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Enough is
enough! A lost
opportunity |
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Cultural
extravaganza
Likely
outcomes in Afghanistan
Abrasive
tongue, but soft inside
AFFLUENT
INDIA VS POOR BHARAT
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A lost opportunity
Following
the dramatic killing of prominent Maoist leader Koteshwar Rao alias Kishenji in West Bengal, the honeymoon between Mamata Banerjee and the Maoists is finally over. It was not unexpected, therefore, when the interlocutors, appointed by her to carry forward a dialogue with the rebels, concluded that their role was no longer tenable. With Maoists declaring their intention to avenge the killing, the Government was left with no option but to go after the rebels. Sandwiched between the two, the interlocutors had no relevance left and they wisely decided to throw in the towel. With Human Rights groups and Maoist sympathisers like Varavara Rao accusing security forces of killing Kishenji in a fake encounter, the interlocutors were also reluctant to represent the state government. Whether Mamata Banerjee will regret frittering away an opportunity to usher in lasting peace is something that only the future can tell. She, more than any other Chief Minister, had earned the rebels’ trust by opposing police action against them. She had gone out on a limb to court the Maoists and remained conciliatory even after sweeping to power. She invited them for talks, ordered a freeze on all police action, appointed interlocutors to mediate with the Maoists and held out a development card. In short, she stuck her neck out. But the Maoists mounted pressure on her to fulfil the twin pre-poll promises she had made, one to release political prisoners and the other to withdraw security forces from the Maoist strongholds. By refusing to appreciate the Chief Minister’s compulsions, and brazenly killing several of her supporters, the rebels left her with no choice but to allow the operations to resume. The death of the Maoist leader will undoubtedly allow her to counter criticism that she was encouraging the rebels. But she may yet regret the killing because Rao appeared far more amenable to peace talks than other hardliners in the rebels’ ranks. It is indeed difficult, if not impossible, to negotiate with a group which puts its faith in violent, extra-Constitutional means to overthrow an elected government. But Mamata Banerjee may still rue the missed opportunity of playing a truly historic role.
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Cultural extravaganza
The
rich culture of Jammu and Kashmir, a unique blend of the Buddhist, Hindu and Muslim cultures, has in the past few decades been overshadowed by the boom of the gun and the widespread violence in the Valley. It has made many of us forget that the culture of J&K is not an ordinary one. Rather, the syncretic culture represents the unity in diversity of India. While Ladakh is known for its Indo-Tibetan culture, Jammu’s Dogra culture has similarities with traditions of Punjab and Himachal Pradesh. The Sufi kalams that have pervaded the Valley have since time immemorial reinforced the concept of universal brotherhood and love. Then Urdu might be the official language of the state, it is home to half a dozen dialects like Kashmiri, Dogri, Pahari, Balti, Ladakhi, Gojri, Shina and Pashto as well. The Jammu and Kashmir festival to be organised at the India International Centre (IIC) by the Government of Jammu and Kashmir and IIC thus assumes much significance. The festival aims to bring to fore the multi-lingual, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic facets of the state. The spin-off benefits of the festival on tourism are very many for culture and tourism. Indeed, cultural activities invariably boost tourism. In recent times, the tourist figures in the state have picked up and this year alone 17.5 lakh people visited the Valley. It is heartening that both the state government and the Centre have realised the immense potential of tourism in the state and launched several tourism projects. Besides, many cultural festivals have been held in the state. Still the fear of violence keeps millions of tourists away from visiting this paradise on earth, once their favourite destination. Thus, the need to showcase J&K’s culture outside the state is all the more important. Indeed, the festival at Delhi can go a long way in reinforcing the inherent nature of culture to bind people as well as to shed misconceptions.
