Five Ways in which India changed the World

Every time someone needs to extol India’s virtues-be it the PM at his galas for the diaspora in different countries, the FM, while pleading for FDI at different fora abroad, or sundry political and business leaders or foreign diplomats while making domestic speeches-they have to rely on some stock phrases. Largest democracy in the world, diverse, emerging economic behemoth, global bright spot, young, are some. For the more imaginative, Lord Ganesha is held up as proof of India’s prowess in cosmetic surgery and the Pushpak Vimana as our contribution to aeronautics.  On the eve of our 66^th Republic Day, I am guessing we will have to hear more of the same. So I have helpfully compiled a list of five of India’s contributions to the world which I haven’t seen being used in public discourse before.

[I would add in a disclaimer about tongues being in cheeks, or taking stuff with pinches of salt, but that goes without saying in a country where scientific conferences point to Lord Shiva as an environmentalist.]

We invented the concept of ‘soft power’. (Or it could have been Egypt.)

Much before McDonalds’ and KFC, Ashoka pointed out that it was better to win people and territory over through ideas than through the coercion of war. [There might have a Egyptian king called Akhnaton before him who said that too, but Ashoka could not have known that]. Of course, our soft power was in Buddhism and peace. The Americans exported obesity and reality TV.

We made the USA.

Bengal, that Communist fiefdom for more than 30 years, played a crucial part in the making of the flagbearer of all things capitalist, the United States of America.

Between 1756 and 1763 the French and the British were fighting the Seven Years’ War for control over more colonies across the world. Some part of this was being played out in India as well as the two battled it out mostly in South India. The British won, largely due to the resources they were able to command from Bengal after 1757, when they used supreme levels of skulduggery to beat Siraj-ud-daulah.

Winning in India, no doubt contributed to the overall win over the French. It also led the British to demand that the American colonists pay them ‘rent’ for the land they were using in America, since it was after all the British government that won it for them. Subsequently, the Stamp Act and the Townshend Act led the colonists to get weary of cheapo Britain fight the American War of Independence in 1776 and establish the United States of America. And who should they thank for it? The nice, self-effacing Bengalis.

The French revolution, you ask? All us.

Incidentally, the Colonists in their War of Independence were being supported by the French, who in a close approximation of cutting off your nose to spite your face, managed to bankrupt themselves in the process. This in turn caused the French revolution. [Aside:  I think Bengal should let Odisha claim the roshogolla. Since they you know, helped create the modern world, as we know it today.]

The industrial revolution was our idea.

We have all heard of how British merchants coerced India to sell (cotton) cheap and buy (final goods) dear, leading to ‘primary accumulation’ of capital that allowed the industrial revolution to take place. But we may have had a more important to play-essentially, by creating a market for cotton textiles in the first place. The British capitalists piled on, realising that there was a ready market they could serve, if they could only displace the market leaders.  This was hardly going to be difficult given their political control over India-imagine Steve Jobs as the majority shareholder in Nokia. But they went about it the civilised way first-by raising tariffs on Indian goods. By 1813, they were able to pressurise their government to end the monopoly of the East India Company in India, and subsequently flood the Indian markets with cheaper machine made goods. Interestingly, they also tried to increase the uptake of British goods in India by bringing in English education and Christian missionaries.

Maybe the firang love for FabIndia is their way to atone for the past.

Desi kids, your childhood dynamic with your friends/ siblings is the model of international diplomacy/ belligerence

North Korea is claiming that it has tested its first hydrogen bomb. In retaliation South Korea is broadcasting criticism against the North Korean government through loudspeakers on the border. North Korea is returning that in kind. It’s basically like when you were five and cheated in kho-kho and then somebody called you a cheater-cock and you got back by saying “no ji, jo bolta hai wahi hota hai”. 

Have you heard of China's frenzied island re-claiming activity in South China Sea? You, with your spitting-lightly-over-the-chocolate-before-the-blasted-sibling-can-make-a-claim behaviour, inspired it.

