PTI memories

I was watching a movie last night. The plot and glare of the screen delayed the arrival of sleep. The slumber, fractured by the early break of dawn ended up with a headache. The discomfort disappeared as I came across a snap shared by my friend and comrade Prem Udayabhanu . It transported me back quarter of a century. 

It was originally posted on the social media by another good friend Shrikanth Varadhachari many moons ago. We used to share banters at PTI's  Scan Desk, a precursor of sorts to today's Tweets. 

We all were given copies of the snap at the end of our training at PTI Delhi in December 1995. There was no social distancing obligation to fulfil then. Instead, camaraderie and cosying up were the norms of those days. 

We were four Bongs from Bengal, then branded in Delhi as the "lousie Commies". An energetic Supratik Sengupta, a cucumber-cool Nirmalya Nag and a charismatic Amitava Roy are still closest to my heart as are all the men and women on their feet in the snap. Life would have been poorer and with less charm without being their friend. 

The folks who left for PTI Mumbai after three months were lodged at PTI's guest house at Delhi's posh Jangpura. We four were in Delhi for nearly 18 months, breathing the political storm that came our way first with the Hawala Scandal unveiled by PV Narasimha Rao, then the instability that followed his defeat and unceremonious exit from power. 

Atal Behari Vajpayee-led 13-day government relinquished power with one of the best prime ministerial speeches in the history of India's parliamentary democracy. Sonia Gandhi made her arrival in the world of "real-politic". HD Devegowda got the prime ministerial position on a platter and lost it. It was just before the departure of IK Gujral that we were transported to PTI Kolkata.

Since then I have met only a few of my comrades, our  emotional engagement is relentless though, often in the relm of our many conversations in silence. The early period of my London-life was marked by the couple of weeks Gopakumar Warrier and Easwaran spent in London as part of their Bridge News training. 

The member of the group with the maximum number of proverbial Commi-chromosomes, Vinu and the darling of many hearts Jacinta Dsouza have since settled down as life partners. Our hour-long tryst at the Strand Continental Hotel in the upmarket vicinity of Central London a few years back is still etched in memory. While Vinu remained mostly quiet, Jacinta was the articulate self as we were reminiscing the good old days. 

Memory they say is a state of mind, and probably with a hypnotic effect. Today's state of mind is another testimony of the fact that PTI memories haven't lost an iota of their power to hypnotise.

14 May, 2020

Musings on India's tryst with demonetisation & an endeavour to become cashless

The Indian middle class and the ruling elites are rejoicing the country's elevation as the world's sixth largest economy surpassing Britain. The celebration is a function of India's increased importance in the committee of nations, broadly made possible by a trajectory of higher economic growth and technological globalisation and is manifested by unbound patriotism, not so much based on pluralistic values and all round development but mostly on cultural and philosophical supremacy. A similar self belief on intellectual and ideological supremacy once influenced the leftists to think of themselves as the saviour of the world and the custodian of the progressive mindset.

The celebration, however, overlooks the fact that India is still home to one-third of the world's poor and around one-fourth of Indians are yet to be illuminated by the enlightenment of conventional education. These make it irrelevant for the Indian poor as to whether their national economy is the sixth largest in the world or even higher in the pecking order.

It would possibly have, had the "Trickle Down Hypothesis" - the basic proposition of which was that take care of the rich and the poor would look after themselves based on the residual income trickling down from the enhanced affluence of the rich - worked in today's complex world. The proponents of the Trickle Down Hypothesis may have envisaged a much simpler proposition that the rich gets richer and also pulls some poor out of poverty, but in today's complex world the rich gets richer only at the cost of the poor and more often than not under state patronage and political tautulege.

For the poor every day is a struggle often made worse by the fancied expediency of the state which is supposed to look after their interests. The decision of the Indian government to demonetise higher currencies was first dished out under the garb of a patriotic zeal to create a corruption-free country. Soon it was taken over by the prime minister's desire to evolve a cashless economy with the simplistic assumption that a cashless economy is a precursor and a precondition of a corruption free or a controlled corruption economy.

