A divisive agenda in guise of Lokpal

Author:  Swapan Dasgupta

If the Congress had chosen to emulate the Samajwadi Party, the RJD and the Shiv Sena and declared itself against the very idea of an all-powerful Lokpal, it would have earned the grudging respect of many Indians.

That the heart and soul of the Congress is not with a truly draconian Lokpal Bill as favoured by Anna Hazare and his sanctimonious claque is an open secret. It is also understandable that the Congress doesn’t want to take any effective steps that would make its use of discretionary powers answerable to some empowered ombudsman. Having exercised power for too long, the Congress genuinely believes that it is the natural party of Government. It is wary of curbs to its authority and, worse, an injection of the principle of accountability.

Subterfuge has been the Congress’ signature tune in dealing with the unexpected euphoria around Anna Hazare and his Jan Lokpal proposals. From trying to intimidate Anna, to launching its dirty tricks campaign, the Congress did its utmost to see that the movement against corruption didn’t become a prairie fire. In this endeavour it was partially successful: Thanks to unending prevarication and foot-dragging, the Lokpal issue became somewhat of a bore.

The Congress’ manoeuvres against the Lokpal proposals were a part and parcel of politics. People may or may not have liked it but few could deny that it was part of a normal political game — and the reason why politics is regarded as ethically suspect. Last Thursday, however, the Congress went a step too far. In seeking to divert attention from the inadequacies of the Lokpal Bill introduced in Parliament, the party proffered the mother of all distractions: A quota-based Lokpal.

Those familiar with history will recall that VP Singh announced the implementation of the Mandal Commission report in 1990 because he wanted to puncture a mammoth kisan rally that Devi Lal had convened in Delhi. A momentous decision with far-reaching consequences was taken for the flimsiest of reasons. This time too, the founding fathers’ abhorrence of organising public life on religious lines — they had just experienced the devastation of Partition — was casually discarded because the Congress wants to come in third place in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election.

The results of springing the quota rabbit from the top hat were exactly as the Congress intended. The focus shifted from corruption and the ways to fight it to identity politics, particularly the issue of religion-based reservation for minorities. The BJP went ballistic over the minority quota whereas Mulayam Singh Yadav and Lalu Prasad Yadav forgot their objections to Lokpal and embraced the return of the Communal Award. Read with the introduction of the 4.5 per cent quota for minorities from the 27 per cent OBC share of reserved jobs and college admissions, last Thursday was a landmark in contemporary history. It was the day the political assumptions of the 1950 Constitution were thrown overboard by a cynical political class.

It is possible that the formal introduction of religious quotas may take a while. There is certain to be a judicial challenge to the Cabinet decision and this in turn will have a bearing on the final shape of the Lokpal Bill. The Mandal Commission too took many years before the implementation got under way and the Muslim quota (let’s face it, it’s really about a Muslim quota) will probably be the subject of prolonged litigation and, maybe, even a Constitution amendment.

The passage of the proposal will be protracted but what is not in any serious doubt is that a clear majority of MPs favour minority reservations and will be reluctant to oppose it in public. In short, the ideological and political battle over religion-based quotas has been lost even before the battle has begun.

The reasons are well known. For the past decade at least politicians in the Muslim community have mounted a spirited campaign for Muslim reservations on the grounds of natural justice. Regardless of the merits or otherwise of the proposal, what is extremely clear is that those who favour it are better organised to leverage their numbers during elections. Tactical voting has given the Muslim community a clout disproportionate to their numbers.

On the other hand, there is nothing that can actually be called a countervailing Hindu vote. Although the Ayodhya years were an exception, Hindus by and large are disinclined to vote as Hindus — they vote along class, caste and other lines but not on the basis of their Hindu identity. This naturally means that canny politicians don’t have to really bother about any reaction to minority appeasement strategies. The Muslim vote is far more purposeful.

Unless nationalist India awakens from its slumber, the country is faced with a potentially divisive agenda. If the religious quota secures judicial and political approval, it will only be a matter of time before there are demands for religious quotas in the judiciary, the UPSC, Comptroller and Auditor-General’s office and even university departments. To talk of the balkanisation of India is woefully premature but it would be safe to assume that the emotional balkanisation process is in an advanced state. There is an Indian identity that still holds its own, but it is only a matter of time before particularist identities overwhelm it.

I hope I am horribly wrong, but for India, the Lokpal Bill may turn out to be a costly misadventure.

Sunday Pioneer, December 24, 2011

KITH AND KIM - Why does the buffoonish regime continue in North Korea?

