Calling for Guest Articles!

Do excuse the the inappropriateness of using a US Military Voluntary Draft poster for recruiting Indian Political Commentators, but the phrase 'We Want You' is rarely put across in a better way. :)

Modern Indian Politics invites guest articles, opinions and even rants about information relating to Modern + Indian + Politics. While pieces relating to current affairs are the most preferred, please feel free to bring back historical issues, as well as predictions on how you expect things to become. With the delicate relationship of Politics with the Economy, articles about the Indian economy might also be a good idea.

Please email articles to modernindianpolitics@gmail.com in the next few weeks. Brevity and conciseness always make for good articles, but if you enjoy a healthy one-sided rant, do send that too. Selected articles will be published with full details of the Guest Author.

Let the writing commence!

GE 2009: The Politikal Prediction

Its that time of the decade again. The General Elections are here, with the first phase of voting having taken place yesterday (May 16). The nation waits with baited breath for its next Government, for a new set of policies impacting the economy, every state and every citizen in some way or the other.

After studying each state, and looking back at GE 2004's results, these are my predictions for the 2009 Indian General Elections:

UPA - 221 seats
NDA - 188 seats
Third Front - 91 seats
BSP - 32 seats
Others - 10 seats
Total - 542 seats

Mayawati is going to play the role of 'kingmaker' this time. While she will not become the Prime Minister this time (Third Front + BSP = 133 seats), both the UPA and the NDA will be courting her for the stronghold she'll have over Uttar Pradesh.

The most likely scenario seems for the UPA to invite the BSP to join. However, such a combination will only produce 221 + 32 = 253, still under the magic figure of 272. The remaining 20-odd seats will be extremely difficult to get, with almost no option of the Left backing the UPA this time. Do note, I have included Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party and Laloo Prasad Yadav's RJD as partners of the Congress in the UPA. In case they do not join, expect the UPA to have a 180-odd seats, with almost no hope of forming government.

While I expect the BJP to do quite well, the NDA overall wont be much of a threat because of lost coalition partners. The split with Navin Patnaik's BJD in Orissa and Chandrababu Naidu's TDP in Andhra Pradesh will cost it about 25-odd votes.

The Left's stronghold over Kerala and West Bengal for a major chunk of the Third Front's 91 expected seats. Other useful contributors will be the PMK in Tamil Nadu, BJD in Orissa, the JD(S) in Karnataka. High chances are that the UPA and NDA will both try and obliterate this loose alliance, and try and get as many coalition partners as possible. But it is going to take a lot of convincing to get the 50-odd seats of the Left to join either coalition.

I predict drama. Crazy coalitions. Newspapers and media channels dedicating more time to it than even the 'Abhi-Ash' wedding. The UPA has an edge over the NDA, but simply because of number of coalition partners. The BJP will beat the Congress party-for-party, but will have to try hard to get allies. The BSP is unpredictable; expect it's alliance to be revealed right at the end and to also be the most decisive one.

Logic suggests no government to be formed. 272 is hard to get in a three-way split Parliament. Then again, logic and Indian elections never go together.

Jai Hind.

System Overhaul?

When I was re-reading one of Shashi Tharoor's finest works(India: From Midnight to the Millennium and Beyond), one paragraph within the final chapter caught my fancy. While Tharoor was wrapping up his insightful account of India's political journey from the late 1940s to the early 2000s in a chapter titled 'A Future Without Shock', he quite strongly advocates his preference for a Presidential system of government, over our current Westminster Abbey styled Parliamentary regime. He laments the stability that a Presidential Chief Executive enjoys over a representative democracy Prime Minister, and how he/she can behave more like a member of the Executive than the Legislature. He believes that a country like India, with its monumental economic and social challenges, requires leaders who can focus on governance rather than on staying in power. To borrow a quote from him, 'Indian politicians are more skilled in politics than policymaking'.

Quite so. And Tharoor backs his brave stance with a number of good points. He starts off by laying down the facts that India, quite frankly, does not possess all the criterion required for a parliamentary system to successfully function. "It(The Parliamentary System) requires the existence of clearly-defined political parties, each with a coherent set of policies and preferences that distinguish it from the next, whereas in India a party is merely a label of convenience which a politician adopts and discards as frequently as a Bollywood film star changes costume.

Indian political parties have a reputation for being flippant in terms of ideology. Coalition partners swap places on a fairly whimsical basis, going to whichever major party gives them more benefits. For the General Elections of 2009, both the UPA and the NDA, have seen major allies leave (BSP and BJP respectively), either to switch sides or to go solo. Of course, the biggest evidence of a 'Crazy Coalition' is the newly formed Third Front that represents the Communists in Kerala, the Dalits in Uttar Pradesh, the Social Democrats in Karnataka and the Populists in Tamil Nadu. Hardly a Band of Brothers.

