The Lesser Devil 5

Pakistan and Foreign Affairs

Long time due, worth the effort.

It is generally implied that much of India's Foreign Affairs revolve around Pakistan and the Kashmir issue. Let me examine the NDA's record vis-a-vis Pakistan. In February 1999, Atal Behari Vajpayee, the then Prime Minister of India, went to Pakistan, amidst much fanfare and symbolism, on board the then newly-introduced bus service between India and Pakistan. And then, Kargil happened.

Pakistan-supported militants infiltrated into India and occupied the peaks of Kargil. We lost the lives of 527 soldiers in the subsequent military operations to drive out the invaders. What happened then, was a sheer travesty of humanity. The NDA politicized the Kargil incursions and the subsequent conflict to win the 1999 general elections. What probably was a military operation to counter a humiliating invasion by Pakistani army irregulars and militants was blatantly glossed up into a victory over Pakistan. In the aftermath of Kargil, ties with Pakistan were severed for almost a year.

Meanwhile a coup helped the military regain power in Pakistan. General Musharraf was now in command. Worse, India followed a blow hot - blow cold policy instead of engaging the General in full earnest. The relations reached a ground digging low in the period after the Parliament attack. Instead of overhauling the intelligence infrastructure, the Government resorted to yet another nationalism-inspired facade - mobilization of our army! To what end, nobody knows.

Neither did India invade nor did it send its troops across the LoC to strike at terrorist camps.
In 2003, Prime Minister Vajpayee blew the peace bugle yet again and called for a summit. The Agra summit, that consequently happened, resulted in nothing substantial. Apart from a routemap for frequent meetings between officials, nothing substantial resulted.

Compare this with the present Government. It has not flinched once from its politically mature stand of peace with Pakistan. In fact, it was mature enough to continue with the Vajpayee initiated ceasefire (Nov 2003), fully cognitive that BJP could walk away with the credit. Consistency in our interactions with Pakistan has been lauded by the international community as the factor contributing most to the resilience of South Asia, economically and politically. The slew of confidence building measures undertaken with Pakistan has paved the way for greater trade and people to people contact. It has regenerated the hope for an unified South Asia, with its two biggest nations showing the way.

Foreign Affairs has been in the limelight for most of the UPA's tenure. If not Pakistan, then China. If not China, then the USA. Our engagements with the Chinese have been fruitful, if one measures in terms of bilateral trade. The most significant of them was the no-decision to move a motion against the safeguards agreement in the IAEA meeting on Friday (China abstained). India walked away with most of the goodies in the Indo-US nuclear deal (controversial, will deal with it in another post). People in the US cried foul over the exceptions made for India vis-a-vis nuclear technology. Our relationship with Russia continues to travel north. (The Gorshkov issue was a business issue and nothing more. Russia mis-estimated the costs involved in retrofitting the carrier and therefore, charged more. India was reluctant to part with the extra money.) Iran has re-affirmed its commitment towards sharing a cordial relationship with India despite all the hullaboo raised over our supping with George Bush.

The UPA Government has been seasoned in its external affairs policies and decisions. The world is welcoming India with both hands. But will the opposition understand? I do not think so.

Internal Security is up next.

The Lesser Devil 4

This post is a continuation of a series of posts.

Programmes, Schemes and Legislations

The UPA Government has launched several pro-people programmes such as the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme - intended to provide Rs. 60 per day for 100 days of employment a year to one member of an unemployed family; Bharat Nirman - the flagship programme of the Government, envisaging a four year bound time frame for implementing Rs 174000 crore worth of projects in rural India; the National Rural Health Mission - has been elemental in curbing infant mortality rates across the country and providing basic health facilities to most villages in 18 states of India; Aam Aadmi Bima Yojana - a social-security scheme for unorganized workers outside insurance coverage; Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan - was started by the NDA Government but complemented with the mid-day meal scheme and expanded by the present Government; and, Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission - launched to revamp and create physical infrastructure in urban India with a corpus annual fund of Rs 1000 crore.

Several legislations and amendments having far-reaching benefits have been initiated by the present Government. The Right to Information Act, for instance, gives people the power to demand records from Government offices and organizations. It is considered by many to be a milestone in the empowerment of civil society. Traditional Forest Dwellers' Bill was passed in 2006. This gives tribals deserving rights over forest land and thus, ensures sustainability of forests in the long run. Communal Violence Bill was presented and enacted to ensure prevention of communal violence and rehabilitation of victims of communal violence. Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act has helped provide civil remedies to women in abusive or violent relationships. The highly controversial Central Educational Institutions Bill, popularly known as the OBC Reservation Bill, was also tabled by the present Government. Although highly criticized by many, nobody argues against the benefits it provides to socially discrimated-upon people.

Clearly, the UPA Government has a lot to project as achievements. It beats me then, why are they on the defensive?!

Anyway, Foreign Affairs is next on my agenda.