By Swapan Dasgupta

One of the enduring memories of life in an English university in the late-1970s was the collective enjoyment in leafing through and, occasionally, reading aloud the pamphlets helpfully left behind in the common room by functionaries of the North Korean state. Wonderfully printed on glossy paper, much like the ones sold for a song by the propaganda houses of Moscow and Beijing, these offerings from Pyongyang were a class apart. Devoted mainly to the heroic achievements of their beloved leader Kim Il-sung, the booklets were the alternatives to the (still unborn) cartoon channels on television. We learnt how grandfather Kim — now the “President for eternity” in the world’s necrocracy — swam across seas and lakes to singlehandedly take on the fascist, militarist Japanese invaders. And, over purposeless pints of beer, we imbibed the profundities of the ‘Juche’ ideology which, The Times this week helpfully described as a “quasi-mystical farrago of turbid platitude and ferocious xenophobia”, but which we mistook for a Monty Python skit. Of course, as happens with all disorganized readings of what the comrades still insist on describing as “scientific socialism”, we often missed out on the best bits of the popular culture associated with the doctrine. For example, my Maoist friend, also a great friend of North Korea, but blessed with a wicked, self-deprecating sense of humour —next to the Red Book he loved P.G. Wodehouse — never secured for me either the recording or the sub-titled version of the song, “Oh how I love to carry manure up the mountain while singing praises of Chairman Mao and denouncing the Gang of Four”. Also, since we had gone our different ways by 1980, many of us missed out on the remarkable story of the birth of Kim Jong-il, the “Dear Leader” who was anointed successor to the “Beloved Leader” Kim Il-sung in 1980. While the wicked imperialist version is that he was born in some remote corner of the Soviet Union in 1943, the authentic North Korean version is far more compelling. The “Dear Leader”, it would seem, was born near the peak of Mount Paektu — the mythical birthplace of the Korean people — in 1941. As he entered the world, a swallow descended from heaven to proclaim the coming to earth of “a prodigious general who will rule all the world.” As a ‘progressive’ alternative to the Christmas tale, this story is worth a look. We also missed out on some of the childhood tales of the man who ascended to the other world earlier this week, having helpfully passed on the baton to the “Great Successor”, the 29-year-old Kim Jong-un. Kim Jong-il, it is said, was destined for greatness since childhood. George Washington merely cut down a cherry tree and spun a moral tale but the wrath of Kim-II knew no bounds. As a three-year-old, he daubed a map of Japan with black ink and, lo and behold, that traditional enemy of Korea was rocked by gales and typhoons of astonishing ferocity. It is worth considering if it was the hand of Kim that was responsible for last year’s tsunami that decimated Japan. The fairy tale rendering of North Korea’s recent history may have provided mirth and amusement to some bored students, but it wasn’t all that funny for the estimated two million people who died from a man-made famine in the mid-1990s. So horrific was the suffering that there were credible reports emanating from that closed society of cannibalism. Not that the suffering of his own people bothered Kim-II, who became famous in the luxury trade as the world’s single-largest purchaser of Paradis cognac produced by Hennessey. Kim-II loved the good life and, like all communist tyrants, indulged himself without restraint. A film buff whose personal collection of Hollywood and Hong Kong films was awesome — it is said that James Bond and Daffy Duck were among his favourites — he secured the abduction of the South Korean film director, Shin Sang-ok, and his wife to coerce them into making films for North Korea. There was, it seems, something of Dr No and Goldfinger that rubbed off on Kim-II. More ominously, he was so captivated by the glamour he witnessed in Hollywood films that he maintained a troupe of 2,000 dancing girls, recruited from poor peasant families across the land. The girls were further classified into three groups. At the lowest end was the “dancing and singing team”, which entertained; this was followed by the “happiness team”, which specialized in massages for the privileged few in the party hierarchy; and finally there was the “satisfaction team” that existed to give pleasures of the flesh to Kim-II. Presumably, the “Dear Leader” saw these as creative endeavours. If the official biography is any guide, he devoted the time spent as a culture czar in the politburo composing six operas. These works, it was modestly suggested by the Juche chroniclers, were “better than any mankind had created.” To regard North Korea as a rogue regime controlled by a family of megalomaniacs out to prove the prescience of George Orwell’s 1984 is stating the obvious. The 20th and 21st centuries have had their share of evil, beginning from Hitler and Stalin and extending to Idi Amin, ‘Emperor’ Bokassa, Pol Pot and Saddam Hussein. But few have managed to withstand the winds of change as successfully as the Kim dynasty, which has endured for more than six decades — nearly as long as the Soviet Union. Does the answer lie in what the North Korean propagandists suggest: that “The Korean people are too pure-blooded and therefore too virtuous to survive in this evil world without a great parental leader”? Or is it that extreme tyranny coupled with extreme deprivation snuffs out imagination and aspiration from the oppressed, making them impervious to normal human responses? Whatever the reason, North Korea is not a primitive society. The Kim regime spends nearly one-third of its gross domestic product on defence, making it the most militarized country in the world. Yet, the level of its military preparedness is awesome. The country demonstrated its nuclear potential in 2006 and 2009, and its missile technology that it sells on a regular basis to Pakistan is sophisticated and dangerous. They suggest that far from being a society of supine bumpkins living under the military jackboot, Pyongyang actually boasts a critical mass of extremely efficient scientific talent. Such people can be tamed for a period of time but to keep them in a state of permanent docility requires superhuman control. Perhaps that is what the Kim dynasty perfected as their response to, first, de-Stalinization in the 1960s and, subsequently, the ignominious collapse of the Soviet Union. Today, China is finding it impossible to combine its extreme nationalism with rigid control of society. There are uprisings all over challenging state authority and regimentation, such as the ongoing one in Wukan. Why hasn’t North Korea, a far smaller country, experienced a similar churning? It can hardly be the case that Koreans are temperamentally docile and more so if the rhetoric of the State is couched in extreme nationalism — a case of another Burma. South Korea, for all its remarkable economic progress, remains politically very volatile. Kim Jong-il, the obituaries in the West were unanimous, “was among history’s most monstrous tyrants” who left his people “impoverished, incarcerated and broken.” That’s obvious. What is not so obvious is why such a buffoonish regime continues in the 21st century. Is it because any relaxation of tyranny presages the end of an unhappy chapter? Telegraph, December 23, 2011

Maharani's durbar and a blinkered view of history

By Swapan Dasgupta

Apart from newspapers that commemorated the event and an agreeable party on the lawns of Ambassador Hotel where the cultural elite drank to the occasion, the centenary of the transfer of the Capital and the foundation of New Delhi was largely unobserved. ‘Official’ India which otherwise loves to organise tacky commemorations by producing unappealing postage stamps gave this event a wide berth. And, while no one was forthcoming about the reason, the rationale was inescapable: the 1911 Durbar was a ‘colonial’ event and, therefore, only worthy of sneer.