To put the argument on ground level, Tharoor argues that if a person wants LK Advani or Dr. Manmohan Singh to be the national leader, they must vote for someone else in order to indirectly accomplish that result. Hardly a McCain vs Obama duel, which is the political version of Muhammad Ali taking on Joe Frazier. The American political system is quite different from the Indian one. 2 parties. Red versus Blue. The Elephant versus the Donkey. Republicans versus Democrats. Tharoor uses the US example as one which would be greatly beneficial if applied in India. Rather than voting for your local MP, who you have probably never even heard of, vote for the man/woman you want who should lead the nation. The elected PM can choose his cabinet, and Tharoor predicts that experts in each field will be appointed to head Ministries. More effective, probably; more efficient, certainly.

Tharoor claims that suggesting this is political sacrilege. But he finds support with the 13th and 16th Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, who espouses the idea of a revolutionary change of government to a Presidential Regime. Understanding the practical challenges facing such a monumental shift, Vajpayee argues that "even in the mightiest fort one has to repair the parapet from time to time, one has to clean the moat and check the banisters. The same is true about our Constitution."

Proponents of the change argue that the current mess is caused by parliamentary system and not vice versa. Tharoor ends his slightly rant-like opinion by stating that the disrepute into which the political process has fallen in India can be directly traced to the workings of the parliamentary system and argues for change.

I disagree. Call me an romantic old-school Nehruvian, but I cant bear to think of power shifting away from the Sansad Bhavan to the Rashtrapati Bhavan. We got our freedom after a long struggle against foreign autocratic rule, and our nation's guardians in the Constituent Assembly have tried their best to prevent domestic autocratic rule. The point of parliamentary democracy is to choose your own areas representatives. These representatives, based on ideologies are members of political parties. And the party with the most number of seats in the national assembly chooses a representative to lead the government, and effectively, the country. The layers of choosing by the people is what keeps authoritarianism at bay. One my favorite anecdotes of Nehru was in the 1930s, during his ascent, he anonymously penned an article in the Modern Review warning Indians that 'he must be checked' as 'we want no Caesars'.

Nehru was a convinced democrat. And his 17 years at the helm steered India towards political stability. The towering figure protected the Free Indian Union at its toughest time, its infancy. And for that reason, I for one, am glad that the Mahatma pressed for him to lead, and not Vallabhai Patel, who should have been made PM by right. If India sacrificed economic growth at the time, it was at the expense of building a nation, constructing an Indian Identity. The Jan Gan Man would hardly be called as a song sung from all corners of the nation with heartfelt loyalty. Cricket and films were yet to unite us. And there was no Mahatama.

It is such times, that make a dictator. A non-existant opposition and support reeking of sycophancy, usually feeds an ego, into making one man think he can rule the country with no restrictions, and it will be in the benefit of everyone. Yet, Nehru respected the power of the people. He always maintained he was an elected representative of the people and he had no moral right to the throne (Ironically his daughter was the antithesis at the time of the 1975-77 Emergency, and his younger grandson Sanjay was exactly what he wanted to protect the nation against).

Forgive me for making this article to be an ode about Nehru, but I strongly feel that this is one of his greatest legacies. Belief that people can rule themselves through a representative democracy, without fear of failed democratic experiments in numerous other Asian countries is what he wanted to leave India with. The root problem with a presidential system of government is that it feeds dictatorship ambitions, it guarantees stability but it takes away instant accountability that a Prime Minister has to give. It gives an individual the ability to run the Executive without fear of the Legislature, but bears the risk of making a situation very similar to what was there at the Emergency. Some saw the Emergency as a time when trains ran on time, others (myself included) see it as a black mark on our political history.

We are not China. We cannot do something like the Three Gorges Dam. The stalled Narmada river project is more up our alley. We cannot sacrifice freedom for the price of economic development, something the Asian Tigers have done. We cannot give away our legacy, a system which prevents any one man from getting to much power. We have not performed exceptionally, but given our challenges, we have reacted satisfactorily.

This is India. And over here, we do things our way.

India (Inc.) Shining

The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance's Government of 1999 to 2004, was extremely bullish about its chances for the 2004 General Elections. Vajpayee had a successful stint as the Prime Minister, and India had been performing well in terms of the economy (especially the growth in IT and Telecom), military retaliations against Pakistan (Tiger Hill, anyone?) and even sports (Paes-Bhupati were still a duo then, winning Grand Slams for fun).

