending on infrastructure and agriculture. I would have increased productive subsidies on fertilisers, seeds and fuel. I would have provided tariff protection to some key industries. I would have reduced tax rebates to big corporates. I would have provided financial subsidies to small and medium entrepreneurs. I would have declared tax holidays for key industries, which employ more people. I would have challenged the WTO consensus and faced the consequences.

TW: But, that would have made India a pariah country. Foreign capital would have left the country overnight. How would you have dealt with it?

RG: I don’t believe that at all. Foreign capital wants high returns on investments. History shows that every large country that has seen fast manufacturing driven growth has always done it on the back of heavy government spending. The US is no exception. A high growth economy is always attractive to foreign capital. Don’t forget that UPA-1 followed policies identified under a Common Minimum Programme, which was drafted with the support of Left parties. Yet, that was the same period when we had the fastest growth and maximum foreign investment.

TW: But, that was also in a period of global financial boom.

RG: I am not denying that. I am just saying that there are many reasons for foreign capital to leave a country.  I don’t believe that high fiscal deficits necessary causes foreign capital to run away.

TW: This is very interesting, since this is exactly the opposite of what the PM and senior ministers like Mr Chidambaram have been saying. Do you think they were wrong?

RG: I think the question is not whether they were wrong or right. I think it is an ideological battle. All I can say is that if I become PM, our policies will be very different from what the UPA-2 government had. The entire team running the Government would be different.

TW: So why didn’t you join the government in the past few years? You could have changed its course.

RG: No. One minister cannot do anything when the consensus is in the other direction.

TW: Why didn’t you replace the PM?

RG: Many people have asked us this question. It is a hypothetical question that is best left unanswered. History will judge whether we did the right thing or not. (Smiles mischievously).

TW: Coming to the party now. Have you sensed that there is hostility within the party to your line against big-corporates? The journalistic grapevine talks about your own party leaders planting stories in the press against you at the behest of their corporate bosses.

RG: (Laughs) I think that is a bit far-fetched. Yes, there are people who are identified with some corporate houses and they are a little nervous about what I am trying to achieve. No party is entirely unified. Look at the BJP. There is constant infighting there. That is the nature of the game. Some of it is ideological, some of it is personal and some of it is always going to be driven by the power of money and vested interests. My aim is to gradually clean up the party structure so that people who represent the poor and the marginalised acquire the strongest voices within the party.

TW: Do you think you can achieve this before the elections?

RG: No, I cannot. This is a long term project. It will take several years. We have to empower the local level leaders. We have to give them a voice, not only in the political process, but also in the process of drafting laws and formulating policies. We will not repeat the arrogance of UPA-2 again, where technocrats trained in mainstream economics decided what was good for the country.

TW: But, isn’t that a very populist line to take?

RG: Let me clarify. I am not saying that there will be no experts and no philosophy behind our policies. All I am saying is that those at the grassroots will be consulted before any policy is implemented, it will be explained to them and their voices and feedback heard. It is a crucial part of democratic governance. That’s the only way to keep track of how Government policies are affecting people on the ground.

TW: You are sounding like a Latin American socialist leader. Like a Chavez or a Lula.

RG: (Laughs). If that means that I am sounding pro-poor, then I am proud of it. But, in the end, I don’t want to sound like anyone else from any other country. India is unique, with its unique set of problems. I just want to be true to myself and my beliefs. I just want to sound like Rahul Gandhi.


Friday 18 April 2014

The Wife Against Modi

On the way to the car from the polling station, I asked the wife who she had voted for.

“ABM party,” she said, “Anyone but Modi.”

“Isn’t that being completely negative? You guys don’t have a positive message,” I said, a tad exasperated. “You just want to keep India’s most popular man out of power.”

“I don’t want to discuss this with you,” the wife barked viciously. “That’s the only way to keep our marriage intact.”

“Why? Why don’t you want to get into an honest debate?” I asked. The wife always wins every debate, but this time I had some points, which she would find hard to counter.

“What’s there to debate? You support a communal fascist, I oppose him.”

“If Modi is communal, then so is the Congress. If Modi had a hand in the 2002 riots, then Rajiv Gandhi was equally responsible for the 1984 Sikh riots,” I said.