The Hindu sense of history has at the best of times been rather feeble. However, when it comes to the 190 years of British rule, the disdain for a recorded past is coupled with a spurious political correctness and hypocrisy. Even after six decades of Independence and flamboyant assertions of national sovereignty, India has yet to develop the necessary self-confidence to view history as history. Instead, the past has been sought to be tailor-made to view the prevailing political fashions of the present.

It is not that the ignominy of being ruled by a ‘foreigner’ has weighed heavily on the national consciousness. In the past thousand years or so, predators from the west have repeatedly overwhelmed indigenous kingdoms, particularly in northern and eastern India, and combined ruthless vandalism with innovations. Turks, Mongols, Persians and Afghans made India their happy hunting ground, and ruled with a mixture of raw coercion and cultural co-option. The conquerors always took care to maintain a discreet distance from the conquered peoples without creating a closed system based on ethnicity and religion. Of course, post-Akbar many of these barriers broke down but never sufficiently for the hapless Dara Shukoh to become a trendsetter. Not enough of the conquerors went ‘native’ although enough of the conquered peoples appropriated facets of the Persian and Turkish ways of life.

Many of these changes stemming from conquest and subordination were also dutifully played out in the two centuries of colonial rule. The British steadfastly maintained their social distance from the ‘natives’, particularly after the uprising of 1857 and the influx of the memsahibs into the Civil Lines and cantonments. The Indians were socially wary of the British but there were enough ‘collaborators’ (as in Moghul times) who sought to bridge the cultural and emotional gulf between the West and the East.

More to the point, there were enough Indians that genuinely believed (particularly after the demise of the East India Company in 1858) that British rule constituted a significant advance on anything the country had hitherto experienced. At one level the 1911 Durbar was a spectacular show of imperial might—as evident from the grovelling genuflection of the Indian princes (barring Baroda and Udaipur) to the King-Emperor. But it would be imprudent to forget that until Mahatma Gandhi captivated the nation with his simple message of swaraj, the common Indian was genuinely enamoured of the “Queen’s peace”. The choreography of the 1911 Durbar was thrown out of gear when the Indian crowds broke the cordon to kiss the ground on which the King and Queen had walked. Were they victims of ‘false consciousness’?

“Maharani” Victoria wasn’t Indian and nor did she ever visit India. Yet, this diminutive frump became as much a part of India as any distant Moghul. In 1911, when the New Delhi project was inaugurated by George V on December 15, the British Empire was the most world’s most decisive power; by 1931, when New Delhi was finally ready to function as the seat of government, the imperial sunset was approaching.  

This is not revisionist history. It is the history that was itself cynically revised as part of the nation-building project of India’s post-imperial rulers. But history isn’t rewritten by removing the George V statue from its canopied pedestal opposite India Gate or by renaming Connaught Place as Rajiv Chowk. Unless India is overcome by perversity, there will be a Lutyens’ Delhi distinct from a DDA Delhi, a Kingsway called Rajpath, the North and South Blocks and a Parliament House built for an India where democracy was conceived of as the future.

The British Raj wasn’t quite the dark ages the sloganeers make it out to be.


Sunday Times of India, December 18, 2011 

Middle class fed up with coalitions

By Swapan Dasgupta

As 2011 draws to a close, this may well turn out to be the year the Indian Establishment lost faith in itself. The unwavering optimism of the past decade and particularly the self-confidence that marked India’s upward economic trajectory has yielded way to a sense of dejection and nervousness. The reasons are more than the worrying GDP statistics, the boo-boos of the Reserve Bank of India and the UPA Government’s political drift. 

There is a growing feeling, echoed in all the drawing rooms during the festive season, that India has shot itself in the foot once again — aiming, a high Government functionary put it to me so evocatively, not merely at the feet but at each individual toe. There is a growing feeling, echoed in all the drawing rooms during the festive season, that India has shot itself in the foot once again — aiming, a high Government functionary put it to me so evocatively, not merely at the feet but at each individual toe.

In moments such as this there is the irresistible temptation to explore the roots of the growing dysfunctionality. In the US, there is a raging debate about the need to make the fat cats pay a larger share of their wealth in taxes; in Europe there is concern that a centralised Eurozone will squeeze out the last vestiges of national sovereignty from the member states; and, in China, the lessons of the ongoing Wukan uprising may well be an indication of the things to come. In India, apart from a growing sense of disgust with politicians, some old chestnuts are being drawn from the fire in the form of a revival of the debate on a presidential system of Government.

The features of the debate are still hazy. But underlying the disgust with coalition politics is the desire of a section of the metropolitan elite to usher a regime dominated by a no-nonsense strongman (or woman) that can take decisions in the national interest and inject purposefulness into governance. It is felt that the disproportionate influence of regional satraps such as Mamata Banerjee has to be curbed and the smaller parties shown their place in the larger India. No one wants to formally attack democracy because that is politically unacceptable. Yet, the chaotic underbelly of one billion arguments is sought to be tempered by identifying minimum standards of responsibility.

