part0010

During the past decade, the economic management of the country has been entrusted to three ‘renowned’ economists—Manmohan Singh, Rangarajan and Montek Ahluwalia, all three macroeconomists—with little feel or understanding of microeconomic processes. The entire approach appears to have been that the country’s economy can be handled essentially through the macroeconomic instruments available. It is a pity that there has been insufficient understanding of the inter-relationship between micro and macro factors in the management of the economy. It is indeed the micro-processes that aggregate to generate macro parameters. Apart from direct and indirect taxation issues, there has equally been little understanding among our policymakers of the critical importance of ground level activities in diverse fields such as agriculture, education, health, small industries and a wide range of other sectors, which aggregate to bring up the macro-economy. This has been a tragedy—the price is now being paid by the nation, in the last year of the current government.

In the autumn of 2012, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced in the context of the Planning Commission’s 12th Plan (2012–13 to 2016–17) that in the following year he aimed for a 8.2 per cent growth of the gross domestic product (GDP). In June 2013, the previous year’s growth figures were officially announced by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) at 4.8 per cent. It is going to be a tall order for any government of the day, to ‘double’ the rate of growth, in the following year—the international climate, the near-desperate domestic situation, the chaos, confusion and policy paralysis in a pre-election year will all ensure that growth, if any, will be limited. If even the 5 per cent rate of growth is maintained, that will be an achievement of sorts.

It is very sad to note in a poor country, that the prime minister talks only of growth. He is perhaps not aware of the widespread poverty, distress and desperation prevalent in the country. In the summer of 2013, the Centre went in for a ‘food guarantee scheme’, which will assure minimum food grain distribution at highly subsidized rates, to about 75 per cent of the rural and 50 per cent of the urban population. This is clearly a tacit admission that a vast majority of Indians are living in great poverty. It is tragic to note that nearly 70 years after independence, nearly three-quarters of the population is in desperate straits. After the figures of poverty identified by Arjun Sengupta and N.C. Saxena a decade back had been widely pooh-poohed by the Planning Commission, the Central Government is now de-facto admitting that these actually represent current poverty levels in India. It is catastrophic to note that the number of poor people in India today is double the total population of the country at independence. What greater commentary is required to describe the massive failure of governance?

Repeated pronouncements, nearly every week or month, by the prime minister or the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, Montek Ahluwalia, or the Chairman of the Prime Minister’s Advisory Council Rangarajan concentrate exclusively on ‘growth rates’. One rarely hears any reference to income distribution, removal of poverty, social advancement and other such issues. These three worthies to whom our economy, indeed our fate, has been surrendered, clearly have no idea of what inflation, want, poverty, hunger deaths, illiteracy, malnutrition and such-like words mean to the populace—these are the conditions of life attendant on 75 per cent of the population. Those who have lived exclusively crunching numbers, particularly in the corridors of academia in the US and Europe, are sadly in-charge of the lives of nearly a billion hapless Indians. The maximum concession that ‘a problem exists’ is the occasional reference to ‘inclusive’ growth.

Talking of ‘inclusive growth’ is like rubbing salt to the wound. It is a highly insulting, arrogant concept translated to mean that the elite, the ruling classes, the upper classes, the business classes and the politicians have a right to grow. In that process, any leftovers also may be partly distributed to the abject poor. It is the right of the elite to grow; they have no objection if a little bit trickles down to the poorest. In a democracy, the top 5 per cent ‘concede’ that the bottom 75 per cent could possibly be entitled to the lowest form of animal life, through a ‘trickle-down’ approach—though nothing presumably needs to be done proactively. There is now near-unanimity that the ‘trickle-down’ theory has been proven to be invalid—that nothing will ‘trickle-down’ without active facilitation. It is astonishing that this pejorative reference to the poorer classes of India has not been adversely commented upon—this is the official policy, the mantra is ‘growth’—that is practiced and articulated shamelessly. The theory learnt in London and Harvard is that ‘the cake has to be bigger’— which is not untrue; but the other side of the coin is that if it is not distributed properly to mitigate poverty and insecurity, the cake will disintegrate, however big it is. None is against growth—more the better but the minimum needs of people must be met as a priority. Stable growth is possible only if this minimum condition is met.

As the economy was tumbling in the summer of 2013 with high inflation, a rapidly depreciating rupee and an uncontrollable current account deficit, the World Wealth Report 2013 announced that 120 new Indian entrants had entered the rank of ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) individuals, in the previous period. Indeed the collective net worth of this Richie Rich club of 8,000 or so individuals amounts to nearly half of India’s GDP (Mail Today 12 September 2013). Skewing the income distribution patterns in a country where 75 per cent of the people are in great poverty, surely is a recipe for social instability.