Of News and Other Stuff-9

If there are two things I am extremely suspicious of (apart from displays of extreme religiosity--in my limited experience, the car with a 'Jai Bajrang Bali' bumper sticker is mostly likely to be driven by a lech), they are international agencies and conferences.  So I will admit that I have an inbuilt bias against the World Economic Forum which is a combination of both. Their mission statement confirms my worst fears:

The World Economic Forum, committed to improving the state of the world, is the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation.The Forum engages the foremost political, business and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.It was established in 1971 as a not-for-profit foundation and is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. It is independent, impartial and not tied to any special interests. The Forum strives in all its efforts to demonstrate entrepreneurship in the global public interest while upholding the highest standards of governance. Moral and intellectual integrity is at the heart of everything it does.Our activities are shaped by a unique institutional culture founded on the stakeholder theory, which asserts that an organization is accountable to all parts of society. The institution carefully blends and balances the best of many kinds of organizations, from both the public and private sectors, international organizations and academic institutions.We believe that progress happens by bringing together people from all walks of life who have the drive and the influence to make positive change.

 [The bold italics above are mine, and basically represent the stock BS phrases I have learnt to be very wary about.]

       

There also some other FAQs, their website answers:

1. Why does our work matter? Short answer: It doesn't. Long answer here.
2. What makes us unique? Short answer: a seemingly unashamed backing of crony capitalism. Long answer here.
3. How do we do our work? Short answer: We sit around and chat. A lot. Long answer.
4. What are our focus areas? Short answer: Do you still care? Long answer here.

 

Krugman's 2007 essay on Milton Friedman shows us what we are missing in India- economists who can communicate ideas about economics to non-economists in a manner that is not dead boring to the latter. Amartya Sen writes beautifully and simply but rarely, and when he does, he is basically angsting about the lack of government expenditure in health care and education (not that, that's not worth angsting about, I hasten to add). Jean Dreze primarily writes about the Food Security Act or poverty talking more in terms of policy than economics. And then there are these bunch of people (Surjit Bhalla, NIPFP professors, chief economists for random banks or their underpaid, uncredited subordinates) who write on issues that can only be lumped under economics (inflation and investment and manufacturing growth and other things regular people don't give a shit about) but they never talk about economic theory, always focusing on the dal-chawal issues, to  harangue the RBI or the government about policy rates or Make in India or the fiscal deficit.  Subir Gokarn is a sometimes-exception. Having read a collection of old columns by Kaushik Basu however, I vote for him to start writing for newspapers again. 

Of News and Other Stuff (Links mostly)

Apparently Piketty and I agree on how much economists know about anything...almost nothing.

Also you call yourself a science? Compared to this stuff, economics is pure hokum.

And it's scary given how much economics influences policy. Like after months of study, and deliberation, the whole idea of the RBI targeting the CPI is turning out to be not that great. And that's in spite of their success in achieving the target. Essentially, while the CPI inflation turned out to near target levels, such that the returns on savings for consumers is attractive, the negative WPI has meant that the borrowing cost of investment [nominal rate of interest minus (minus WPI inflation)] is too high. Lower borrowing means lower investment which means lower real growth. So the projected tax revenues, calculated on an assumed growth rate cannot be met. More so, because the projection is based on the nominal growth rate, which a priori is expected to be higher than the real growth rate. This turns out to be wrong however, when inflation rates (that is the WPI or the GDP deflator-which in turn reflects the WPI more closely than the CPI) are low or negative.

Ila Patnaik argues  that the conversation about inflation targeting is misplaced. Whether it is the WPI or the CPI, the government should concentrate on keeping inflation low (which will more likely be missed if the fiscal deficit is high). Hence she roots for a mix of easy monetary and tight fiscal policy, where the fiscal policy, instead of the monetary policy directly attacks inflation. The reverse-where the there is a easy fiscal and tight monetary policy is not the best option because higher government spending could crowd out private investment if it raises rates of interest-in this case a tight monetary policy will aggravate things further. In India, such a policy is defended on the grounds that monetary policy transmits only weakly while government spending increases aggregate demand immediately. Patnaik argues that government expenditure is often allocated, but the spending takes place only with a lag. Moreover private companies already have stressed loans they have to repay, so it is unwise to burden them more with a tight monetary policy.

Year in Review: Fundamental Right to Equality before the Law

Article 14 of the Constitution provides to all (irrespective of citizenship), equality before the law and equal protection of the law. I would rant about Salman Khan here, but the fact is that he did face prosecution. Compare this to Madhya Pradesh governor, Ram Naresh Yadav, named as an accused in the Vyapam scam, who could not be touched because of the immunity he enjoys by virtue of his position. 