The demand for a presidential system to replace the parliamentary shambles is not anti-democratic per se. But in today’s context it assumes that too much democracy is bad for the country and an impediment to India fulfilling its Great Power destiny.

A presidential system can also be said to contain a measure of exasperation with India’s political federalism. Why, it is asked, should Mamata Banerjee with 20 Lok Sabha MPs be in a position to veto decisions that have a bearing on the entire economy? The assumption is that she should confine her interest to West Bengal and the Railways and not threaten the Government’s survival with her opposition to foreign investment in multi-brand retail.

The discomfiture with Luddite politics may well be warranted. There is, after all, a similar sense of foreboding with the smaller coalition partners in the United Kingdom and Australia. The question is: Why would Mamata, or for that matter the DMK, relinquish its strategic clout at the Centre voluntarily? What does it get by way of compensation?

The answers are awkward. A State Government in India has limited powers and, more important, a limited revenue base. Even these limited powers to govern and tax are constantly under threat from a Government whose political signature is best seen in gigantic, one-size-fits-all Centrally-dictated schemes such as the MNREGA and the proposed Food Security Bill. Even in the relatively non-contentious area of national highways construction, States ruled by the non-UPA parties complain that they are discriminated against by a vengeful Centre. In the sphere of environment, there is a new clearance raj that has been put in place by the Centre and used selectively to target projects — as happened in Lavasa.

During Indira Gandhi’s time, non-Congress State Governments used to complain against the misuse of the overriding political powers of the Centre, notably its power to unilaterally dismiss unfriendly regimes in the States. Today, almost all the non-Congress Governments in the States complain bitterly about the lack of powers and financial shortfalls — at a time when the Centre is flush with funds.

These are complaints that are insufficiently heard and appreciated in New Delhi. Unlike the Centre where a majority Government has been tottering since the Commonwealth Games scandal erupted in August 2010, most State Governments are relatively stable. Indian democracy is not dysfunctional at the State level. And yet, ironically, the States are unable to reach to their full potential because the constitutional division of powers is heavily weighted in favour of the Centre.

This is an anomaly that is yearning to be redressed. There should have been no earthly reason why a State should have to take the Centre’s approval to undertake a policy on, say, roads, retail and environment. These are areas which are best resolved locally and keeping in mind local interests.

The excessive centralisation of India was a product of socialist planning — an idea that no longer finds favour. Why, in that case, should the principle of a redistributive Centre be allowed to remain as an instrument of political discretion?  If Gujarat has the potential of growing at above 10 per cent per annum, should it be thwarted for the sake of priorities dictated by the nominated National Advisory Council?

India is better served as a Union of States, a federation with a common market and a common currency.

Sunday Pioneer, December 18, 2011

United we vote, divided let's shop

By Swapan Dasgupta

In one of the few meaningful interventions on the state of the economy in this disrupted Winter Session of Parliament, Leader of Opposition (Rajya Sabha) Arun Jaitley imagined he put Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in a spot by referring to his expressed opposition to foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail in 2002, when the Atal Behari Vajpayee government was in power.

In stressing that Dr Singh is as governed by expediency as any lesser being, Mr Jaitley was undoubtedly making a powerful debating point. Yet, in his speech he deftly avoided a more obvious question: Why do politicians across the board behave one way in government and the opposite way in Opposition?

The question is relevant in the context of both the Congress and the BJP. The idea of opening up India’s protected retail sector to some form of foreign competition was an idea that was first mooted by the DMK’s Murasoli Maran when he was minister of commerce in the NDA government.

It wasn’t an idea that found enthusiastic support from everyone: the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh led by the uncompromising RSS leader Dattopant Thengdi was vocal in its public opposition, as were politicians belonging to the “swadeshi” camp in the BJP.

But the idea was sufficiently attractive to be included in the 2004 election manifesto of the NDA — although not in the BJP’s vision document. If it was the coalitional imperative that scuttled the scheme this month, it was coalitional enthusiasm that put the scheme in the NDA manifesto.

The inconsistencies don’t stop here. Mamata Banerjee was viscerally opposed to FDI in retail and was even willing to vote against the government in Parliament if it came to the crunch. The Congress in Kerala was similarly discomforted by the government’s initiative.

At the same time, the Shiromani Akali Dal, which has experienced the benefit to farmers from organised retail, was enthusiastic in its support. So apparently was Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi who, however, bowed to the party line and put his preferences on hold.

It also seems that many BJP MPs were dismayed by the party’s unequivocal opposition and preferred a more nuanced position. They were struck by the absence of any discussion within the parliamentary party before the BJP firmed up its position. Congress MPs would doubtless have the same complaint about its government’s unilateralism.

The point I am emphasising has, however, less to do with the lamentable secrecy and lack of consultations that surround most executive decisions — the retail liberalisation may well have gone through had it not happened in the midst of a Parliament session.

What I find interesting is that, political considerations apart, the government’s decision had supporters and opponents cutting across the political divide. More significant, the broad support for corporatising retail trade appears to have come from states which are either relatively better placed in the GDP — states such as Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Gujarat and Maharashtra — or smelt gains from an efficient cold chain — as, say, Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh.