In the summer of 2013, the Planning Commission of India proudly announced that ‘poverty’ had been ‘drastically reduced’ in the previous eight years rule of the government—a statement seen with incredulity and ridicule, as well as anger by most Indians. The benchmark for minimum income to qualify for poverty level was fixed at

27 per day (less than half-dollar a day) when all over the world, anything under $2 a day per capita is seen as crushing poverty. While there may be some merit in the claim that poverty has been reduced purely based on serial statistical data, the claim may not inspire any satisfaction. The official percentage of the poor may have gone down, but the numbers of those in poverty clearly have not decreased. In Indian conditions, the level fixed may not even meet just the daily cereal requirements, not to speak of the cooking medium, fuel and vegetables. Clearly the poor people in India do not need any vitamins, no medicines, no clothing and no footwear. They can survive year-in and year-out on just a daily cupful of cereals, garnished perhaps with one chilli—even onion is out of range. How out of touch with reality can one be! The same government, as an election sop, wants to give 75 per cent of its citizens nearly-free food grains, while declaring that only 21 per cent of the people are ‘below the poverty-line’. To what absurd lengths can governance descend?

Looking back over the past ten years, the only reform of substance was the enactment of the Right to Information (RTI) Act. It should be added that the origin of the act comes from 1997, as mentioned in another chapter. This indeed has been the only ‘achievement’ of the present government—even this is now negated by a proposed legislation to take political parties outside the ambit of RTI, a clear denial of the fundamental principles behind the RTI Act.

Other so-called ‘reform steps’ are devoid of content. The Right to Education Act is an empty shell, a motherhood statement, with no impact on the ground. The nuclear policy is surrender to foreign interests; the approval for FDI in retail, permitting marketing MNCs to enter and become predators in our rural areas is a potential time bomb. The MNREGA is essentially a subsidy programme, and has already proven that it has not generated employment in rural areas. The illusory Food Guarantee programme has been touched upon elsewhere. Reform has been narrowly defined as opening up foreign direct investment (FDI)—a short-term measure to tackle crisis of current account deficit. Inflation has been rampant resulting in untold limitless misery for a vast majority. Thanks to this list of measures, the growth rate has plummeted. We will see later that so many vital sectors are in urgent need of reforms; these have not been mentioned in public discourse. In short, economic governance has been non-existent over the past ten years. Those in-charge of the economy and society have failed us miserably. We have not only lost ten vital years of development, we have slid seriously on a downward skidding path.

As the economy nose-dived in 2013, we now need scapegoats for the failure of governance in the economic sector. The favourite theory trotted out is that the international economy has been on a skid since 2008, and practically all our economic woes stem from international origins—domestic policy has been ‘perfect’. This is the standard excuse heard from all levels and all spokesmen of the ruling party. To a very small extent, this may be true. Economies in the US, Europe and Japan have not been in good health in recent years, and this has had an impact on our economy. I would probably attribute 20 per cent of our failure to this factor but 80 per cent due to policy paralysis within the country; this is my own assessment. Firstly, India is not fully ‘integrated’ with the world economy in the sense that the US and European economies and markets are freely exposed to each other; we still have many controls in place with much regulation, well or ill. Classic economic theory says that the larger the international exposure, the higher are the chances of ‘catching a cold from outside’; in this respect India has not dismantled all its barriers. Another factor is noteworthy. The smaller the country, the larger is the impact on it through outside forces. Conversely, the larger the country, the less the impact from outside. Thus US has the largest economy—surely it will be affected by international economic factors but not as much as, say, Italy or Spain or Greece, which are much smaller economies. India is a large country so applying this principle, external factors will surely influence our economy. However, because of the size and scale of domestic activity, the proportion of our external economy to our total economy is relatively small compared to others so the impact will be that much less. The continuous wail that our failure is due to external factors is hogwash. Indeed this explanation has recently been replaced by the theory that the economic decline is all due to the actions of one CAG–Vinod Rai; how absurd can one become—'shoot the messenger' is the operating formula!

Clearly as of summer 2013 when this book is being written, the government has suddenly become desperate to usher in ‘reforms’ as the elections are staring it in the face, and having failed to bring in substantial reforms in the previous nine years. The education and health sectors, infrastructure (including power) and so many other areas are crying for reforms. The desperation is evident in the whistling in the dark cry that “we are embarking on a process of reforms”. For example, the Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI) Act, which needs to be looked at with great care because of massive potential consequences, is being rushed through to show the world (to Monsanto and the US?) that we are ‘good boys’. One suspects that the concerned senior bureaucrats in the various ministries—science and technology, agriculture, food, etc.—have not really applied their mind to the potential disastrous consequences of even a small slip. One can understand, but cannot condone, the political urgency; Can we forgive our bureaucrats? The examples can be multiplied.