I am in favour of a cashless economy as it secures me from the risk of misplacing paper currency and also saves me from accessing cash. But the prerequisites of the introduction of a cashless economy revolves around the trust on plastic as an alternative to paper money, reliance on banks and their reliability as an important instrument of economic activities, a certain level of literacy and numeracy, adequate technology to run a cashless economy and the ability of the people to adapt to it and the general awareness about the benefits of a cashless economy to name a few.

Unfortunately, India with its size, diversity and demographic profile is yet to be ready to take such a plunge. Moreover to assume that being cashless is a way of becoming corruption free or at least controlled corruption is too simplistic an assumption to make. Had it been so, the West would have been able to weed out much of its corruption as it is widely cashless.

Rather than being dependent on the use of currency for transactional purposes, corruption is more a function of inadequate policies, poor implementation, political will and lack of collective awareness and wisdom about the pitfalls of corruption. The agents of corruption re-calibrate their mechanisms every time there is a new legislation to stamp it out and re-adjusts the risks involved. Resorting to corruption is a parallel trade and the agents modify themselves to adapt to every possible changes to enhance their efficiency.

Rather than using demonetisation to weed out corruption in the garb of corruption and to satisfy queer personal ego, the government should rather focus on reforming the institutions like poll funding which in itself is the fountainhead of political favour in the form of quid pro quo, expanding the tax base by incorporating agricultural income under the purview of income tax, encouraging the people to pay their due tax by streamlining the tax structure and creating awareness about the benefits of progressive taxation.

The ever increasing Indian middle class and the upward mobile are however in favour of a cashless set up without adequate infrastructure as they are in favour of a streamlined lifestyle. This emanates from a false sense of importance caused by a steady rise in income and oppulance following economic liberalisation.

The irony is that the ever increasing middle class is yet to take over the impoverished and the deprived sections of society. Snowed down by abundance and increased level of comfort, the middle class is rendered myopic about the plight of the majority.

All comments are personal.

EU referendum overrides political homogeneity

Homogeneous is a curious word for Europe at this point of time in history. Ethnically the most homogeneous continent in the world, according to a landmark study by the Harvard Institute of Economic Research in 2002, is faced with a situation which may change the tone and tenor of future politics in Europe. The economic cooperation – then known as the Common Market following the Treaty of Rome – initiated about six decades ago as a harbinger of peace, reconstruction and prosperity in the years following the Great Wars is now the subject of a heated war of words both within Britain and across Europe.

Jeremy Corbyn voted to opt out of Europe in 1975

The referendum on whether Britain should or should not be part of the European Union (EU) has divided the island nation like never before in the immediate past, and has exhibited signs of a tumult in the conceptualisation of political homogeneity.

The hard-line left within the Labour Party, like Michael Foot and Tony Benn, may have staunchly opposed Britain’s integration with what was then called the European Community during the earlier referendum in 1975. But their present day political descendants like the Leader of the Opposition Jeremy Corbyn and Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell are campaigning vigorously so that Britain remains within the EU. The Foots and the Bens may have apprehended that the economic integration was a ‘capitalist ploy’ to keep the real wage low, but the incumbent Labour group supporting the ‘Remain Campaign, were brandishing their opponents as a “bunch of snooty Eurosceptics” who were out to compromise on job losses leading to further hardship for the working class Britons.

Interestingly, during the 1975 referendum, as a local councillor in the London Borough of Haringey, Corbyn voted 'No' to Britain's membership of the European Community. Britain, however, voted 67 to 33 to stay in. In fact, Corbyn was first elected to the House of Commons in 1983, the year Labour leader Michael Foot was defeated with a radically left-wing manifesto that included a pledge to withdraw Britain from the European Economic Community, which later became to be called the EU. Though the Labour's leadership then embraced the EU, Corbyn in 1993 voted against ratifying the Maastricht Treaty that laid the groundwork for the modern European Union.

When it comes to the Conservatives, on any day and on any issue Prime Minister David Cameron is considered to be much more centre of right than his controversial predecessor Margaret Thatcher. Those who are aware of the developments surrounding the ‘UK Rebate’ - a financial mechanism which reduces the UK's contribution to the EU budget and is in effect since 1985 - as extracted from the union by Thatcher in the 1980s, know that the ‘Iron Lady’ of British politics was more keen on negotiations to leverage benefits for Britain than an outright exit. After all, Thatcher’s political philosophy revolved around balancing the books and taking stock of her political profit and loss when it came to clinching deals and inking agreements.