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Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. — Nelson Mandela
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Likely outcomes in Afghanistan
What
are the likely outcomes in Afghanistan, as the international community is preparing for the exit in 2014? What does India want to do in Afghanistan after 2014? Does it want to change the game, or does it want to change its strategies according to the changing game in Afghanistan? The first option is costly and needs large-scale investment — political, economic and human. If the primary objective of India in Afghanistan is to change the game, it cannot be done with building roads, bridges and hospitals alone. Almost after 10 years of political and economic investment, where does India stand in terms of its strength? Can it change the game in Afghanistan with its present inputs? Historically, no country or nation has changed the game in Afghanistan to meet its own objective. It is not without historical facts that Afghanistan is referred to as the graveyard of empires. In recent centuries, the British, the Russians and now the Americans have attempted to change the game in Afghanistan. From the Greeks to the Americans, none could conquer Afghanistan and establish the rule of law, as they saw it. There have always been a series of tactical military successes and strategic political disasters for those who attempted to conquer and rule Afghanistan. Of course, there could always be a first time. Can India become the first country to change the game in Afghanistan, and alter the course of history? New Delhi has to cautiously weigh its strengths, weaknesses and own experiences in the rest of South Asia in terms of attempting to change the game in our neighbouring countries. There is no success story or example that India could confidently explore. Perhaps Bhutan could come close. Obviously then, India is unlikely to change the game in Afghanistan. What it could do rather is to devise strategies to the changing game and the unfolding situation in Afghanistan. The first and foremost strategy should be that whatever form it takes, it should not be Kabul specific, but include the entire Afghanistan. To explain further, such a strategy should be aimed at not only the person ruling in Kabul, but also all the stakeholders — the Tajiks and the Uzbeks in the north, the Pashtuns in the south and the east, and the Hazaras in the west. More importantly, India will have to devise its strategy not only to deal with these diverse ethnic communities all over Afghanistan, but also their support base from across Afghanistan — Iran, Central Asia, China, Pakistan and the US. Before devising such a strategy, it is essential to analyse the outcome in Afghanistan after 2014. The primary focus here is on finding out the emerging outcomes in Afghanistan, keeping in mind the international exit in 2014, and the recent developments, including the latest Istanbul conference. First and foremost, the US is unlikely to leave Afghanistan completely. Though the US fighting troops would have left substantially by 2014, it will have a significant presence in that country, especially in terms of maintaining a special operations group. This group, with access to one or more airports in and around Kabul, will operate drones and continue targeting Al-Qaida and Taliban assets. What does this mean? The continued presence of a strategic fighting unit in Afghanistan does not mean that the American troops will actually engage in fighting terrorists. This should not be read with the Obama rhetoric — that the US would not abandon Afghanistan. In fact, he has already done by announcing the exit plan. What the US would now do is to ensure that its limited presence is not scuttled by any political alignment in Kabul. It would like to have sufficient political leverage in Kabul, but this leverage does not mean that it will stick its neck out to protect the interests and investments of any other country (read India). The nightmare scenario here would be what if, in its efforts to disengage from Afghanistan, it also closes its eyes to what other regional countries — Iran, Pakistan and China — do? The second thing is the nature of governance, stability and those who rule Kabul after 2014. Clearly, the Karzai government has not performed adequately enough to gather widespread public support and stand on its own. The Afghans generally consider the Karzai government as corrupt and may not provide the much-needed popular support. Besides, there is widespread anti-American sentiment in the Pashtun community. Both factors are likely to help the Taliban indirectly. However, unlike in the 1990s, the Taliban movement is not likely to sweep Afghanistan for two reasons. Despite the criticism, the Afghan National Army is relatively better trained and better equipped today than it was in the 1990s. More importantly, the remnants of the American troops will provide the much-needed air cover if there is a need. Taliban factions are unlikely to get an unconditional support from Pakistan now as they did in the 1990s. Wary of international criticism, Islamabad will be guarded in its support to the Taliban. As a result, there will be a clear standoff if there is an open confrontation between the Taliban and the Afghan National Army. It is likely to be a messy situation for every actor involved, with none able to impose its writ on the other. The third outcome is a civil war-like situation