P. Chidambaram, another high priest in our economic pantheon, who has a better understanding of Indian conditions, but whose background and education have come from the same western universities, is also part of the same decision-making process, destined in effect not to remove poverty, and which will not bring prosperity to the country. Sometime back he spoke, sarcastically, of India’s ‘5000 years of poverty’, and wondered as to how it can be removed so quickly. Perhaps he was expressing the thought that he and his party should be in power for 500 years more for poverty to be removed. His facts are not valid. For two-thirds of human history, India was the leading, most prosperous country in the world. The accurate descriptions in Ramayana , rendered originally in Sanskrit, and in at least 30 Indian languages, speak of contented citizens, plentiful availability of milk and honey and high quality governance. Much of the poverty referred to is of relatively recent origins. Be that as it may, surely one does not require a century to provide basic minimum needs to the citizens, particularly in a democracy where a citizen is supposed to be supreme. Nearly every Asian country started much worse economically, structurally and institutionally than India. Nearly every Asian country has overtaken India in practically every index of development. Japan has had a history of development from the Meiji era; however, in recent years, South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, have all vaulted to the top. Sri Lanka and Pakistan beat India in nearly every human index indicator. Even Bangladesh, treated earlier as a basket case has better quality education and primary health services, including nutrition, than India. The 2013 Global Peace Index ranks India in the bottom 10 per cent of the nations of the world, in the same league as Iraq and South Sudan among others, in terms of peaceful living conditions. There is clearly a strong linkage with the Human Development Index and the Poverty Index, in all of which India rests close to the bottom of the pile. Clearly there is a strong connection between the economic health of the country and public safety. One heard recently with sadness that India ranks the highest in terms of being ‘most unsafe’ for women; we seem to be getting all the un-required dubious accolades! The 2012 ‘farmer suicides’ figures depressingly indicate no reduction in numbers—indeed an increase is seen. On the contrary states are taking clear steps to ‘suppress’ these numbers through non-reportage. Surely, Chidambaram cannot be serious in making his comment.

In another context, Chidambaram also mentioned how difficult it was to provide services to every corner of such a large and diverse country. His solution was that we should urbanize and 90 per cent of the population should now be located in a limited number of urban complexes so delivery of services will be easier. This is as unrealistic a view as is possible. We are essentially an agrarian country with 80 per cent of the population dependent on agriculture and allied rural service sectors. Practically the only resource that most families have is a few square yards of farmland; can one imagine the trauma of a poor villager losing even this petty possession, becoming a vagrant or a daily wage labourer in cities. Can there be a surer prescription for bringing the entire nation to its knees? Even now, we have ‘jobless’ growth—the average age of the citizenry is among the lowest in the world—the gap between new-job creation and entrants to the job field is growing alarmingly. In the next 10 years, job-generation will be a most serious issue. Does anyone need say any more about how impractical these ideas are? With advance of technology, many services relating to education, health and a host of other areas can now be brought to the deepest rural areas much easier than before. Sadly our highest policymakers do not have their feet on the ground. Other decision-makers are busy, venally enjoying their perks and privileges and a nation of sheep is slowly but surely led to slaughter.

I recall Chidambaram’s brilliant performance as the finance minister in the coalition governments of 1996–97. He held a tight leash on the critical macroeconomic indices. I recall his great concern for keeping inflation under check, as this is the most significant single factor affecting the poor common man. I also recall that he kept a sharp eye on the budget and current deficits and managed the economy with much panache. One wonders what new factors he has had to face in his two avatars as finance minister in 2004–13.

In the summer of 2013, while visiting the US to ‘attract’ investment in India, finance minister Chidambaram made two notable public announcements. The first was a clear statement that China has ‘abolished’ poverty, while poverty is widely prevalent in India. This was in the context of ‘threatening’ USA that if there is poverty anywhere in the world it is not conducive to international peace! Incidentally, if there is widespread poverty in India, it may or may not threaten USA, but it is surely highly threatening to India’s stability. However, what Chidambaram said in the US is surely factually correct, though this is the first time I have heard a senior functionary making such a statement in explicit terms. It also shows the level of mal-governance in India that has led to the continuation, indeed expansion, of poverty levels in the country.