Cameron may be a different brand of Tory politician as compared to Thatcher, propagating ‘compassionate Capitalism’ as against the ruthlessness of the Iron Lady, and yet he chose a similar path of negotiation, and thereby clinch a deal favourable to Britain, rather than proposing an exit from the union.    

Politics they say make strange bedfellows. It’s also true that politics makes the best of friends into worse adversaries. Nothing can be nearer to truth of this than what’s being witnessed in contemporary British politics. The party is literally in the midst of a civil war with the ‘Remain Camp’ involved in a slanging match with the ‘Leave Camp’, similar to what was witnessed by the Labour Party when its Prime Minister Harold Wilson held a referendum in 1975 on whether the UK should be or not in what was then termed as the European Community. Apart from Prime Minister Wilson the likes of Roy Jenkins and David Owen favoured Britain remaining within Europe, but it was strongly opposed by the hard-line left leaders Michael Foot and Tony Benn.

Debate on Europe divides Etonian pals 

The wedge of divide is equally pronounced within the Conservative Party this time round. Some of Prime Minister Cameron’s trusted lieutenants in government and in the party are up in arms when it concerns Britain’s position in Europe. Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor Michael Gove is one of the leading figures in the ‘Leave Campaign’, but only recently as the Education Secretary he was in-charge of putting in place the prime minister’s education agenda, the biggest of all being the exam and curriculum reforms to elevate Britain’s position among the developed countries on the various aspects of school education.

Another heavyweight in the ‘Leave Campaign’, Preeti Patel was handpicked by Cameron to don the mantle as the Minister of State for Employment and also provided her with the special privilege to seat around the cabinet table. The elevation of the minister born to a Ugandan-Indian migrant family assumes significance for a plethora of issues plaguing the British economy, including the controversy surrounding the zero-hour contracts which in effect is one of reasons behind showing lower unemployment figures despite a rise in part-time jobs and underemployment; the high youth unemployment figures and in the backdrop of the call for British jobs for the British people being one of the main planks of the hard-line Eurosceptics. Patel is also seen as a go between Cameron and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi. These, however, didn’t stop Patel from shifting to the opposite camp of the British prime minister.

A fellow Etonian, Cameron and former London Mayor Boris Johnson are on the same page on a number of issues ranging from politics to governance. Despite having their fair share of differences, the two are thought to have a good rapport and they also share a few jokes. Johnson is now accusing the prime minister of scare-mongering on a possible ‘Brexit’, the slick name provided to Britain’s exit from the EU, and on his part Cameron is alleging ‘rabble rousing’ by the ‘Leave Campaign’ of which the former London Mayor is a leading light.    

When the Common Market – a predecessor of the modern EU – emerged in 1957, Britain then the largest economy in Western Europe was least interested to join force. Following a couple of unsuccessful attempts, Britain finally made it in 1973. But Britain’s relationship with the EU or its earlier forms were never beyond scepticism and doubt. The wedge has been further widened by the bitter campaign ahead of this referendum. Notwithstanding Europe’s homogeneity, the relationship between the EU and the UK will not be free from trust deficit and tribulations, even if the British people vote for Britain to remain within the EU.

Tirthankar Bandyopadhyay is a journalist and media consultant. 
He can be contacted at tirthankarb@hotmail.com 
All comments are personal.

Separated at birth!

The World Economic Forum has set up a new task force in January this year with the Bank of England Governor Mark Carney and his counterpart at the Reserve Bank of India, Raghuram Rajan, to study how rapid changes in technology affect financial stability and growth. However, there are more similarities between the two economist-governors than sharing a global task force.

Raghuram Rajan predicted the
2008 financial crisis

In 2005, during the heydays of easy money and sub-prime mortage, Rajan warned about the growing risks in the financial system and proposed policies that would reduce such risks. Rajan's comments evinced criticism from no less than the former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers who termed the warnings “misguided” and  Rajan a "luddite". However, following the 2008 economic crisis, Rajan's views came to be seen as prescient. 