References:
'Budget 2008-09: Reaffirming Rhetoric', March 2008, http://www.cbgaindia.org/budget_responses.php; and
'Union Budget 2007-08'.

The Lesser Devil 3

This is a continuation of a series of posts comparing the present Government with the previous Government.

Economy

India grew at 5.3% from 1991 to 1996 under the legendary tenure of Dr. Manmohan Singh as Finance Minister. Remember, these years were some of the most turbulent for the Indian Economy. From near bankrutpcy, it grew back to normalcy. In 1996 and 1997, with P Chidambaram as the Finance Minister, the Indian economy grew at the then runaway pace of 6.4%. BJP-led coalition governments were in power at the Centre from 1998 to 2004. The average annual GDP growth during these years was 5.8%. What then, makes the NDA so uniquely different with regard to their handling of the economy? The truth is that they slowed the Indian economy to an extent (the average GDP growth for 2000-2002 was 4.1%!). They could achieve a semblance of an average growth rate only after the reported GDP growth of 8.6% in their last year in office. That was again, due to the low base GDP growth rate reported in the previous year!

2004 onwards, it has been a fairy tale run for the Indian Economy. Under the present Congress-led UPA Government, the average GDP growth achieved from 2004 to 2008 was 8.7%!!! The economy, despite being in a downturn in 2008-2009 is expected to report an annual GDP growth rate of 7-8%, which is still excellent by NDA standards. And significantly, this has not been at the cost of fiscal prudence. The present Government has managed to better their own fiscal and revenue deficit targets for most of these four years. This is in stark contrast to the NDA Government, which failed to keep fiscal deficit in check.

The programmes launched by the present regime have been lauded by many an analyst as programmes intended to develop India as never before. I will discuss them next.

References:
The Annual Economic Review (1998-2008);
'Myth about Economics and Politics in India': Surjeet Bhalla, March 15, 2008, Business Standard;
and
http://www.financeminister.gov.in/

The Lesser Devil 2

Legacy is ending. And so would people say, about the Congress. So, I will focus on the current government and compare it with the previous regime, because the BJP-led NDA is considered to be the best alternative. For the same, I list out some of the contentious issues counted as the failures of the current government, deliberate upon them and do a comparative analysis in the following few posts to come.

Inflation and Price-rise

The inflation for the week ended June 7 was 11.05%, a thirteen year high in India. But hey, hold on. Food prices have soared 40% in the USA. China has seen its monthly inflation rate soar to 7.7%. Inflation in the European Union has just hit 3.7%, almost double the 2% inflation growth target, put forth by the European Central Bank. For the first time in a decade, Japan experienced a positive inflation of 1%, largely due to rising oil and food prices. There are food riots in Mexico and Argentina. Prices have risen globally, and India, with ironical thanks to globalization, can only be shielded from global trends and cues so far. A host of factors are pushing up prices of food and other commodities around the world and they are affecting India too. The examples are many - diversion of maize and other food-grains from the food basket to the energy basket, the floundering wheat supply because of a record drought in Australia, the entry of equity and hedge funds into the futures commodities and energy markets, etc.

Oil prices were USD 39 a barrel in 2004. They were USD 79 a barrel in 2007. Today, it is USD 137/bbl. And in case you are wondering, the inflation rate has soared from 3.8% in January 2008 to 11.5% on June 27. Not just that, the present Government has maintained annual inflation rates at an acceptable 4-6% for the past four years.

Jumping over to the other side, the NDA Government did perform better than the present one, but just about. Their inability to control inflation in 2000-01, which ranged from 6-9% for the whole year, deflates their claim of being an alternative to the present Government (sourced from the finance minister's website). Besides, the average annual inflation rate was 4.9% under the NDA, which is only a trifle better than the 5.3% rate clocked by UPA (till 2008). It is only in this year, that inflation reared up its ugly head.

What is more troubling, however, is the blatant sensationalism and politicization of the inflation figures by both the media and the opposition. Besides, inflation is more of an economic statistic than a political ruse to gather votes or a savvy story to spruce up TRP ratings. One cannot look at the inflation figures and say the economy is not doing well. I will focus on the economy in my next post.

References:
The Annual Economic Review (1998-2008);
'Myth about Economics and Politics in India': Surjeet Bhalla, March 15, 2008, Business Standard;
'World Inflation': Business World, April 2008; and
http://www.financeminister.gov.in/

The Lesser Devil 1

As a child, I was always encouraged to stand up for what I believe in, without hesitation or fear. And today, when I post this article about my preference for the Indian National Congress (INC) over other parties of our polity, I know I am braving the wrath of the middle class, the anti-reservationists, the poor farmers, the labour unions, most of my friends, etc. or at least I think I am. Anyway, here I am and here I post.

Most people say India is better off without the INC. Most people say India could have been much better if not for the the INC. Most people say INC is responsible for most of India's shortcomings. Most people say INC is the reason for all the filth in India. And most probably, you are one of them.