The other notable statement was that India is now ready to ‘open-up’ for foreign investment, and is ready to ‘dismantle all barriers’. This is a fantastic statement; one wonders from where the finance minister obtained this mandate. In every international forum, at GATT, IMF etc., India has been taking the position that the developed countries should lower their barriers, while the developing countries need to protect their nascent and emerging economic entities, which cannot withstand unprotected the onslaught of major predatory MNCs. What Chidambaram announced in Washington has not been debated in India. Besides where is the need to take a begging bowl to US business? If the conditions are right in India, investments will flow automatically. Recall that three decades back, when China opened up, it ensured that its agriculture and rural sector was fully protected, primary and secondary education was universal, minimum health conditions among the citizenry prevailed, and finally the system was prepared for absorbing massive FDI. Besides, the investments were mostly restricted to special zones, like near Shanghai and other areas, and much of the rural countryside was insulated. FDI really flowed because of the very cheap labour provided by the Chinese authorities to MNCs to shift their manufacturing operations to China. Chinese progress has been well thought out and well executed. The loose comments mentioned earlier by senior Indian functionaries reflect the worst form of economic governance, impinging on the quality of life of our citizens. The catastrophic failure of our governance over the past seven decades has been due to thoughtless economic management.

The other high priest of our economy is Montek Singh Ahluwalia, who learnt his basic economics from the experience of the 1940s and 1950s in post-war Europe and America. Economics taught at LSE and US universities, and having been applied in the World Bank and IMF, institutions created for economic subjugation of the ‘third world’, are now being applied with no thought, no need for transformation or adaptation, mindlessly to Indian conditions which are totally different. The land-capital-labour ratios, the basic parameters of any economic system of the US and Europe, are as different as they can be from Indian conditions. However, the basic postulates learnt there have become our fundamentals; while some can be applied in India, many others are totally inappropriate in our conditions. The ‘markets’ in western countries may not be perfect and the population there surely is not fully homogeneous. On these two factors, however, the Indian situation is infinitely worse. The inter-state, intra-state, inter-community, intra-society differentials with respect to income, education, understanding and every other relevant factor are quite different than what obtains in western countries. It is tragic that the ‘axioms’ applicable in the west, which may have no relevance in India, are applied here thus opening up our farmers and rural markets to MNCs, whose main objective is to make money and not develop our infrastructure; this is tantamount to throwing our rural population to the wolves. It is a tragedy that people who have no understanding of Indian rural society and living conditions are allowed to become the main decision-makers to determine the destiny of rural India.

If onions are too expensive, no problem; we will make them available, at double the price, through imports—why not try shallots? If Indians cannot get bread, let them eat cake! This is the ruling philosophy. Now that (summer 2013) the economy has plunged, one does not hear the pontifications and prescriptions and the prognoses one is used to from Montek Ahluwalia. Nearly every month, the oracular pronouncement would be ‘the signs are good—GDP will rise to 12%, 10%, 8% … 7.9% … 6% next year’. Inflation is under control, it will now get reduced to ‘12%, 10% … 12% … 14%’. Every month the message was an optimistic one about the future. We have lived in a dream world for the past seven decades—or is nightmare the right word? No reference whatever is ever made in the monthly pronouncements about 80 per cent of the population living below the $2—Rs 60-a-day—‘purchase parity’ income levels in India.

To illustrate again as to how people who are thoroughly unqualified to make policy find themselves influencing major issues of governance, let me cite the example of our Panchayati Raj (local decentralized administration) policy. I recall that the new Panchayati Raj Act was drafted in the Government of India, and under a provision of the Constitution the Centre asked all the states to adopt this draft and have it enacted as law in the states. This was in 1993, when Mulayam Singh was the chief minister in Uttar Pradesh, and I happened to be the Chief Secretary. Mulayam who always had his feet firmly on the ground, had a good and close look at the Government of India draft, went into choicest expletives (Agra-Etawah belt language, as expressive as anywhere in India) against the person who had drafted the model law announcing to his Cabinet that that person had no clue whatever about rural India, of Indian villages and that the draft law was thoroughly absurd; predicted that it had no chance of success. Time has proved him right. All over India, the Panchayati Raj Act has failed; sensible decentralization has not taken place and the country is the greatest loser.

However, I knew that the author of the Act was my good friend Mani Shankar Aiyar, a former Indian Foreign Service officer, whose knowledge of Indian rural conditions was as much as I know about living conditions in the Antarctica. I did not disclose to Mulayam Singh that I knew the author! Mani’s claim for undertaking this major task was the important fact that he was a schoolmate of the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi—whose own understanding of India was nearly non-existent. Clearly the claim to expertise stems from who you are close to, rather than what you know. Naturally, with Montek in-charge of our economy, what can one expect? By the way, Mani is as brilliant and versatile as anyone I know—I do hope I have not lost a friend!