For West Bengal, Ms Banerjee’s unrelenting opposition was quite understandable. Having lost its manufacturing base during the 34 years of Left Front rule, the unorganised retail sector is one of the largest sources of livelihood for a large range of people from the very lowest strata of the middle class to the rural poor.

The relative lack of other opportunities has made retailing the only possible source of livelihood for many people. A shrewd politician, Ms Banerjee would not meekly have handed over such a large and vocal community to the Left. For her, opposition to organised big retail made a lot of economic and political sense.

The real problem that the government faced was a conceptual one. There was just no way in which a momentous decision over retail trade would have a uniform effect throughout India. In certain states the benefits to both farmers and consumers would far outweigh the threats to the local kirana shop or middlemen. In other states, however, there would be disruption of local communities which had the potential of triggering social unrest.

The question that needs to be asked is: should, say, Gujarat or Punjab be denied the opportunity of becoming more integrated with the world market for the sake of West Bengal and eastern Uttar Pradesh? The concentration of power in the Centre makes this inevitable and forces absolutely local considerations to become pan-Indian impediments. Logically speaking, it seems absurd that the decision to allow a Tesco to operate a chain of supermarkets in Delhi should invite a veto from a Tamil Nadu-based regional party.

But that is how India has organised its politics and separation of powers. In a genuinely federal state, such decisions should be taken at the state level and be governed by mundane considerations such as municipal planning permission. Instead, it became a test of the Union government’s credibility.

The simple truth is that the idea of a redistributive Centre which was at the heart of the socialist planning process has run its course. In today’s India, it is the centralisation of power on crucial issues such as labour, power, infrastructure and environment that constitute obstacles to growth.

Uneven development is a fact of life that cannot be controlled by bureaucrats and politicians. There is often talk of a twin-track Europe. In India, we need to acknowledge the necessity of a multi-track, federal India.

Deccan Chronicle/ Asian Age, December 16, 2011

History is ignored

By Swapan Dasgupta

The British Empire was above all a celebration of protocol and pageantry-what the historian David Cannadine has called “ornamentalism”. This would explain the somewhat perfunctory treatment meted out by King George V and Queen Mary to the Viceroy, Lord Hardinge of Penshurst, when he stepped on board the Medina in Bombay to welcome the only visit of a reigning King-Emperor to India on December 2, 1911. According to convention, the Viceroy of India was the direct representative of the Crown in India: he governed in the name of the King-Emperor. With the monarch now physically present in the Empire’s prize possession, the Viceroy was automatically relegated to the status of a mere Governor-General.

Bruised vanity wasn’t the only hiccup governing the visit. The British Cabinet, in the throes of a vicious encounter between the House of Commons and House of Lords over a high-tax Budget, was most reluctant to have the monarch away from Britain for such a long time — there was just no precedent. The King overruled the elected government peremptorily. “It was”, he said, “entirely my own idea”.

Queen Victoria, the original maharani, would have loved her grandson for the defiance. To her, India was the Jewel in the Crown. The government wasn’t pleased and flatly refused to pay for the costs of a new, bejewelled crown that would symbolise the King’s symbolic anointment as King-Emperor on Indian soil. There was a scheme to make the Indian princes pay but ultimately the bill for the £60,000 crown from Garrard, the Crown Jeweller on Regent Street, was footed by an ever-obliging government of India.

It wasn’t the Asquith government alone that was not amused. The Archbishop of Canterbury threw a minor tantrum when it was suggested that the crown be placed on his head by three princes — one Hindu, one Muslim and one Sikh. As Kenneth Rose noted in his biography of George V, “he argued that coronation implied consecration, and that in a land of Moslems and Hindus, any such act of Christian worship would be misplaced. It was therefore agreed that the King should arrive at the Durbar with the crown already on his head.”

So it was that at noon on December 12, 1911, that the King-Emperor and the Queen-Empress rode in state to the grand domed tent, flanked by Sir Pertap Singh, the Diwan of Jodhpur, and by reputation the wisest guardian of princely India. His carriage was preceded by a contingent of the 10th Hussars that trotted in to the venue where the band played the robust notes of “See, the conquering hero comes.”

Actually, it was an unlikely “conquering hero”. Two days before, there was a spectacular state entry of the King into Delhi and the 25 square mile tented township complete with ornate princely pavilions, metalled roads, railway lines, electricity and post offices that had been put into place in record. Based on the diaries of the 23-year-old Lilah Wingfield, an Anglo-Irish aristocrat who travelled to India to experience the Empire in all its glory, writer Jessica Douglas-Home has provided an unflattering description of the first impressions of the King: “Curzon’s (1903 durbar) had been a show fit for the representative of the greatest sovereign on earth. But now, the first time a reigning British monarch had arrived in person on Indian soil, the Emperor of Emperors appeared as an insignificant, virtually invisible, figure, seated uneasily on a small bay horse surrounded by taller, more imposing and better mounted military men.”

“As the lonely figure of the King rode anonymously down the processional route into the mile-long Chandni Chauk, the crowds looked at the Queen in all her glory and came to the conclusion that she must have left His Imperial Majesty behind in England.”

Unfortunately for Hardinge, possessed by a fanatical desire to demonstrate that Lord Curzon’s 1903 Durbar wasn’t the last word in awesome pageantry, there was another boo-boo in the offing. In the ceremonial genuflection of 475 Indian princes before their King-Emperor, Gaekwad of Baroda deviated from the script. Minutes before he was to appear, he took off his ceremonial jewels and dressed as a Maratha gentleman, walked up to throne, bowed and then — horror of horrors — instead of taking the mandatory seven steps backward, turned his back and walked away, “nonchalantly twirling a gold-topped walking stick”. There was, wrote Douglas-Home, “a murmur of dismay” from the crowd.