Well, I have news for you, then. This very party fought for and won for us, independence. This very party gave us our proudest heritage-democracy. This very party ensured us 61 years of the Nation. This very party gave us years of uninhibited growth. This very party gave us the higher education institutions, the ones that we work so hard to get admission into. This very party connected the Nation like never before with highways and telecommunication. This very party set up the Navratnas, the pillars of Indian industry. This very party set up the irrigation projects that bring deliverance to our farmers and their farms. This very party gave us the technology for the Great Indian Bomb.

This does not wish away the sins of the INC, though. They have been party to deep-rooted corruption, maladroit administrations, communal politics, witch-hunting and all other like-maladies, but then politics is power and power corrupts. And so too, with the INC. People talk about alternatives to the Congress. Are these alternatives better than the Congress? Nah, not by a far shot. In fact, the Congress has time and again proven to be the best alternative among the lot and not, without reason.

The Congress seems to be the 'party with a difference' and unlike its rivals, does not stop at just claiming that. It delivers, in part or full, the promises it makes. The reasons for my believing so, I will cite in one of my following posts.

And so, my vote will always be for The Lesser Devil, the Indian National Congress.

The Reservation Fence

“Prejudice, not being founded on reason, cannot be removed by argument”

- Samuel Johnson,
English Poet and Critic.

No truer could have been this quote. We were and still are, witness to it happening over and over again. And 2006 was no different either. The Indian Government and the Indian student fraternity made their stands on the opposite sides of the fence. The reservation fence.

Both were victims of a prejudiced bias. The Government thought the upper-castes formed the crux group of the protestors and that fact to be the sole reason behind the protests themselves. The academia, a motley group of supposedly the brightest brains in the country, thought the sole reason for the reservation bill was to cater to the OBC vote bank. Well, both sides had reason, but just about.

Let me set things in perspective by examining the positions of both sides.

The Government set the wheels of the controversy rolling in august 2006. Arjun singh, the HRD minister introduced The Central Educational Institutions Bill, 2006 on August 25, 2006 in the Lok Sabha. The bill sought 27% reservation for Other Backward Classes in Govt. Higher Educational Institutions, namely, AIIMS, IITs, IIMs, Central Universities and other like institutions aided or maintained by the Union Government. This meant, in totality, 49.5% of the seats of all such institutions were to be reserved for SCs, STs and OBCs (the 22.5% reservations have been in force since independence).

The Government was well within its rights, legally speaking, to table such a bill in Parliament. However, it was based on unreliable scientific data and borne out of the compulsions of coalition politics. Nevertheless, the Government also promised to increase intake at all the institutions over a period of three years. It said that this increase would ensure a just admission policy. One, that would enable the present intake strength to be maintained for the general category students.

Now, let me jump over to the other side.

There are very few world-renown institutes in India. Incidentally, a major fraction of these institutes are Central Educational Institutes like the IITs, IIMs, AIIMS, IISc., etc. For years, these institutes were taking in roughly a few thousand students, and the exact figures remained more or less, the same. Here is the glaring anomaly. These few thousand seats are fought for, by almost 10 lakh students all over the country, every year. That makes for a paltry intake ratio of 1:100. Students put in a whole lot of effort and get into these institutes on the basis of a few percentage points. And this is precisely what infuriates them - the fact that other students with poorer scores than theirs, get into these prestigious institutes on the basis of caste.

So, the students from the above mentioned institutes got on to the streets, taking on the lathis and the water-cannons, sounding war cries and anti-government chants. They came, they saw and they fought. The media pounced on each of their protests. Every sound-bite was diligently broad-casted on prime time. Well, one could safely presume they added fuel to the fire. Anyway, the protests only made the government's resolve stronger. And eventually, the bill was passed.

But it did not end there.

Litigations were filed in the Supreme Court. Hearings occurred on a regular basis. Benches were constituted. The judges were split in sounding their verdicts. And the war raged on, the latest missive being the Supreme Court's verdict, that upheld the quota regime and in the same breath, kicked the creamy layer out of the purview of the quota. This was claimed as victory by both sides. Well, was this?

In my opinion, irrespective of my stand on the issue, we lost. All of us. We lost, because we did not debate and find a solution to the problem. We lost, because we fought and had a solution imposed on us. When debate is not allowed to be instrumental in a democracy such as ours, it is society which loses in the end.
Why did the Government decide in such haste?
Why did the students take out protest marches, do all-night candle-light vigils, fight with the law enforcement agencies and undertake strikes at central institutes?
Why couldn't both the sides come to the table, work out issues in a civilized way and then draw up a framework which could have been acceptable to all?
What then, is the difference between a civilized society and an uncivilized one?
Perhaps, the sides involved could give us some answers. But will they?
And that alone, remains the biggest question today.