No doubt the disastrous policies which have cost the country heavily in the past decade or so have been under the watch—I would hesitate to call it leadership, since there was none—of Manmohan Singh. In the late 1980s, Manmohan Singh held the assignment of Secretary General of the South Commission in Geneva, chaired by Julius Nyerere, who had earlier been Prime Minister of Tanzania. This Commission was the secretariat, representing the interests of the developing countries. It was to help developing countries take up issues of interest in the various UN and other international fora and conduct research on themes which needed to be projected by developing countries. By definition, it had an orientation directly opposed and inimical to the economic interests of the west. The daily, weekly and monthly research papers it churned out had to be critical of the west, western institutions and had to eternally lament the lack of consideration from the west about the interests of development in developing countries. Thus the World Bank, IMF, GATT (now called WTO) and western governments as well as the EU Secretariat would come in for intense and sustained criticism by this body. Manmohan Singh was the head priest of this organization. His job was to orchestrate the attack by developing countries on the west; this posture was held by him till a month or so prior to his becoming the finance minister in Narasimha Rao’s Cabinet.

One has often wondered why Manmohan has allowed himself to become the butt of so many jokes and much ridicule and a delight for lampooning cartoonists. Why didn’t he throw it all off at some stage and call it quits? The temptation must have been very heavy, at least a hundred times. One theory has it that he sees himself as the ‘messiah’ who ‘rescued’ India in the early 1990s and is willing to put up with much public anger and ridicule, make enormous ‘sacrifices’, just so that he will have the chance to ‘save’ India again—Superman, Spiderman or Ben Ten style. However, this theory will not wash. The nuclear deal and liability act with benefits to ‘flow’ 20 years later, or ‘FDI in retail’ are the only acts of ‘courage’—hardly enough to shore up a tottering governance structure, hardly earth-shaking. Besides, was he the one who really ‘saved’ India in the early 1990s? Actually it was Narasimha Rao.

Grapevine has it that Manmohan was the second choice for the finance minister’s post at that time—I. G. Patel was the first choice. He could not or would not take up the assignment due possibly to poor health. Among the very first things that the new finance minister had to do was to orchestrate the prime minister’s policy to ‘open up’ the economy. The ‘liberalization’ of the early 1990s was credited to Manmohan Singh. Actually the policies were dictated by international financial agencies using the threat of declaring India a financial ‘defaulter’, arising out of the very poor state of the then economy. Insiders have mentioned that the decision to ‘liberalize’ had already been taken by Narasimha Rao, before Manmohan joined him as finance minister. The decision was a purely political one and had to be fully attributed to both circumstances, and the political will displayed by Narasimha Rao. The finance minister’s role was merely to pass on to the machinery the implementation of the political directions given by Narasimha Rao. Recent history has inaccurately attributed to Manmohan the initiative to liberalize—an oxymoron, since the ability to take any initiative is alien to him as has been amply demonstrated in the past decade. This is also extremely convenient, as it is the current policy to debunk or downplay the role of Narasimha Rao in our recent history.

I recall once seeing Narasimha Rao in 1992 after his return from the US, where he was a special invitee at the US President Clinton’s personal retreat. Those days, as Textile Secretary, I had occasion to meet him often. I had met him in Buenos Aires in 1983 when he was foreign minister. I had gone there for the Group of 77 preparatory meeting for UNCTAD VI and it so happened that Narasimha Rao had a lot of spare time, part of which was spent with me, and which he remembered much later when he became the prime minister. After the US visit, where he was ‘feted’ and ‘celebrated’ by the then US president, arguably the most powerful person in the world, Rao had stars in his eyes for a long time and became a devotee of the US. However, practical and highly balanced that he was, he never lost his footing, never went overboard, had enough Indianness, background and experience to feel and think with India’s long-term interests in mind. His reactions, despite the dancing stars in his eyes, were sober, practical and measured.