An equal gasp of surprise greeted the King’s announcement, kept a fiercely guarded secret, that the capital would be transferred to Delhi from Calcutta. “The Times correspondent visited 10 of the camps and informed his readers that the announcement of the new capital was being received without enthusiasm. Some blamed the Calcutta monsoon, others suggested that it was a reflection of a British intention to remain permanently in India. It was believed by some that Calcutta had been chosen as the seat of power because it would be easy to leave by sea in case of an uprising.”

An uprising, however, was the last thing on anyone’s mind. The only show of people’s power occurred when, after the King had departed to his tent “rather tired after wearing the crown for three hours” and a 101-gun salute. A huge crowd of Indians broke the cordon, rushed to the durbar tent and were seen kissing the ground on which their raja and rani had walked. A Tibetan Lilah Wingfield encountered said he had travelled four months to be in Delhi to get a glimpse of the King!

The next day the foundation stone of New Delhi was lowered into a plinth by the King in front of a small audience of 500. “To loud applause the Maharaja of Gwalior offered to give the plinth a statue of the King Emperor.” From faraway London, Lord Curzon decried the move to shift the capital to Delhi — “the graveyard of empires”.

The Durbar was the most important event in India a century ago. It was a great moment for a Raj that would not endure for more than 36 years and which would never really settle down to a New Delhi that was formally inaugurated in 1931. But it was also a moment in India’s history that will live on despite the contrived derision of the “post-colonial” mind. The Raj’s Delhi is as much a show of India as is Shahjehanabad, the creation of rulers who came from Central Asia.

The latter is celebrated; the former isn’t even commemorated. That’s why India has no sense of history, only an overdose of hateful politics.

Asian Age/ Deccan Chronicle, December 12, 2011

Stalling Parliament negates democracy

By Swapan Dasgupta

Michael Heseltine was a renowned British politician who, many say, should have been the leader of the Conservative Party after Margaret Thatcher was unceremoniously dumped. There are many reasons why Heseltine never made it to the top job — he was seen as too liberal, too flamboyant and too individualistic — but one thing that was always held against him was his moment of excitable indiscretion in 1976.

Provoked by a group of socialist louts singing the ‘Red Flag’ in the House of Commons, Heseltine picked up the ceremonial mace and twirled it menacingly. No harm was done and Heseltine was duly reprimanded by the Speaker (he may even have been suspended for a few days). However, this incident, for which he was instantly dubbed ‘Tarzan’ by the media, continued to haunt Heseltine for the rest of his days in active politics. His momentary lapse into indecorous behaviour became a permanent blot on his character.

It would have been so refreshing if the Indian political class and the electorate applied the same exacting standards of parliamentary conduct on our MPs. Far from it. Once upon a time, the disruption of Parliament by the likes of Raj Narain (who was often bodily lifted out of the Rajya Sabha by marshals) was a novelty and viewed as an individual deviation. During the first 10 days of the winter session, both Houses of Parliament did not function. For reasons as varied as price rise, Telangana and FDI in retail, groups of MPs that included both the Opposition and members of the ruling coalition felt that disruption was the best way to register protest. Even after normal functioning resumed last week, Question Hour was disrupted by BJP MPs for flimsy reasons: The demands for the resignation of Home Minister P Chidambaram and External Affairs Minister SM Krishna.

Of late, there has been a sense of public revulsion against the frequent disruption of Parliament but this does not appear to have made too much of an impact. Instead of using Zero Hour effectively, there are some members of the Opposition who have got it into their heads that disruption is always preferable to arguments. Since it takes barely 15 MPs to throw a House into confusion, this extra-parliamentary approach is used with increasing frequency inside Parliament, with the same devastation. In the final years of Rajiv Gandhi’s five-year stint in Government, Parliament witnessed the creation of a “shouting brigade” of Congress MPs who used lung power against a tiny Opposition. In hindsight, Rajiv set an unfortunate precedent. Today, the same shouting brigade has entered the bloodstream of the Opposition and has contributed immeasurably in lowering Parliament to the level of a fish market.

What is important to note is that the debasement of Parliament hasn’t happened because a few MPs have no respect for institutions. It has occurred because those with a full awareness of their actions have encouraged the disruptionists. In other words, it is not ignorance or cultural inadequacy that has led to the assault on parliamentary functioning, but deep cynicism. Rajiv Gandhi knew the consequences of unleashing his shouting brigade; and LK Advani was aware that the reason for disrupting the first substantive session of the UPA Government in 2004 wasn’t any substantive grievance but astrological advice — some Babaji had apparently forecast that the UPA would be tottering before Diwali 2004.

Today, it is the same story of wilful culpability. Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley, the two Leaders of Opposition in Parliament, have distinguished themselves in parliamentary debates. They have the ability to take on arguments with arguments, eloquence, sarcasm and wit. Yet, they have been mute spectators to their less accomplished colleagues running riot. Unless we see evidence of Swaraj and Jaitley actively opposing this mindless culture of disruption, it will be presumed they are co-conspirators in this game.