“So? Is Rajiv Gandhi fighting the elections to be PM right now?” the wife asked.      

“No. But, the Congress Party is,” I countered. “They have not disowned Rajiv Gandhi. Rajiv Gandhi delayed the entry of the army in Delhi in November 1984. He unlocked the Babri Masjid gates for Hindus to worship. He launched Ramayan on Doordarshan, which produced three BJP MPs. He overturned the Supreme Court’s verdict in the Shah Bano case. How can you say that his politics was any less communal than Modi’s? ”

The wife was a little taken aback. She didn’t expect me to know all this. I didn’t tell her that I had picked it up from what my friend Rahul said on TV last night. The wife doesn’t watch news-TV so she will never know.

“I don’t care what the Congress says about Rajiv Gandhi today,” she said, after a short pause. “He died in 1991. And, there’s a huge difference between his Congress and the Congress Party of his wife and son.”

“Rajiv Gandhi was a pro-market, pro-reform figure,” the wife continued. “He was partial to Reagonmics and the trickle-down theory. He believed in using computers to take India to the 21st century. He believed that India could be a local Big Brother and fought a disastrous war in Sri Lanka. He was surrounded by extremely cynical career politicians like Arun Nehru and he often took wrong political decisions. That is why he squandered away the biggest mandate ever in Indian politics and lost power in just 5 years.”

“The Sonia-Rahul Congress is entirely different. It is pro-poor, sceptical of market forces, wary of corporates. It is a hard-liberal party on social issues, including on political hot-potatoes like homosexuality. It has taken a consistently strong position against fundamentalisms and communalisms of all kinds.”

“In other words, there is no continuity between the Congress that was behind the 1984 riots and the Congress of today,” the wife said emphatically. “On the other hand, the man who did 2002 in Gujarat is the same man who wants to be PM today.”

By now, the wife had sensed victory. “And let me tell you a little bit more about 1984, than what you have picked up from TV news debates.” The wife has never hesitated from hitting below the belt, even when her opponent is down.

“The entire rank and file of the RSS participated in the 1984 riots. Police records clearly establish that. Nanaji Deshmukh, the great guru of the Sangh, gave a public speech supporting Rajiv Gandhi and implying the Sikhs had it coming. The BJP’s core vote shifted en masse to the Congress, which is why the BJP ended up with just two seats in the 1984 Lok Sabha elections.”

“The same people who were dancing around the bonfires of 1984 are today supporting Modi. And the irony is that they are throwing 1984 in Rahul Gandhi’s face to claim that he is the same as that fascist,” said the wife. “The sad part is that you corporate types buy that argument because you want a pro-market PM to push your agenda.” 

I looked ahead and drove silently.

Have to call Rahul as soon as I get home. Need some more points to counter the wife.
   


Wednesday 9 April 2014

The Hyper-real Voter


“Why did you say I am a marine biologist? You know I always wanted to pretend to be an architect.”
-    George Costanzas

Sometime around 1998, I was introduced to Yahoo Chat by a colleague. For hours on end, we chatted with young virtual women our age, from different parts of the world. Since we were rich successful merchant bankers, we had absolutely no way of knowing whether these lines of text responding to us were really women or even young. Luckily, I didn’t have internet at home, or else I would definitely have been addicted. But this colleague had a VSNL connection. So, he often fell in love with unseen people and loved them through words typed out on a keyboard. He told us stories about these girls who were his lovers, and it gave him an odd confidence in his virtual self – a confidence that he otherwise hid conspicuously in everyday life.

My more intimate relationship with virtual reality began when I got Hotmail. I wrote long, involved mails to friends and then logged on every hour to see if they had replied. I had a relationship with the sound of a dial-up connection. I learnt to recognise from the notations of that tinny, scratchy high-pitched wail, whether the connection would fail or succeed. I guess, everyone from my generation had learnt that rough music.

Of course, email was different from chat. Here you actually had a real connection with the person you were writing to. Yet, the email created a second layer, a different textual relationship, whose syntax introduced a certain schizophrenia in one’s connection with others. In fact, the writing down of this relationship became the absent subtext of the text of everyday spoken interactions. It was, at once, hidden as it was acknowledged as an intrusion within corporeal relationships.