I guess much the same thing happened to Manmohan Singh, when President Bush invited him to his personal ranch and gave him the ‘treatment’ that US presidents can turn on at will on a visiting dignitary when they want to ‘bring him in’. I guess Manmohan Singh fell for the charm. I could see his body language on those television shots, and told myself that they have done the same to Manmohan as they did to Narasimha Rao. This perception of mine has been amply reconfirmed, at least to my satisfaction, by events in the following years. The blind support, even nearly placing his job on the line for the nuclear deal and the Nuclear Liability Act, and later in the matter of ‘FDI in retail’, which was trumped up as a ‘nation-saver’ and not recognized to be the long-term high value time-bomb that it will turn out to be, are examples. The Hydro-Fluro-Chloride (HFC) issue, relating to domination over the refrigeration industry is another instance of capitulation in the teeth of total opposition by all Government of India line-ministries, by our senior decision-makers to US corporate interests, as demonstrated at the G-20 Summit in St. Petersburg in September 2013. My extensive contacts with senior officials in many ministries, especially economic ministries, has reconfirmed my suspicion that Manmohan Singh also has ‘stars in his eyes’—whenever US interests are projected, he is unable to resort to rational thinking. However, he does not have the mitigating ‘feet-on-the-ground’ balance possessed by Narasimha Rao—he was nudging every department to push pro-US policies. One often wonders whose side our senior policymakers are batting for—for India or for commercial interests abroad? Is it just ‘stars-in-the-eye’, or something that does not meet the eye?

I recall a conversation with the then Deputy Secretary in the finance ministry, who attended the junior ‘lunch club’ in North Block in the early 1970s. At that time Manmohan Singh as Deputy Economic Advisor to the finance ministry used to attend the same lunch club every day and the participants would exchange gossip and notes about the goings-on in the ministry. My friend, the then Deputy Secretary told me much later that the lunch club knew even then that Manmohan was destined for ‘greatness’ and that he would go ‘far’. They had assessed that Manmohan would quickly and shrewdly grasp what the boss wanted—the Additional Secretary or the Finance Secretary or the minister as the case may be—prepare a case for ‘approval’ by the boss of exactly what he (the boss) wanted even before he articulated it, couch it with arguments replete with economic theory, make it sound profound and put it up for the boss’s approval, finally announcing the policy as emerging from the boss, which indeed it actually did. This assessment of Manmohan as a young man, made at that time, was highly prescient—we have seen ample demonstrations in the past decade or so.

Clearly Manmohan is the ultimate demonstration of the Peter Principle, as evident not only over the past ten years or so, but throughout his illustrious career. He must be a special case variant of the Peter principle, as explained later. When he moved on to the South Commission as Secretary General, he had already reached his ‘level of incompetence’, and had been ‘kicked upstairs’, to this post where he could do no harm. Till now this is classic Peter Principle. However, when an incompetent person is kicked back into a position of substance and authority, a new variant of the principle kicks-in; when he had spent some time in this position, he was kicked upstairs to the post of the prime minister of India and here the Peter Principle variant postulates, or at least ought to, that in such circumstances, he demeans the position itself and renders it insignificant and inconsequential. Alas, this is exactly what has happened to the highest executive post in India. A cardinal principle in administration is that a person should leave the post that he has held in at least as good a condition, if not better, than when he took over the post; this is one measure of performance in a post. Clearly the post of the prime minister has been highly diminished. If the leader of the country cannot change the direction, and give it new momentum in key areas, clearly this is a sign of major failure.

India abounds with many economists, who have studied abroad, learnt their basic economics based on western experiences in western conditions, in schools in the US and Europe. A number of them have taken the political route and have played highly influential roles in determining India’s development path over the past six decades. Most of them can be classified as ‘Political economists’, written with a huge P and an infinitesimally small e. This will surely fit the description of Manmohan Singh. Montek comes in the same category as far as economics is concerned, but surely not as high in politics. Both have ‘envying’ reputations as ‘economists’. One has looked around for papers or theses or research findings or theories in the field of economics attributable to them without success. I couldn’t find any – perhaps they are hidden somewhere!

Abdul Kalam once upon a time may have been a fine scientist. However, over time he became a Scientific Administrator, gradually outliving his science credentials, moving on to becoming a pure administrator, and in course of time entering the political arena—retaining the enviable position of being a politician among scientists, and a scientist among politicians. This cross-fertilizing career development model has been emulated by many illustrious leaders in India; Montek and Manmohan are prime examples. The unfortunate aspect of this for India has been that we need decision-makers and leaders with sound commonsense, with feet on the ground, aware of Indian conditions and with a modern outlook, to lead us. Our polity is not well developed enough to throw up such people to the helm of affairs. This we have not seen so far—however, we need not lose hope. Narasimha Rao learnt his politics at the ground level. He understood India and Indians well, and our rural areas thoroughly. He understood the Indian psychology in the sense that Gandhiji (I refer of course to the Mahatma) understood it. The real salvation for the country will come only when our senior-most leader understands the smallest part of India, and Indianness well. One hopes that the day is not far off.