Carney's actions as the Governor of the Bank of Canada, prior to donning the mantle at the Bank of England, are said to have played a major role in helping Canada avoid the worst impacts of the financial crisis that began in 2007. The most important being the decision to cut interest rates in March 2008, only a month after his appointment.

Now as the head of the Bank of England, Carney is warning against a possible British exit from the European Union. Carney's argument is straight and simple - overlooking the risks do not necessarily reduce them - a somewhat similar vein to what Rajan articulated in 2005.

Mark Carney is blamed for
scare mongering 

Carney's comments attracted severe criticism from British politicians of the 'Leave Campaign' who are alleging politicisation of institutions and that the governor is toeing the line of Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne in the fractured Tory government.

Rajan has also drawn flak from the likes of the maverick Indian politician Subramanium Swamy, who is baying for his blood in a bid to hit the incumbent Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his (Swamy) mission to grab the chair for running India's finances. A friend posted that Rajan was seen at the bustling shopping district of Oxford Street on Saturday and his wife was at the Boots, possibly getting some anti-septic cream to soothe the wounds inflicted by the bristling broadside of a desperate Dr Swamy.

Carney met his wife, Diana Fox a British economist specialising in developing nations, while at the University of Oxford, and Rajan is married to Radhika Puri Rajan, whom he met while they were both students at IIM Ahmedabad. Radhika teaches at the University of Chicago Law School.

Tirthankar Bandyopadhyay is a journalist and media consultant. 
He can be contacted at tirthankarb@hotmail.com
All comments are personal.

Musing on sadness

The election campaign in West Bengal has turned out to be a slanging match. Look to your left or even to your right, it is the same mud-slinging which is having its day. The content of the campaign has been taken over by allegations and counter-allegations, that too in words matching those erupting from the gutter. Even the commentators and the civil society are so polarised that the civility in the society has been replaced by vulgar expression of might. The irony is that this is the same Bengal which was once considered to be citadel of civility and cultural conformation.

Over the past few weeks, I spent some time to be a mute observer of what’s going around only to make an effort to get to the truth behind the cumulative decadence in values that is gulping Bengal. Though not sure if I have managed to do so, but prima facie it seems that the sharp accusations are a function of the expansion of the sample space of the stakeholders.

The patron-client relationship which is the mainstay of any political formation is now utilised to its optimum level and even beyond for the sake of distribution and redistribution of favours. In the process what they are missing out is that there is enough redistribution of favour but not adequate generation of resources. Majority of those who are pawns in the process of socio-political polarisation and degeneration are actually the stakeholders. Since their level of engagement with the stakes and dependence over them have increased with every passing day, these pawns are shouting their lungs out and often resorting to other vitriolic and vulgar means to maintain their positions of prominence and privilege.

Often the media is the favourite punching bag of every evil that engulfs the society. However unfortunate and unfair it may sound, but in this case, the media has also emerged as a powerful stakeholder with serious contention in rendering the politics of the land murky. The out of proportion media explosion has created a workforce who are inept with their knowledge, expertise, experience and insight to deal with the sharp divisions that are manifesting a fractured polity. Conventionally being the mirror of the society, the media with its inadequacies is actually projecting a rapturously vulgar imagery of an already broken state. 

Historically, the civil society was considered to be an intermediary between the state and the individual. That’s how the civil society oiled the wheels of capitalism for generations. The trade unions, the pressure groups, the intelligentsia, the media – they all are well-orchestrated tools of capitalism to contain systemic discontent. When the allegiance of the civil society shifts from the objective of sustenance of the social system and is fractured between warring factions it is the society which turns out to be the ultimate looser. 

So whatever be the outcome on the 19th of May, it is Bengal and the Bengalis who are the real losers. The decadence and the depletion in the values, lexicon, civility, reverence and imagery are gradually turning out to be irreversible. It seems that in the folly of political one-upmanship not many are bothered about the moralistic degradation. 

Tirthankar Bandyopadhyay is a journalist and media consultant. 
He can be contacted at tirthankarb@hotmail.com 
All comments are personal.