Of course, the blame should not be directed solely at the Opposition. The Government, whose parliamentary majority rests on maverick and demanding allies, is always anxious to prevent any discussion that involves voting. As the BJD member Jai Panda has written on various occasions, negating all voting resolutions is tantamount to short-changing the electorate. Parliament, apart from being a talking shop, is primarily all about the numbers game. If a formal division is limited to law-making, it leaves out of its purview the entire process of governance. Had the Government agreed to a voting resolution on FDI in retail, there would have been no logic to the disruption of Parliament. Instead, we had the bizarre situation of the Government taking a major initiative, its coalition partners and the Opposition opposing it bitterly and it finally doing a U-turn, without the matter reaching Parliament at all.

The Government cannot pretend that lowering the public esteem of Parliament has been a one-sided contribution of a cussed Opposition. The Opposition has much to answer for but let us not forget that the atmosphere in which Parliament has lost its sheen has been the contribution of the Government. How will parliamentary institutions be strengthened if the Prime Minister, the UPA chairperson and the heir-designate are uncomfortable participating in the proceedings of Parliament? The symbols of electoral democracy, it would seem, have been reduced to tickets for generous housing in Lutyens’ Delhi. We have created a privileged class that has a sense of entitlement but little accountability.

Sunday Pioneer, December 11, 2011

At A Moment of Change: The UPA Government is remarkably out of sorts

It is striking that economists have joined hands with politicians to practise sophistry. Earlier this week, a British Treasury official, Sir Stephen Nickell, expressed hope that this year’s so far exceptionally mild winter in his country turns out to be as severe as last year’s. Sir Stephen’s wish had a tangential connection with the High Street retailers who have been frustrated by the slow sales of winter wear this season. In the main, however, his calculations had more to do with statistical jugglery. A severe winter invariably leads to slowdown and disruption which tell on the quarterly results. However, the wintry bedlam also leads to a rapid catching-up process once the snow melts and the sleet is washed away. What Sir Stephen was thus really hoping for was that one dreadful month of depressed or even negative growth is followed by a much better performance the following month. As The Daily Telegraph helpfully explained, the Nickell logic was based on the jugglery that “[O]ne dreadful month and the next slightly positive don’t count cumulatively as a recession”. The Indian economy, despite all its shortcomings, is nowhere as precariously poised as Britain’s. The awesome 8 per cent growth of the gross domestic product may have fallen to below 7 per cent, but we are far from uttering the dreaded R-word. At best, the effervescent deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, may have admitted to seriously miscalculating the persistence of high inflation, but hismea culpa was so discreetly buried in the inside pages that there was not even a token demand for his head to roll. Consequently, the need for economists and economic advisers to engage in statistical jugglery to show that they were right after all was less pressing. In India, economists are rarely, if ever, charged with quackery; the fall guy for economic mismanagement is inevitably the politician. The commerce minister, Anand Sharma, who was looking terribly self-important last week and choosing his words with a great deal of thought, is a much deflated figure this week after the Bengali Brahmin duo comprising the finance minister, Pranab Mukherjee, and the West Bengal chief minister, Mamata Banerjee, decided that foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail could wait a more favourable constellation of stars and planets. The prime minister, Manmohan Singh, emerged from the 10-day storm that exposed the vulnerabilities of his government with his maun vrat strictly intact. India must be a novel democracy for a political crisis to come and go with the three key figures of the dispensation — the prime minister, the United Progressive Alliance chairperson, Sonia Gandhi, and the designated heir apparent, Rahul Gandhi — to emerge without saying a word on the subject. Yet, lots of people said lots of things and the social media went viral with uncharitable remarks about the silent triumvirate that governs India silently. Was that the reason why the multi-portfolio minister, Kapil Sibal, entered the arena and, without any compelling reason, demanded that the anarchic social media be subject to political censorship? To many economists the logic may have seemed flawless: if you can’t outdo China in the economic race, you can at least start emulating it politically. To the less intellectually endowed, however, the timing seemed characteristically Sibal-esque. During the brief storm over retail trade liberalization, the Congress (if not the UPA as a whole) appeared to be recovering its composure and getting over its state of rudderless inertia. There was evidence to show that a section of the alienated middle classes welcomed the move to liberate the consumer from the distributional inefficiencies that contributed to exceptionally high food prices. The media, unrelentingly hostile since the Commonwealth Games scandal broke in August 2011, also seemed in a mood to be charitable towards the reformist impulses of the government. Even the letter-writing Eminent Persons Group seemed inclined to be supportive. And, more important, the principal Opposition party which had backed retail reform in its 2004 manifesto appeared cussed and blindly obstructionist and too willing to obliterate the difference between itself and the Communist Party of India (Marxist). In such a situation, in stepped Sibal with his dossier of grievances against netizens who are naturally irreverent and insolent. The result is that the Congress is back to exactly where it was before the cabinet met last month to approve FDI in retail with the added stigma of intolerance attached to it. Not since Charan Singh waged civil war against Morarji Desai and brought the Janata Party edifice crashing down in 1979 has India witnessed a government that is so utterly out of sorts. The problem stems only partially from an Opposition that is hell-bent on disrupting Parliament for the most trivial of reasons. At the heart of the growing dysfunctionality is the fact that the Congress no longer seems entirely convinced that the system of dyarchy that saw the UPA through in its first term is working. There is still personal respect for the prime minister. But his clumsy political management and his deadpan style of communication have convinced many of the party faithful that the next election is as good as lost unless there is a shake-up. By instinct the average Congress activist is wedded to the idea of dynastic succession. In 2004, when Sonia’s “inner voice” told her to refuse the prime minister’s post, the party accepted it grudgingly and with the realization that the ‘Regency’ would facilitate the political apprenticeship of Rahul, the chosen heir. Since Manmohan Singh had no political base and was disinclined to create one for himself, the interim arrangement was accepted. What has changed? First, the economic situation is no longer conducive to the mega-welfare style of governance that came with 9 per cent growth. The resources to fund Sonia’s lady bountiful act no longer exist, and the cost of uninterrupted profligacy is a mounting fiscal deficit, a declining rupee and a possible balance of payments crisis. The Congress is in a limbo between a preferred recklessness and the countervailing pulls of responsible governance. Its instincts favour rolling back the reforms initiated between 1991 and 2004, yet it lacks the political will to pursue the path of counter-revolution in a country where the majority of the electorate will be below the age of 40. Secondly, Sonia’s health problems — still a State secret — are a source of worry. This is a subject that is still not discussed openly but Congress leaders are aware that the issue of succession can no longer be put off indefinitely. Earlier it was imagined that a good showing in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections next summer — by which is meant the Congress’s ability to finish third in the four-cornered race — would be sufficient to catapult Rahul to the top job. Yet, as the election approaches, there is insufficient confidence in the Congress’s ability to break new ground in India’s largest state. A bad result will leave the Congress even more disoriented. Finally — and this is the truth that dare not speak its name — Congress supporters are worried that there is nothing else going for Rahul apart from pedigree. His aloofness and unbroken banality has been masked by careful handling but doesn’t appear to be yielding the necessary electoral dividends —Bihar being a prime example. It is not that Rahul is without charm but he lacks charisma. His only hope in 2014 lies in the Bharatiya Janata Party scoring many self-goals and putting forward someone completely inappropriate as its prime ministerial candidate. Rahul can perhaps win but only by default. He is no longer the ‘youth icon’ as he is made out to be; he is merely the face of the dynasty. The Telegraph, December 9, 2011