Before I conclude this chapter, a reference may be made to the impending elections in 2014 and the possibility of a new leadership emerging to take the country forward—indeed backward as the case may be. It does appear that if the present ruling dispensation continues, there is the possibility of the scion of the nation’s first family being projected to become the captain of the ship. So far, ‘thrice was he offered the crown, and thrice did he refuse’—as Marc Antony referred to Julius Caesar; who knows, our budding Caesar may accept it the fourth time.

We need to carefully ensure that any leader we select knows India well. Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel knew the country well. However, Nehru was more westernized, a product of a liberal England, and had enormous empathy for the Indian, coupled with intellect, without detailed knowledge of the Indian mentality, as possessed by say, Patel. One is entitled to one’s views—many great traditions and achievements that we now have, could be attributed to Jawaharlal Nehru. However, most of our major persistent problems today have stemmed from his attitude, his lack of knowledge and prescience, and his inaction at critical times. Without flogging the point, it is not in our interest to have a top leader who does not possess hard ground-level administrative management and political experience. Indira Gandhi was a special case, she had understood India better than her father. However, she did her bit to destroy many sacred institutions, for which we pay the price today. Rajiv Gandhi could have solved many outstanding issues, cleared the overhanging baggage, and cleaned the Aegean stables, sadly he did not have the grounding and field level experience and so could not capitalize on the massive mandate given to him through a two-third majority in Parliament—a luxury no future leader is likely to enjoy in the foreseeable future. This is the potential danger of having a young person, with little field experience, with no management and administrative successes in his belt, having the key to the country—we will be taking a huge chance.

Rahul Gandhi is reported in the media as having mentioned in some context that ‘poverty is a state of mind’. I do not know how true the reportage is, whether he actually said it or not—I go by the newspaper reference. If he actually said so, indeed this is in some senses true for the nouveau riche. There is a saying in Tamil, transliterated ‘even when someone overcomes poverty, the poverty in his mind remains’—meaning that those who make it big financially often remain cheap in their thinking, mentality and miserliness. The Hindu philosophy does not automatically link ‘happiness’ with ‘riches’. Our revered sages, the Buddha Bhikkhus command more respect than emperors. I recall a couplet from the Tamil Kamban Ramayana describing the arrival of the sage Vishwamitra in the court of Dashrath: the emperor was in a hassle of reverence to receive the honoured visitor and left his throne and ran towards the entrance to prostrate before the incoming rishi. Even today, in the Chamundi hills near Mysore, when the Mysore Maharaja goes for darshan of Devi, he climbs the last 30 or so stair-steps just in front of the sanctum sanctorum not walking but crawling—an attitude of great humility. When I have the occasional massage or go in a taxi, or chat with the paanwalah and when the subject of great men is discussed, the reference invariably is to Mahatma Gandhi, or Ramakrishna, or Vivekananda or Kabir, or Sai Baba—one even talked of Ramana Maharishi—there is never a reverential reference to Birla or Tata or Ambani. ‘Goodness is better than greatness’— this is the essence of the philosophy which is our heritage. When I deliberately named a politician to elicit a response, one of them told me, in original high-voltage Rajasthani abusive words, dripping with contempt, to the effect ‘they are all the same, all like dogs—jostling, putting their heads down to eat from the same plate’. However, it will be not just an insult, it is contemptuous to suggest that 70 per cent of Indians, who are in poverty, should feel happy in their misery and hunger and disease and squalor. This will be the limit of heartlessness. The first qualification for any Indian leader has to be ‘compassion’.

Wikileaks has revealed a conversation between our ‘Prince in waiting’ and the US Ambassador of the day in New Delhi, at a dinner with the former reportedly saying: ‘Hindu terrorism is even more serious than “cross-border” terrorism’. Since this public revelation has not been contradicted or denied, one can reasonably assume that it could possibly be a correct quote. If it is true, it is astonishingly naïve. Certainly there are terrorist groups in India, many supported from across the border, who are bent on contributing their bit to destabilizing the country. It is quite possible, even likely, that some fringe elements consisting of rabid Hindu elements could have formed localized groups to indulge in terrorist activities. However, no sane person in India could identify such groups as the most powerful or potentially dangerous elements, out to destroy the country. Normally any person in authority, or one who aspires to high office ought to be careful in what he says, particularly so when foreigners are involved; especially when that person is an official accredited representative in India of another country. Any responsible person ought to be guarded in speaking in such circumstances. The Wikileaks cable mentioned shows extreme disregard for minimum standards to be displayed by those aspiring to public office.