Then came SMSes. I was not among those who preferred to text than talk. But, most of those I knew, did. Talking was too much of a commitment. It meant an interaction whose time was not in your control. Texting afforded that control and distance. It introduced an entire new chronology in the act of a conversation. Text – pause – reply text – pause – reply text – long pause – what next? Each side controls how much to say, when to say, and when to end a conversation. It is disembodied and devoid of emotion or inflection. Hence, the introduction of emoticons. Today, even I carry out long conversations in SMSes – conversations that could span several hours or even days. New messaging apps allow us to experience these automatically as conversations even when they are spread over a long period of time. It has changed the way in which we perceive the unfolding of conversational time.

Each of these forms of virtual conversations has given us – quite literally – textual identities, textual personas. The most extreme form of this, of course, is social media. Facebook is a prime example. It appeals to certain characteristic elements of the isolationalist individual – exhibitionism and voyeurism. Exhibitionism because, these are my friends, here is what I do, this is where I have been, this is what I like, this is what I share. This is me at Face value. And, voyeurism because, I can, quietly, without being caught, go through the profiles of my friends, track them, without having to really interact with them, know what their families look like, where they have been, what clothes they want me to see them in. In other words, Facebook allows me to tell the world that I am what I want you to see me as. It is the principles of marketing brought to bear on everyday interpersonal relations. It also lets me decide who I really want to be known to be friends with, to measure people through the friends they have added in the virtual world.  

Then there is the equally revolutionary weapon of hyper-realism – Twitter. Twitter allows people to regurgitate, in 65 words, things they have picked up from the news media and pass them off as their own opinions. In fact, Twitter manages to turn opinions into facts. (Modi has caused massive development in Gujarat, Rahul Gandhi is a moron). It is a macho space where anonymity allows people to drop all norms of polite conversation. It is a space where soundbite style opinions rule and therefore – much like talk TV – opinions have to be aggressive and provocative and inherently banal. The real complexity of things cannot ever be captured in the number of characters Twitter allows. It accelerates the process of 'dumbing-down' that TV news introduced in everyday discourse.

Twitter also establishes a new hierarchy of the flow of ideas – from the followed to the followers. Yet, the thought-leaders in the hyper-real world of Twitter are themselves prisoners of this hierarchy. Because of its apparent democratic nature (interactive=democratic), the mobocracy of followers imposes upon the followed a populist pressure to deliver what they want. It is a self-enclosed world of mirrors where soundbites are reflected back at each other till they congeal and become facts.

Today, we are faced with an epidemic of the hyper-real. It is the primary mode of ideological existence of a large part of our young. And, thanks to cheap faux-smart phones, it has penetrated deep into the interiors of our country. It has created a new identity politics – the virtual identities of hyper-reality. It has created a community of young individuals who operate in a schizoid world – one foot in the lived reality of caste, class and community and the other in the lived hyper-reality of Facebook, Whatsapp & Twitter. It has created a schizoid political world where the traditional pulls of party politics and local power-relations are accompanied by contrary pulls of the Internet mob.

These people make up a large chunk of our first-time voters. And, whichever layer of their schizophrenic existence overdetermines the other, may well decide whether Narendrabhai will actually become the Prime Minister of India.


Monday 7 April 2014

1984

My friend Rahul officially joined the BJP last week. He was a celebrity CEO till two years ago, when he was sacked for having embezzled some company funds. But, Rahul took this setback in his stride. If anything, he became even more famous. He was one of the first corporate voices to publicly back Modi for PM and that made him a frequent invitee on television talk shows.

“I am not pro-BJP. I am pro-Narendrabhai,” he told me over coffee the other day. “I wasn’t going to join the party, you know? But, Narendrabhai, himself, called me and asked me to work with him.”

I nodded in a non-committal fashion. As a banker, I too have a soft corner for Modi, but I am a bit scared of what the wife would say about that. She is rabidly anti-Narendrabhai.

“We are seeing a complete change in the way politics happens in this country, you know?” Rahul continued. “Parties are dead now. What matters is key individual leaders. It’s like the US. The PM is now like the President, you know? I mean like POTUS.”

“The US has shown that political parties are not necessary for democracy to function. What you need is a strong powerful leader who can lead, you know?”