in Afghanistan after 2014. In such a situation, every regional actor — Iran, Pakistan, Central Asia and the US — is likely to play a role to suit their own immediate interests rather than the strategic interests of Afghanistan. Though every actor in Afghanistan, at least at the rhetoric level, would inform that a civil war in Afghanistan is not an acceptable outcome; eventually everyone should remain prepared for such a scenario. Perhaps, New Delhi should also make cold calculations and prepare for a civil war-like situation in Afghanistan post-2014. First, it should be accepted that such an eventuality is a possibility and there is a need to get prepared for the same. Perhaps, there is a need for every actor to ponder why a civil war in Afghanistan is not totally unacceptable. Historically, the multiple nationalities in Afghanistan have always been at war with one another. The Tajiks, the Uzbeks, the Hazaras and the Pashtuns will never be able to rule over the others successfully nor would they allow anyone else to control them, either from within Afghanistan or outside it. A stable nation, as the rest of the world has seen it, has never been a norm for Afghanistan; if it ever existed, it was more of an exception and only for a brief period. Therefore, instead of looking for a stable (if not democratic) Afghanistan, one should start preparing for a civil war-like situation there as the most likely outcome. Perhaps, the principal focus could be on what made the lack of a stable nation a disaster for Afghanistan during the last two decades. Clearly, the super-imposition of a radical Islamic ideology as pronounced by Al-Qaida made Afghanistan a deadly entity. From an Indian perspective, the focus has to be not narrow in terms of what is in India’s best interests. New Delhi neither has the political will nor the capacity to influence the outcome in Afghanistan in its favour. Neither our strategic partner, the US, nor our unfriendly neighbour, Pakistan, are likely to allow India to do what it wants in Afghanistan even if it is in the best interests of Kabul. Rather, India’s primary focus has to be on what is the most likely outcome in Afghanistan, and how it can protect its interests in that scenario. If civil war is the most likely outcome, so be it. The question then should be: How can India achieve its objectives in such a situation in
Afghanistan? The writer is Director, Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, and Visiting Professor, Pakistan Studies Programme, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.
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Abrasive tongue, but soft inside With
my Army, police and legal background, I am perhaps a little too law-abiding for the comfort of some segments of my countrymen. Once while driving my Maruti in New Delhi close to an intersection, I saw the traffic lights turning orange. So, I brought the vehicle to a halt at the stop line. The driver of a Haryana Roadways bus following me closely, however, had different ideas. He felt that there was enough time to cross before the light turned red and found me blocking his way. In this confusion, his bus hit me from behind, giving me some jerk and damaging my car slightly. Far from being apologetic, the driver and the conductor of the bus jumped out and were promptly on me, with their abrasive tongues lashing in full flow. I quietly told them that matter could neither be decided by them nor by me, and both of us had to wait for the police to cover the accident. A PCR van on patrol happened to pass by us. I signalled it to stop and introduced myself to the ASI in charge as a retired police officer. He compulsively came to attention and saluted. This made the driver and the conductor mellow down instantly. A wireless message was sent to the local police post. A head constable, also a Haryanvi, appeared on the scene on a motorcycle. The now jittery bus driver tried to plead his case with him weakly. The head constable confronted him in his own lingo, “Abbe, seedha aage- peechhe ka case sai, bakwas karan lag reha sai” (You are talking unnecessarily. It is a straightforward case of your vehicle hitting from behind). Finally, all of us landed in the police post. The head constable told me matter-of-factly that a charge-sheet against the bus driver would definitely get filed if I so desired and he was also likely to get punished by the court. However, I shall also have to take the trouble of appearing in the court twice or thrice. I understood all this well, but wanted the bus driver to at least realise his mistake. At this, both the driver and the conductor apologised in unison. Satisfied with this, I started walking back towards my car. Euphoric over what they perceived as my magnanimity, they came running behind me breathlessly and insisted that I should give them an opportunity to express their gratefulness. They rushed to a nearby shop and brought a dozen bottles of soft drinks, keeping in mind the personnel on duty in the outpost also. The head constable opened one bottle and offered it to me, cleaning its top respectfully with his visibly dirty hankie. He waited for me to finish and asked if I would like to have another one. After I politely declined, he counted the bottles and his staff. One bottle was found surplus. He handed it over generously to the driver and the conductor to share it. I went away feeling that these people were abrasive of tongue alright, but they, undoubtedly, had a heart of
gold.