Mahatma Gandhi took pains to understand the country by extensive travel, in third class railway compartments, covering nearly every district, and getting to know every bit of India. One of my childhood memories, when I was eight years or so, was a ‘whistle-stop’ visit by him to the suburbs of Tanjore, close to our residence, a few months before independence—probably in 1946. The special train for him (imagine today’s government providing a special train to Anna Hazare, or Swami Ramdev or even Advani or Narendra Modi) stopped adjacent to the playground at the edge of our colony. There was no station there so a temporary wooden platform was raised to the level of the door of the compartment. Gandhi, in his loin cloth, at the crack of dawn on a summer day, probably it was 4.30 am, walked on to the platform, stood in silence for about three minutes and the train whistled off to the next destination. I had climbed up a tree to get a better view. The brief darshan left a lifelong impression on me. I could see as I came down from the tree, so many people in silent tears. Many will recall Richard Attenborough’s movie Gandhi , showing a similar scene. I can vouch that it was authentic, and could well have been shot in Tanjore as anywhere else; incidentally it required a foreigner to bring out an authentic film portrait of Gandhi—was no Indian film producer or director up to the job? Again on the subject, I recall seeing the movie Gandhi in Buenos Aires in 1984, a 9 pm show. As the 6 pm show audience was streaming out of the hall, one could see nearly everyone, including the most hardened grownups, with streaming tears in their eyes—these were Argentinians. I also recall an Indian newspaper cartoon—was it Laxman?—of a conversation between two politicians, both MPs, after seeing the movie, ‘a wonderful movie, a great man, I am told this is based on a real-life story’!

Instant greatness is sought to be obtained in India through contrived Bharat darshans. Many would recall the ‘inside’ series by John Gunther—Inside Africa, Inside Indonesia, Inside India, Inside Asia and so on. An apocryphal version of his modus operandi described Gunther as taking a week off from his normal routine in the US, taking a flight to his target destination, say China. On the plane he would read up some portions of a couple of books on China; on arrival he would find out ‘all’ about the country from the taxi driver taking him from airport to the hotel. He would ‘extensively’ interview the attendant in his hotel room, the clerk in the front office and the waiter at the bar-restaurant on all aspects of Chinese social, cultural and spiritual, economic and political life. During his three-day stay in the capital, he would meet as many people as possible at tourist spots and ‘interview’ them—never mind if these were Indians or Japanese or Americans. He would spend the next three days dictating his first draft of the book ‘inside China’, fine tune it on the return flight home—his new incisive, definitive, informative and authentic ‘Inside’ book would be in the market within a month, and would be a best seller for its remarkable insights! Many of our politicians, who fly in and out by helicopter, surrounded by hundreds of hangers-on each moment of the one-and-half-days’ field visit, out of which six-hours of the night are spent in a ‘dalit’ home, acquire extensive knowledge of local conditions. Of course to make up for the two-day strain of the trouble taken to get to know our rural areas and our peoples, a 15-day holiday in Paris or another salubrious venue is called for! Our nation is full of such specialists in Delhi, holding authority, with immense power, who are ‘experts’ on the living conditions in rural areas. One wonders if our railway minister has ever traveled anywhere in India by train (on the few occasions, when he has not used the state plane, or heaven forbid, the commercial flight); even then not using his special private coach—has he even traveled once by AC First Class, not to speak even of ordinary first class. Don’t mention third class sleeper, or unreserved third class as these are meant only for ‘ordinary’ Indians, not for us special people who ‘run’ the country, or are preparing to do so.

Delhi is full of bright young brilliant budding journalists and politicians, aspiring to be public figures, wanting to chart the course for our billion-plus population. Many have taken the trouble to study for a year or two in prestigious foreign universities, live in five-star conditions in the capital, make a one-or-two-day ‘incisive’ and ‘intensive’ visits to ‘rural’ areas like Lucknow or Madurai or Rajkot, meet activists, social workers and NGOs at the local club or bar and have animated discussions on local, national and international issues. They return ‘enriched’, full of information, knowledge, and indeed ‘experience’. They consider themselves ready to write extensively on any subject, and give their opinions and solutions on TV on how to mitigate or remove rural problems or agricultural distress. You throw a stone anywhere in central Delhi and chances are 2:1 that you will hit a brilliant, young budding ‘leader’. Clearly in India, leadership is nurtured in capital cities so why waste time learning useless ‘reality’ by staying long periods in our rural areas? Usually their strong point is command over the English language! There is little else to commend them. Our prince may not qualify on this ignoble count.