Note that this is not a violation of the Constitution-the law of the land allows for these exceptions. It is interesting however that this immunity from criminal proceedings is available only during the term of the governorship. It should be quite an easy thing to remove the governor (only an executive order is needed for this unlike in the case of the Presidency where an entire procedure for impeachment has to be followed), and then prosecute him. Then again this seems to be too much to expect given that  nobody seems to have been touched by the Vyapam scam, except for those who have been deprived of seats and those who have been, well…dying.

Another example of these exceptions at work was when a Saudi diplomat walked off after being accused of raping 2 domestic workers at his home. To ensure that the two Nepalese women now get equal protection of the law, we have to depend on the Saudi government to waive the immunity. Keep your hopes in check, on that. 

Year in Review: Secularism and Religious Rights

2015 was an interesting year for India. It began with the NITI Aayog replacing the Planning Commission, the institution that had set the country’s development agenda for more than half a century. It ended with PM Modi infusing new vigour into India-Pakistan diplomacy. And in between ISRO sent up India’s first space observatory, the Supreme Court struck down Section 66A of the IT Act, Bihar elected Nitish Kumar to power again and Chennai recorded the highest rainfall it had received in 100 years (to put it mildly). Yet the story that probably dominated maximum newsprint and mind-space was the death of Mohammad Akhlaq at the hands of a lynch-mob in Dadri, UP.  It threw up questions on tolerance, secularism, and divided public opinion (if Twitter is a gauge for public opinion, in any case) like no other. Hence, at the end of 2015, it is worth an attempt to summarise the substantive changes that with respect to secularism and religious rights.

The Constitution and Indian Secularism

It is worth the effort to clarify the semantics at the outset, since disagreements are often a result of differences in understanding.

Secularism means that the state does not legally ally itself with any religion. In the West, this has taken the form of a separation between Church and State. The Indian Constitution also does not privilege any religion over another, but does allow the state to intervene in matters of religion. 

Article 30 extends the right to religious minorities to establish and administer educational institutions. Additionally, the state cannot discriminate against it when granting funds to educational institutions[i]. More crucially, Article 25, while granting individuals the right to follow, freely practice, profess and propagate their religion (subject to health, morality and public order),allows legislation to regulate or restrict secular activities associated with religious practice. The State may also enact laws to bring about social welfare and reform and is explicitly empowered to throw open ‘all Hindu religious institutions of a public character’ to all classes and sections of Hindus[ii].

One can argue about how fair the implementation of Article 25 has been, but without the allowance for reform, the purpose of a Constitution that went to great lengths to guarantee equality and individual liberties to its citizens would be defeated. This also means that the judiciary has to often step in to resolve conflicts between religious rights and other rights to delineate when state intervention is acceptable.

Indian State: Secularism and Tolerance

Secularism is a more accurate adjective for institutions or the state than people. So it is unfair to talk of the Dadri incident as an indictment of the failure of Indian secularism. After the event, as is its duty in any case, the police investigated the incident and the state took measures rehabilitate the family of the victims[iii]. In the process, some (either part of the government, or part of the ruling party at the Centre) made worrying statements that seemed to justify the lynching[iv][v]. The protests by civil society that followed were against this bigotry, not against the Indian state. Of course the discussion finally degenerated into slanging matches on Twitter and assertions and counter-assertions of ‘India is tolerant/ intolerant’, which did not do anything for demanding accountability of ministers, and everything to polarise further. In this din, areas where we should have been raising questions got ignored. For example in November, the Punjab Cabinet approved an amendment that would allow those guilty of ‘sacrilege’ to be given life imprisonment[vi]. Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) already provides for a punishment of three years or fine or both in case of “[vii]

Then there was the Government of Maharashtra which faced criticism twice this year-first for the ban on the slaughter of bulls and bullocks in Maharashtra (cow slaughter having been banned earlier), and second, the proposed meat ban during the days that Jains observe Paryushan. Both times,  they were accused of impinging on individual liberties and the right to livelihood, in order to appease a section of their vote-bank. More generally, the issue raised the question of whether religious sentiment and religious rights should be honoured above other fundamental rights-a subject matter for the judiciary for the coming years.