“That’s not really true, Rahul” I said. “The US has a very strong party system. I mean, the Democrats and Republicans have a lot of say inside the Congress and Senate.” I saw the second season of House of Cards in 4 days flat.

Rahul ignored me. “Democracy can sometimes be very bad for the people. Not everyone understands what is good for the country or the economy. You have to leave these things to the experts so that ordinary people can lead their lives in peace. We need the government out of the economy, and we need people out of government.”

“The Presidential system gives authority to one strong chap, who gets a free hand to set things right. That’s what Modi has shown in Gujarat. He leads it with an iron hand, takes decisions immediately and solves problems immediately.”

“Corporates need that kind of quick decision making. You go to him with a project and you say Narendrabhai I want to invest in this thing, but I need the government to do the following. Modi tells you right there whether it can happen or not. That’s why corporates want this guy.”

Rahul paused as the waiter came with his third cup of espresso. “Boss, don’t you have some biscotti?”

“I will get it right away, Sir,” said the waiter and withdrew.

“You know, I would have nothing against Rahul Gandhi if he had been like his dad. Rajiv was a man who believed in progress. He believed in the private sector and the market. Rahul is like his mother. He is too influenced by pinko NGO-types, you know?”

“But, you corporate types seemed to like him in 2009,” I said.

“No. Corporates liked Manmohan Singh. Everyone was happy when he kicked out the left. But, Rahul has always been anti-corporate. He has always made it clear that he does not trust us. He was behind all this environmental nonsense which has set India’s growth back by a decade, you know? Don’t you remember how he went to the tribal rally and he said I am your soldier in the capital? Crazy, man!”

Rahul controlled his anger by stuffing a mini-biscotti into his mouth. “And then ET does a story on how Reliance has lost faith in the Gandhi family. What did they expect?”

“The Gandhis are honest people, but they are terrible for the country. At a time when the world is pushing austerity, the Gandhis want more hand-outs. You have to train the poor to fish and not just give them fish for free.”

“Modi understands economics better than anyone else. He knows that the private sector has the passion to push growth. You need to encourage the private sector, not shackle it. Give incentives to big companies and they will create jobs for people. All this NREGA-Sharega will only spoil them.”

“But, the BJP is also populist,” I interjected. “Look at MP or Chhattisgarh. They give free food and loads of subsidies. Will the party accept a pro-reform stand by Modi?”

“Boss, that is where you have to understand the difference. You see, today the BJP is nothing. It is of no consequence. Modi is everything. He will decide. The BJP is being completely overhauled, from top to bottom. The old-fogeys have been thrown out and a new professional breed is taking over. It is people like me who are running the party now. It is being run like a company, with a proper marketing strategy and sales targets. Our target is 272.”

“You see, India is a vast segmented market. Each state is different, and within each state there are different target groups who consume politics differently. Our objective is to tailor our message to reach each of these target groups. The old BJP system of pushing an overarching Hindutva ideology is over.”

“Is it really?” I asked sceptically. If there’s one thing I don’t like about the BJP, it is this Hindutva business.

“Hindutva is there.” Rahul replied. “I am not denying it. But, it is horses for courses. Hindutva is important in UP. It is not needed in Delhi. In some places it has to be about jobs, in other places it has to about women’s safety. Horses for courses.”

“Are you trying to say that Narendra Modi is not a convinced Hindutva waala?”

“No, I am not saying that. All I am saying is that it does not matter. The NDA was in power for six years. Did anything bad happen? No. Instead, roads were built, disinvestment happened, the telecom revolution was unleashed, markets opened up to foreign companies. The Gandhis turned the clock back.”

“I, for one, am willing to accept a bit of Hindutva if that means stability, rule of law, a strong India and a free market. All this is more important now, you know? Even Muslims will accept this soon, like they have accepted in Gujarat. IThe Congress is no less communal. If you are talking about 2002, don’t forget 1984.”

The wife had joined us just then to catch the 1984 remark. (We were supposed to go to watch a movie from there.)

“Yes Rahul, you are right,” she said.  “We should not forget 1984. But not the 1984 that you want us to remember. It is a different 1984 that you would not know, since you are completely innocent of literature. That’s the 1984 your Narendra Modi is going to bring to this country.”


Rahul looked completely perplexed. So was I. I have absolutely no idea what the wife was talking about.