Following 2003's bumper monsoon and the general national economic indicators improving, the NDA decided to launch an advertising blitzkrieg with the slogan of 'India Shining', with Rs. 400 crores of taxpayers money to put the proverbial money where the mouth is. But this article is not to dismiss 'India Shining', the voters of Indian public did that well enough, booting the NDA out of office and bringing the UPA in, and in general reminding everyone, that India is far from a success story - health, education and other social indicators still shackle it with the tag of a Third World Country. This article does not disagree with 'India Shining' at all; rather it points out that a mere typo proved to be so costly. You see, India isn't Shining. But India (Inc.) is.

For the less informed, the Indian media has dubbed the national corporate sector and the dominant companies as 'India Inc.'. When the Tata Group acquires Corus Steel or Jaguar, it is a signal of the growing dominance of India Inc. When Airtel and Reliance mobile penetrate the domestic telecommunications market, it shows that India Inc. has the capacity to generate the huge national population into huge corporate profits. When these companies pay taxes to the government and give back to the community in the form of Corporate Social Responsibility, it shows that when India Inc. does well, India does well. When call-centres sprout up around the country, it is an indicator of India Inc.'s entrepreneurship capabilities.

The growing might of India Inc. has led both the Government and the Industry (the Corporate Sector in general) to recognize it and try and free-ride this speeding bandwagon. An example of this is the increased clout of the CII (Confederation of Indian Indsutry) which has grown to become India's premier business association which is both industry-led and industry-managed with no government interference. More than 7500 companies hold direct memberships and 83,000 more have indirect associations with CII. The organization has seen tremendous growth after the 1991 liberalization reforms and as of now has 64 offices around India and 9 overseas offices in Australia, Austria, China, France, Germany, Japan, Singapore, the UK and the USA. However, no government interference does not mean that the government does not want to be associated with CII; this article is precisely about that: a partnership between the government and CII and how the promotion of India Inc. will be used to benefit national economic development.

The India Brand Equity Foundation is the brainchild of Government with Industry. It is a public-private partnership between the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). The Foundation's primary objective is to build positive economic perceptions of India globally. It aims to effectively present the India business perspective and leverage business partnerships in a globalizing market place.

The website (http://www.ibef.org/) is a crisp, elegant and well designed one. It contains useful information about the Indian economy; both on an overview level as well as on a detailed level. State-wise economic performance (from Andhra Pradesh to West Bengal) can be found with Reports and Presentations talking about economic indicators as well as crucial industries and sectors. Also, on a national level, information on all sectors are available - from Automobiles to Tourism & Hospitality.
For the first time, you can read about upcoming banking reforms in 2009 by the RBI, recent production trends of petroleum products and even highlights of the Interim Budget of 2009-10.

The Indian economy has finally started to hit top gear; and the IBEF aims to accompany it, advising potential investors and providing research-quality information about all aspects. Even at a Macro Political-Economic view, information is available regarding Trade relations between India and Japan / China / ASEAN and even the USA.

But most importantly, there is promotion of 'Brand India'. IBEF has launched a brochure, posters, panels and even images to advertise India to foreign investors and remind domestic residents about recent economic strides. To further this brand promotion, it has organized numerous events around the country. A small sample of some of these events - 'India-Russian Forum on Trade & Investment', 'Planning Commission Conference on PPP's in Infrastructure' and 'Conference on Natural Gas / LNG - The new options in power fuel basket'.

Using the tag-line of the 'Worlds Fastest Growing Free Market Democracy', IBEF has created a ripple among intellectuals, economists and businessmen, never before associated with India. IBEF is determined to create this new image, and has done an excellent job about doing this. It's India Resource Centre has launched numerous e-newsletters as well as news alerts which are customizable as per subscribers' wishes. Also, a bi-monthly publication 'India Now' has been launched which is trying to penetrate the non-IT savvy market.

The efforts of the IBEF are commendable. They have ensured that India's economic success is being showcased well, and a positive business-savvy image of the country is portrayed on a global stage. The Board of Trustees of the Foundation makes you see it a serious effort, with representation from the Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Ministry of Tourism, Ministry of External Affairs, CII, BCG (India), Infosys and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry.

'Brand India' is changing. Twenty years ago, the Indian Economy conjured up images of a lumbering elephant, big yet painfully slow, inefficient and arguably ineffective. IBEF's actions are causing this image to change, to an image that we aspire to: that of a lion ready to stake its claim as King of the Jungle.

India is not shining. But more on that later. For now, let us appreciate one fact. India Inc. is shining. And lets hope that it helps to pull up India.