The Indian Judiciary and Secularism: No gain, (maybe) some loss

Article 21 of the Constitution states than an individual cannot be deprived of his right to life and liberty except through procedure established by law. Through the years, the judiciary has taken a broad view of this and included within the right to life, the right to livelihood, the right to live with human dignity, the right to shelter, the right to decent environment including pollution free water and air, among others. A petition to the Supreme Court invoked this last right, asking for a ban on the bursting of firecrackers during Diwali[viii]. The important question is whether burning crackers is an essential practice under Hinduism (and hence protected under Article 25). There are also attached questions of individual liberty, though there may be reason to curb individual liberties if they cause substantial negative externalities to others, and the right to livelihood of those working in the fireworks industry. Either way, the Supreme Court did not take a decision on it this year, with the next hearing scheduled for 2016.

The other case where the conflict between the right to life and religious practices remained unresolved was on the Jain practice of Santhara in which Jains renounce food and water towards the end of their lives. The adherents of Jainism do not consider this to be suicide, but an act of ‘purification’ that is practised only when the process of natural death has already started.  However, in Nikhil Soni v Union of India, the Rajasthan High Court (HC) directed the state to abolish the practice, reasoning that it violated Sections 306 and 309 of the IPC (suicide and abetment to suicide respectively) as the right to life did not include within it the right to die. Moreover, it argued that the Santhara is not an essential practice under Jainism, and thus need not be protected by Article 25. The decision was criticised on both grounds-that Santhara is in fact an essential religious practice, and secondly that while the Supreme Court did not recognise the right to die, it did recognise the right to die with dignity[ix]. The Supreme Court later stayed this decision, and will take the final call on this in the years to come.

An issue where we did get a decision from the Supreme Court this year was on whether the principles in the Agamashastras could be used to appoint archakas (priests) to temples. Agamas are scriptures that detail the manner in which worship is to be conducted in temples following Vaishnavism, Shaivism and Shaktism.  In 2002, the Supreme Court had affirmed that priestly appointments were a secular activity [thus open to state intervention under Article 25] and upheld the right of non-Brahmins to be appointed as priests. Accordingly the Tamil Nadu government issued an order allowing all individuals (irrespective of caste) to be appointed as priests in Agama temples, also opening institutes to impart training for this purposes[x]. The present case revolved around the challenge to this government order. The Supreme Court this time invoked Article 16 (5) which says that equality of opportunity in public employment does not render any law illegal that provides for only a member of a particular denomination to hold an office associated with the affairs of that religion or denomination[xi]. For example, in the appointment to a temple of the Vaikhanasa sect, it was membership of the prospective priest to that sect, that mattered, not caste per se. Hence, the court ruled that temples could appoint archakas in accordance with the Agama scriptures as long as the principles contained therein were not in violation of the Constitution. Whether the principles contained in a particular Agama were unconstitutional or not, the judgment said, could only be determined on a case to case basis[xii].

The problem with this reasoning is that while it recognises that denomination matters-such that not all Brahmins can become archakas in the temple of a specific sect, it does not answer whether only some castes can become archakas. For example, as the Hindu points out, the priests in a Vaikhasana or Pancharatra temple have to descend from a particular gothra. This may disqualify Dalits from priesthood completely, since categorised as ‘outcastes’ in the past, they may not have the status of being descendants of a rishi at all[xiii].

Wish-list for the New Year

2016 will probably see some clarity on some of the issues above. Here is hoping that the judiciary strikes the right balance between guarding religious rights while also upholding individual liberties, and the rights to equality and life. Let’s also hope that 2016 sees all governments, the Centre and the states, prefer liberalism to populism. And lastly, let’s hope that as citizens (and otherwise) we can begin to start having more civil debates and informed discussions on secularism and religion in India.

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[i] http://indiankanoon.org/doc/1983234/

[ii] http://indiankanoon.org/doc/631708/

[iii] Admittedly, the media reported that the police team collected a sample of the meat consumed by the family the previous night, unnecessary if the purpose was to find out who was involved in the lynching.

