India: A nation of idiots (Part 2)

Talking of institutionalized corruption, what happened to the Anna Hazare movement? As much as a disagree with the argument that one institution can magically eradicate corruption, the idea of people demonstrating against corruption was much welcome. To quote Winston Smith, if there is hope, it lies in the proles. As much as the Outer Party (middle India) fancies itself to be the crusader of everything moral and right, unless the poor fight the machine that is the status quo, nothing will change. After all, a politician is a shrewd specimen. If he/she feels that reform and change is what the people want, that he cannot play the people and trust the poor to put him back to power on the back of the usual packet of biryani and the packet of desi daaru, why should he/she prescribe to the idea of change when he has much to benefit from the status quo? And why will the poor protest, when his life is dependent on drudgery which does not include the luxury of worrying about the poor?

But why will any of us protest when the machine can simply bring up the glitz and glamour of the Hindi film industry? We are so enamoured by smut and fluff (while ignorantly claiming our culture to be the greatest in the history of mankind, since it apparently looks down on the same smut and fluff that the “culture-less” West propagates) that it distracts us from thoughts of the future. The best example of this is Sanjay Dutt. Logically, if it were a poor Muslim youth who made the same choices, he would rot in jail with all of us baying for his blood, and we will take great joy in the inevitable hanging to death. We’ll take rallies, celebrate the event as if it was the greatest in the history of mankind, and distribute sweets. In fact, the facts of the case show that the people accused of the same crime, who weren’t Sanjay Dutt, have been charged under TADA, while the Gandhian Munna Bhai is charged under the Arms Act. The irony of somebody who lauded Gandhian thought in a movie being charged under the Arms Act might be right up there with Arundathi Roy’s laughable “Maoists are Gandhians with Guns” logic. But since it is Munna Bhai, he’s a sweet guy. What did he do? Allowed his house to be barrack for a terrorist who cut Mumbai into a thousand pieces, even if said master could not fulfill his master’s dream of bleeding India into a thousand pieces. He’s suffered for 20 years! His suffering: a number of crores a year, special treatment, the adulation of the brainwashed and other luxuries which most of us can only dream of. Such horrid levels of suffering must be the most any individual has suffered in the history of the Indian Republic. Pity and mercy in this country exist only for the powerful. Talk of taking death sentence off the books; you are accused of being a wishy-washy liberal who bleeds for the criminal but not for the victim. The hypocrisy is astounding.

There exist a few holy cows in this country and the biggest of them is the Armed Forces. We are all grateful for the men and women who put their lives on the line so that we can sleep in peace. However, even the gravest crime they commit is almost excused. We have a brave woman who has been fasting for 10 years for the withdrawal of AFSPA, which clearly has no place in any decent society. Apparently, raping women, torture, random arrests are all prerequisites for fighting terrorism. The idiocy of this argument is never contested by the presumably educated. Another holy cow is religion. Despite our claims of being liberal, we are the farthest thing from a liberal society. I reject religion even though I come from a religious family. The idea of a God, as comforting as it may be, is nauseous when we demolish another religious structure in His name; kill, maim, loot and commit the worst crimes. An entity in whose name hatred is propagated, to me, is not an entity worth going gaga over. If a believer says that this God is a deeply merciful entity and then goes on killing in the name of the same merciful entity; it this believer cannot respect his/her beliefs, why should I? If we see the history of religion, we see that religion is more an army of killing, hatred and injustice; not the entity it presents itself to be. Even more nauseous is the hatred propagated by these purveyors of God. The homosexual is a deviant and the female is a second rate commodity. Equality is a concept alien to religion, and by extension, alien to a nation which is obsessed with religion. How many of us refuse to acknowledge the existence of the Caste System? Those of us who belong to the privileged castes will argue that we are different, that caste does not matter to us anymore. We will then make excuses for the caste system; that “blood matters”. How can any society which even in the slightest way excuses such barbaric thought claim to be a liberal society? We are constantly brainwashed into a state of considerable apathy.  Whether Sachin Tendulkar will retire or not is a matter of national debate. That one in six families in Urban India live in slums, with mobiles but no sanitation, public health facilities, safe drinking water housing or decent education is worthy of a footnote in the bowels of the newspaper. The philosophical conundrum of modern day capitalism: where the private sector is the solution for all problems is roundly ignored. We fail to note even the most basic criticism of our economic model; that the private sector will only solve problems where the possibility of a profit occurs, not in the most basic duties of the state (health, education and housing). To us, history is a playlist of YouTube videos; myth and propaganda is dressed up as history. One look at the bestseller list in books shows our fascination with mythology: the trilogy of Lord Shiva by Amish sells more than books which force us to think and to question the world around us. There is nothing wrong with reading books on religion, in fact, one of my most treasured gifts is a book titled “Am I a Hindu”, gifted to me by my father. However, mythology is one man’s fiction. It matters just as much as those Mills and Boon romance stories.