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The twin objectives of catering to the rising lifestyle of
An
accelerated economic growth triggered by the IT, ITES and BPO industry during the last decade has led to a radical transformation of urban India. It has created a fast-growth young generation from the affluent nuclear-family urban middle class. It has penchant for a high lifestyle and luxuries of the developed West, which include its fashion world, holidays in Singapore and Bali, cruises on the Mediterranean, Porsches and Beamers; Nikes and Armanis. Unending prospects of employment in new hi-tech services have led to the entry of the private sector in higher technical education in a big way. Some 15,000 universities and colleges turn out three quarters of a million graduates every year. Education itself has become a major employer.
A big market for MNCs The economic growth rate of plus 8% per annum with prospects of an unlimited market of the new affluent middle class has turned India into a big market for MNCs, now facing stagnation in their traditional areas of operation. Their prime objective is to cash in on the growing market and shore up their parent firms' balance sheets and maintain employment in those countries. Liberal policies enable them to take advantage with low financial risks. Local investment is minimal and import content remains high. Their bulging pockets, now running at three trillion dollars, provide the leverage. Consequences of the resultant pressure on the import of fully-finished products or, at best CKD kits, are reflected by the accompanying table on our imports and exports. Not only is the imbalance exceeding US$ 100 billion large, but also has remained at that level for the past three years. The picture on the export front looks far grimmer when one takes the imperative necessity of increasing oil imports for sustaining economic growth. Oil imports accounted for 42% of our exports in 2010-11 -- a sharp increase from 14% in 2000-01. Price volatility goes up. While the import of petroleum products is a necessity of our own making, we have added a galloping bill of coal imports. The slippage of Coal India targets was aggravated by a blind stoppage of coal mining in large tracts in the zeal for ecological concerns. Coal imports will exceed six billion dollars this year and go up sharply as tens of UMPPs (ultra mega power projects) based on imported coal now under construction become operational. A consequence of large pressure on imports of still greater significance is the rapid growth of the service sector. It today employs 48.3% of our total workforce. Since marketing and servicing of hi-tech imported products demands smart English-speaking individuals, the benefit only goes to denizens of urban India. Its growth has accelerated the divide with rural Bharat. Another twist is added by the growing tendency of MNCs to delist their existing Indian operations through the buy-back route and integrate Indian operations with parent companies. The benefit lies in the unfettered freedom for transfer of profits and future investment. The future promises which the Indian market holds multiply the attraction. Twenty companies delisted in 2008 and many are in the pipeline. The current stock market crash is a fertile ground for a renewed push.
Consequences of uneven
growth The combined impact of the inter-related consequences of an accelerated economic growth is the sharpening of the divide between affluent urban India and poor rural Bharat. Social unrest and the rebirth of Naxalism in large areas are its corollary. Political sensitivity to these social manifestations has led to large subsidies, open and covert. These include subsidies on food and fuel to BPL families, fertilizer subsidies, postponement of price hikes on diesel and kerosene in sync with import prices and passing the buck to PSU oil companies. The Central subsidies total Rs.126,000 crore in this year's budget (2011-12). There also appears no end to the window dressing of budgets. Political expediency has dictated the deferment of passing on the burden of cost-increase. The deferment of the increase in rail passenger fares for years and the postponement of hikes in electricity tariffs by states are well known. There is a spate of Budget-funded social missions like NREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) and JNNURM (Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission). The budgeted Central expenditure on these programmes totalled Rs 303,000 crore this year. Leakages in delivery are large and economic returns low, if at all. The desirability of such social programmes is unquestioned. The only issue is affordability. The net result so far has been the unleashing of a run of inflation, not seen for the last two decades. Despite 13 upward revisions in the repo and reverse repo rates by the RBI in the last 14 months, inflation continues to run high. Misery to each and every Indian is inevitable.