[iv] http://indianexpress.com/article/india/politics/dadri-lynching-an-accident-dont-give-it-a-communal-twist-says-union-minister-mahesh-sharma/

[v] http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/bjp-mp-yogi-adityanaths-outfit-offers-guns-to-hindus-in-dadri/

[vi] http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/punjab-cabinet-approves-life-term-for-acts-of-sacrilege/article7897918.ece

[vii] http://indiankanoon.org/doc/1803184/

[viii] http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/nation/supreme-court-refuses-to-ban-firecrackers/151582.html

[ix] http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/the-flawed-reasoning-in-the-santhara-ban/article7572183.ece

[x] http://www.caravanmagazine.in/perspectives/sacred-rights

[xi] http://indiankanoon.org/doc/211089/

[xii] http://supremecourtofindia.nic.in/FileServer/2015-12-16_1450255713.pdf

[xiii] http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/archakas-verdict-supreme-court-gives-little-consideration-on-implementation-of-agamas/article7996598.ece

Of News and Other Stuff-the All Things Boring Edition

1. There is a desert in China called Takla Makaan. My amusement at this is reflective of how bored I am.
2. Someone should institute a glamour quotient of corruption. The more un-glamourous the scam, the more corrupt a country is likely to be. Everyone can spot opportunities for thievery when a mega event like CWG is being organised or when resources are being awarded. It takes a special kind of criminal instinct to start a ‘Jute Bag Scam’ where new jute bags at PDS packaging centres are replaced with old ones. The new ones are sent to middle men who sell the bags to jute mills at half the price at which the government procured them. So simple and so dull.
3. In its bid to dumb itself down and sell more copies revamp itself, the Hindu has added entertainment pages in the main newspaper. And to nobody’s surprise, they have managed to make that boring as well. How do they manage this when they have (possibly) the country’s best film writer on their payrolls? Also, whose idea of a design change was to use different font styles on the same page? The consultant in me strongly disapproves.
4. Talking of aesthetic sensibilities, as a child I used to colour human bodies and faces with ochre. Then somewhere down the line, some art tutor (and I just can’t remember which one), made me switch to peach. Did this happen to you? Was it harmless or was it some deep seated racism that I unknowingly partook in?
5. The other thing I was made to practice unconsciously was religion. All through my childhood, every place we sight saw had at least one common pit stop-a temple (the other was a movie theatre, because nothing like watching a generic Hindi movie to get an understanding of the local culture).
6. My sole preoccupation during these visits was the ritual of taking off my shoes while worrying about them getting pilfered, getting jostled in the crowd trying to get a peek at the deity, and then wearing those shoes again, invariably with damp feet, and pebbles and gravel lining the in-soles now. If I had concentrated on actually seeing my surroundings a little more, I would have found it a lot easier to study for competitive exams.
7. The other annoying subject for study is the institutional maze of India. The National Commission for minorities is a statutory body set up under the National Commission for Minorities Act, 1992. Members of the minority communities can send in their grievances to the Commission. A chart on their website helpfully marks out the religion of each member (2 Muslims, 1 Christian, Parsi, Hindu, Buddhist each and 1 Sikh member seat which is currently vacant). So inclusive we are.
8. We really need to stop pretending that we are a secular country. It is one thing to provide special protection to the culture/ language of a group. Quite another to give out life terms to people for ‘sacrilege’.  
9. Kaushik Basu once said that the worst part of coming into policy from academia was that he was consistently misquoted in the media. So his biggest worry was to construct paragraphs in such a way that sentences could not possibly be lifted out of context to prove that the economy was going to the dogs. Apparently even that did not work, so he had to focus on ensuring that no string of words could be lifted and reported out of context. Which meant that he ended up giving boring speeches. Our favourite Central Bank governor on the other hand, before giving a lecture on a completely unrelated topic, gives out the following disclaimer:

"For any hints on what we will do in the upcoming policy statement, please read the guidance in our last policy statement. I quote: “Significant uncertainty will be resolved in the coming months, including the likely persistence of recent inflationary pressures, the full monsoon outturn, as well as possible Federal Reserve actions. As the Reserve Bank awaits greater transmission of its front-loaded past actions, it will monitor developments for emerging room for more accommodation. Nothing I say in what follows is meant to offer further guidance, and please don’t read veiled meaning where none is intended".