It is very easy for me to fall victim to the lazy assertion that there is no political party which is truly liberal, that prescribes to the ideals enshrined in the constitution (laughable how the right denies the existence of the idea of India. One can only pity the deluded for suffering so much delusion so as to not see the obvious). I refuse to do so. Politicians are representative of society. Unless society changes and moulds itself in the way our founding fathers wanted, there will not be liberal political parties. In conclusion, we are a nation of idiots. To borrow the famous line from Justice Markandey Katju, 90% of Indians are idiots, and I include myself in this. For far too long, I have been victim to myth and propaganda. I choose to move towards the 10%, and unless the rest of us do the same, we will remain a nation by, of and for idiots. 

India: A nation of idiots (Part 1)

With a year left for the Lok Sabha elections (or less than a year, if you choose to believe the media driven hype of early elections), the media is going to go all out with opinion polls, articles presumptuously titled “State of the Nation”, as if a sample size of 1000 people represents the opinions of the millions that constitute the Indian electorate. Presumptuous or not, one must admit that speculating the results of an election is a deeply satisfying activity, especially in a country as diverse as India. There are a million contours to every election in India; admittedly, this article can only capture a few of them: the ones that appeal to a middle class, liberal youngster.

To say that Narendra Modi has emerged on the national stage would be an understatement. Young India’s fascination with Narendra Modi enthralls me. We might not uniformly agree on Modi’s qualifications to lead this great nation, but we cannot ignore the fact that he is a serious candidate. Young India’s stand on whether Modi’s record on development trumps the serious accusations he continues to face vis-à-vis 2002 is a larger sociological debate which invariably involves the facets of class and religion. All I can say is that as a resident of Ahmedabad, I cannot deny Modi’s record on development or the many desirable elements of his administration. Despite seeing Modi’s development first hand, I will not vote for him come the election. The reasons for this will be apparent as we go on.

Another habit the media gets into when covering any general election is the habit of declaring that the coming election is “one of the most important in the history of the Indian republic”. I fail to understand the logic of this argument, since every election is by definition a crucial one. The winner gets to decide policy for a considerable amount of time, and every policy has the potential of changing the fortunes of the nation one way or the other. However, it cannot be denied that India is at a crossroads. The problems facing the nation need not be stated again; they have been repeated ad nauseam in the climate of pessimism that has persisted over the last few years. My memory of the last general election was the theme of change that underlined it: young people, qualified people would finally get into politics and try to make a change. Reform would come, and India would be transparent, a slightly better place than the competitive race to the bottom it is at this time. Then the same old faces got elected, and those of us who held hope in change and reform pointed out to the presence of young MP’s (especially in the Congress), naively ignoring that most belonged to dynasties. The irony of pointing to the inheritors of a dynasty as evidence of upcoming change and reform was lost on us. The election of 2009 was about the status quo, with some smatterings of change tossed to us deluded liberals to keep quiet until the next election. And the cycle is set to continue…

For me, too much of talk on this election has centered on individuals: Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi (at least until Rahul baba virtuously declared that he wasn’t interested. That was an act of renunciation unseen in mankind’s vast experience with elected or unelected royalty) or any of the other names that have propped up. This points to the idiocy of the discourse on our polity, that we choose to focus on individuals rather than the ideas they represent. What is Narendra Modi’s idea for India going forward? Or Sushma Swaraj? Or Chidambaram? Of course, there is no point in asking for Rahul Gandhi’s idea for India since his ideas include silence, or few words spoon-fed by his MBA coterie or Mummy’s lieutenants. To be fair to Modi, he did express an idea for India; an “India first” form of secularism which unfortunately is illogical because secularism and nationalism are independent of each other. We might have a unique definition of secularism in this country (where it is synonymous with tolerance), but even tolerance and nationalism are independent of each other. History has shown us that focus on nationalism is deeply intolerant. I abhor the idea of a nationally imposed rigidity on our consciousness. The idea reminds me of the dystopia wonderfully illustrated in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty- Four. Besides, the idea of a civilization which embraced liberal thought when the rest of the world embraced savagery choosing to embrace rigidity is troubling (as it should be to anybody with the slightest historical knowledge of the Indian civilization, very different from the myth propagated by the tilak, chaddi and lathi types).

What then, of the economy? For a nation which gobbles reports which prophesize an economic superpower (at least the sections of our country which can read, and afford the luxury of reading reports which can simply be termed as prophecies), we have a tremendous amount of economic illiteracy. Notice the collective angst when petrol prices are increased. While there is an argument for a transparent mechanism (one of my aims when I started my MBA course was understanding how petrol or diesel is priced. I am about to finish the course and have a wonderfully exciting  job to look forward to, but I am no closer to understanding what goes behind the  price that we all have to pay for petrol), the bouts of irritation middle India shows is immoral. Why should the government subsidize my petrol when millions go to bed hungry? Surely, when I can afford the latest gizmos or religiously buying the latest Manchester United jersey, I can afford to pay more for petrol. The culture of subsidies in this country can be a good thing if the needy actually benefitted from it. Like most things in this country, something ostensibly for the poor is actually for the middle class, which calls itself aam aadmi without an ounce of shame. How do we balance the needs of development, the compulsion of sustainability and the need for transparency (which should be a basic requirement for a country calling itself the world’s largest democracy)? Which politician has answered this question apart from the usual kow-towing to big business? Not to mention the massive behemoth in the room that is institutionalized corruption. 