Delayed response to inflation It is our penchant for pushing economic growth rate to 9%, which led the RBI to inordinately delay a response to the abnormal inflation. The RBI kept on lowering the repo rates right up to March 2010. The initial dose, which was also gradual, made no impact. The panic button was pressed only in March this year when public outcry hit headlines. Sharp and quick increases only followed thereafter. Unlike anything in the past, this unabated inflation is not led by staple cereals, but by food items at the higher end of the food chain: pulses, fruits, vegetables, milk and non-veg products. The shift up in eating standards is the first priority of the rapidly urbanising middle class in its move towards affluence. Inflation in their prices continues to run at 15% today, even when the rise in cereal prices is only 3%. This change in consumption patterns has taken our arm-chair decision-makers by complete surprise While there is a momentary halt in inflation, the recent hikes in petrol and LPG prices, impending increases in long with-held rail fares, etc. pose a larger threat. The recent turmoil in the financial and banking world across the globe, a sharp fall in the value of the rupee and the stock-market crash forebode a grim future. The market slowdown has already become a reality. The rise in bank lending rates to heights not seen for two decades has already brought industrial investment to a standstill.
Hikes in staff & salaries Further fuel to the inflationary spiral triggered by the inability of our production and supply line for daily priorities of the affluent generation has been added by an unabated increase in the employee strength of the Centre and state governments coupled with large increases in emoluments. The government emoluments at the lowest level today stand at near Rs 9,000 p.m. and this does not include all the perks and retirement benefits. The recent 7% hike in DA plus some productivity-linked bonuses has added to the monthly pay. Compare this to the recently fixed minimum needs for a BPL family of four at Rs. 115 a day (Rs. 3,450/- pm) and the disparity hits you in the eye. Life in government is also cushy and accountability poor. A midway solution of 50% contract labour by the organised industry has been to withstand unions' pressures for wage escalation. I tried my best to search the total number and salary bill of the Central Government employees but failed. The situation in states is far worse; all one frequently hears are rumblings of salaries eating away 90%+ revenues. Politicians in power offer liberal freebies for vote gathering. The pity is this spiral of inflation is happening when the growing market created by our sustained economic growth rate has turned us into a global magnet. This leads us to the fundamental question: Is the easy solution by arm-chair economists of tinkering with the repo rates valid for a continent-scale economy of a developing democratic country like ours? It is time we recognised that doles are not a long-term solution for poverty alleviation; they only promote indolence. The twin objectives of both catering to the rising lifestyle of urban India and leading rural Bharat to a spiral of prosperity can only come through the setting up of productive enterprises in rural Bharat. Luckily, 700,000 graduates passing out annually from 15,000 colleges of higher technical education spread deep into the interior of rural Bharat, provide a fertile ground for driving this new wave of techno-entrepreneurs. Even one per college will run into 15,000 every year. It is purely an issue of new thinking, organisation and systematic follow-up. It is also high time that we realised the huge penalty of delayed decisions. Passing the buck up the ladder through an endless chain of committees is the culprit. Its seed was sown way back in the early eighties by the Sarkar Commission set up by Morarjibhai. The RTI Act, followed by the recent wave of political mud-slinging plus digging out of skeletons on hindsight intelligence, has brought decision-making to a grinding halt. Will we ever get out of this culture? Must every decision vest in the PMO? Speed demands the delegation of authority and trust. Quick punishment for personal benefit must follow as a corollary; no endless enquiries and litigation. Will we ever have the courage to take that bold step? The writer, a technologist and entrepreneurial professional, retired as Managing Director of the Mohali-based Punjab Tractors in 1997.
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The net result is a rapid shift towards the service economy. Manufacturing, which creates large employment, has declined steadily. Today, out of our total workforce of 45.7 crore, 48% are employed in the services and the share of manufacturing has declined to 8%. The remaining 44% continue to live in the poverty of rural Bharat.