A matter of choice

By Swapan Dasgupta

One thing that unites both the proponents of foreign investment in multi-brand retailing and their disparate opponents is the conviction that foreign capital will introduce a spectacular degree of efficiency in a largely chaotic sector. It is recognized, and has been recognized since the NDA was first excited by the idea, that bulk buying and a streamlined distribution channel will help lessen the huge 'farm to fork' differential. That a transformation of retail into a part of the modern, organized sector will have a multiplier effect is also not seriously disputed.

But that's where the convergence ends. For the past week, Parliament has been disrupted, the Lokpal Bill and Anna Hazare put on hold and the government confronted with the most serious internal challenge since the Left withdrew support over the nuclear deal in 2008. Most MPs and a majority of chief ministers have chosen to mount a robust defence of inefficiency and opposed the likelihood of discounted grocery bills for three reasons.

First, even after 150 years of its liquidation, India hasn't got over its mental fear of the East India Company. In the language of socialism-which we still carefully preserve in the preamble to the Constitution-all foreign trade is suspect and calculated to puncture our national sovereignty and independence. Last week, a senior BJP leader who was feted as a great champion of economic reforms in his time as minister, was actually heard cautioning about the "strategic" consequences of foreign players in the retail sector. It was reminiscent of the time India was warned that WTO membership would involve a ban on chewing neem twigs.

Second, when it comes to shopping at home, we would rather buy from a Haldiram rather than a Heineman. It is a different matter that no trip to London is complete without the mandatory shopping at TESCO-a great British company which, some people deem, must never travel to India. It is a bit like Jawaharlal Nehru who preached austere self-sufficiency at home but let it be discreetly known that he wasn't averse to a decent bottle of Burgundy, preferably Grands Echezeaux, during his European tours. Nehru had good taste, as did Indira Gandhi, but they were clear about one thing: what was good enough for the first family wasn't appropriate for the rest of us. That was the essence of India's socialism.

Finally, each side has its own reasons to explain where they stand. The Prime Minister is anxious to refurbish his reformist credentials and, if possible, ensure that the outflow of money from India is reversed. The swadeshi types smell a great opportunity to embarrass the government and, maybe, even engineer its fall. They claim to be speaking for both the middlemen and the petty retailers-groups genuinely apprehensive of the impact of supermarkets on their livelihood. But in all this high economics, low politics and appeasement of special interest groups, one group is missing from the debate: the consumer.

In an erudite article in Economic Times, opposition leader Arun Jaitley made a curious observation: "Domestic retailers source domestically. International retailers operate on the principle of buying internationally at the cheapest cost." The assertion is dubious since the city corner shop today stocks everything for the price-conscious consumer. These include Italian spaghetti, Chinese light bulbs and South African peaches. But that is beside the point. What Jaitley is fearful is that the consumer's buying decision will be dictated by her budget rather than the 'Made in India' label.

The consumer may well be charged with being innately unpatriotic. But, is nationalism, by definition, high cost? What does it say about Indian manufactures if shoes made in Vietnam turn out to be cheaper and more durable than one made in Aligarh? Should the consumer be compelled to buy an inferior, expensive item on swadeshi principles, as used to happen in the past?

International competition can have two possible reactions. It can either generate lethargy or it can spur India to take those measures needed to make the economy truly competitive. The retail reforms could make India shake off its complacency. Or, the nation could wallow in the sense of entitlement that high-cost inefficiency brings. At least we now have a choice.

Sunday Times of India, December 4, 2011