FDI in retail

FDI in retail is back in the news. There are reports that the government will allow FDI in multi-brand retail from April 2012. This is a topic which has seen much controversy. Economists have been discussing the issue for years. Strangely enough, this issue also sees the BJP and the Left on the same page. An issue on which the left and the right stand together must be a special one and that certainly is the case.

Before I go into my view on the subject, some background is in order. India permits 100% FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) in certain sectors, like cash and carry, wholesale trading and 51% FDI in single brand retail (high end stores like GUCCI come into this category). FDI in retail has for long been seen as the answer to India’s inflation problem. The Economic Survey 2010-11 noted that “"Permitting FDI in retail in a phased manner beginning with metros and incentivizing the existing retail shops to modernize could help address the concerns of farmers and consumers. FDI in retail may also help bring in technical know-how to set up efficient supply chains which could act as models of development." Numerous companies involved in the sector welcome a move to have FDI in retail. So why the controversy?

India has a number of kirana shops, wholesale shops which form the backbone of the present retail industry in the country. These are generally small businesses (called mom and pop stores in the US) which might not be able to compete if the big companies enter the retail sector. There is a political angle as well: the retail sector contributes 13% of GDP and employs a huge mass of people. Can any government afford to alienate this vote bank, especially in the era of coalition politics with little scope for political ideology?

Before I go into the political angle, it is important to list the reasons why so many people see FDI in retail as a good thing. The Indian food sector is an absolute mess, with around 40% of the food being produced going waste. Thus we have the unsavoury scenes of rats eating grain when millions of our people go to bed hungry. Storage and distribution facilities are non-existent. The Food Corporation of India is unable to store the grain that is produced and leaves stacks of grain in the open, only to be destroyed by rain. Global retailers, with the technical expertise, will help us fix our supply chain and storage problems. Critical food produce will not be wasted and the poor in this country will have access to food, a basic duty of the state.

In addition to this, another benefit of having a smooth transit of produce from farms to shop floors is the elimination of middlemen. Any person with a rudimentary knowledge of Indian agriculture understands how middlemen play havoc with both the farmer and the consumer. FDI in retail will ensure contract farming, which will mean that the farmers will sell their produce directly to the retail chains. They will get the market price for their produce (which can easily be ascertained in today’s internet age) and the consumers will not have to pay through the nose for basic foodgrain.

Another advantage is that global retailers setting up operations in India will have to employ a huge mass of people. This could help address our huge unemployment numbers. It is well known that the present economic model is unsustainable: the over-dependence on services is not feasible in the long term. India needs a seismic change and FDI in retail could help contribute in a small manner to that change. Sure, at some point we will have to look towards more labour intensive sectors like manufacturing, but this can surely be an option in the short term. Furthermore, credit, the bane of every business in India (apart from corruption and red tape) will not be an issue with global retailers coming in.

But what of the wholesale traders, the kirana shops which are dead against this move? Is their survival so important that we ignore all the benefits that FDI in retail will provide? Well, no. The argument that traders need protection from the big retail chains is an argument that belongs to an age gone by. It is evident that even the biggest retailer will not be able to cater to every part of India. This is where wholesale traders come in. They can certainly help the big retailers offer their services in the rural areas of the country. As we have seen, prices will come down as a result of global retailers getting involved. These traders can come to the party, as it were, and see to it that the rural areas do not get left behind. India is looking forward, not looking back. Everybody must change with the times, and so must wholesale traders, who for long have enjoyed at the expense of the farmer and the consumer. Traders must look for innovative ways to stay competitive and there are many sectors where players have changed to remain relevant. There is no reason why retailers cannot adopt the same outlook.

Finally, we come to the political argument. Like I mentioned, on this issue, the left and the right find each other on the same platform. While such a scenario would certainly be desirable if these parties are working for the good of the country, that is not the case here. Narrow political considerations are at play. It is a downright disgrace that our politicians put their interests before that of the nation. The left’s opposition is not unexpected, what with the comrades refusing to come out of their 19^th century dogma, but the BJP’s opposition is surprising. Even more ridiculous is the reasons cited for opposition. The argument that FDI in retail will not bring inflation down defies common sense. Yashwant Sinha, probably the worst Finance Minister this country has had the misfortune of suffering, makes a ridiculous parallel between FDI in India and FDI in Mexico. If one were to make arguments based on how liberal policies did not work in a particular country, we’d have to be back to the bad old days of socialism and perpetual bondage. On second thought, it is not surprising that the BJP, which came to power on the back of lies on our heritage, culture and history, chooses to extend its habit of dishonesty and immoral conduct to economic policy.

Competition is a good thing. There is no better example for this than the telecom sector. The government has an obligation to provide every citizen of this country three square meals a day. Foodgrains rotting outside warehouses, rats and dogs eating grain while millions go to bed hungry, and the middle class having to pay exorbitant prices for foodgrains is a disaster for any elected government. The government has to choice between succumbing to the pressure of an oligarchy and leading us all to ruin and fulfilling its obligation to the Indian people. One hopes that the government makes the right choice.