Why does India always behave like it is impotent ?

India is a nuclear power, and it is the largest and the strongest nation in the region. This might precisely be the reason why it should not be snobbish or big-brotherly with its neighbors, but to look the other way each time they take advantage of us is a little too much to digest.

When India's most powerful man speaks with fear, you really start feeling whether India does need its nuclear arms & its huge armies. It might as well to lay down its arms to terrorists and beg for mercy.

This is what the Prime Minister said in a statement as government's first official reaction to the Diwali-eve blasts in Delhi -

"The news of the serial bomb blasts in the capital New Delhi reached me on my arrival in Kolkata after a day's visit to Tripura. I decided immediately that these acts required my presence in Delhi and I cut short my engagements tomorrow and returned to Delhi.
"I share the shock and distress of all those affected by this blast. My heart grieves for those who have lost their loved ones. I condemn the cynical and premeditated attacks on innocent people. These are dastardly acts of terrorism aimed at the people of India.

"These terrorists wish to spread a sense of fear and suspicion among peace-loving people. These blasts have been timed to create disaffection during the festive season when people of all communities are celebrating our national festivals. "We shall defeat their nefarious designs and will not allow them to succeed. We are resolute in our commitment to fighting terror in all forms. I am confident that the people of India have the will, capacity and resolution to win the war against terrorism.
"I urge the people to remain calm, not to panic or believe rumours and ensure that we all go about our activities normally. The government will take all possible measures to maintain law and order and defeat the forces of terrorism."

The statement didn't actually bother me till I heard from a BBC newsperson noting that though the Prime Minister made the right noises in asking people to remain calm & condemned the attacks, he never actually said anything about punishing those terrorists involved in the heinous crime. The statement shows that the Prime Minister is scared more about religious unrest as a fallout of the blasts rather than hunting down the terrorists, who if left to themselves will almost definitely strike again. He does make weak noises about fighting terrorism & evil designs of terrorists that will not be allowed to succeed, but clearly not enough. Indeed, the first paragraph about him coming back early from West Bengal sounds unnecessary & almost stupid. He doesn't need to tell people that it is a serious enough act for him to come back. That the Prime Minister thinks he should explain his coming back early presumes on his part a serious amount of ignorance among Indian people and lacks sensitivity on his part.

Compare this to what US said about the same acts -

"We condemn these attacks in the strongest possible terms. It is a cowardly act of violence and we hope that the perpetrators are swiftly identified and brought to justice."

The attitudes of the two countries reflects very clearly in the statements made by the two about the same act. Interestingly, the statement is very similar to the one President of USA George Bush made 3 hours after 9/11 attacks -

"We have taken all appropriate security precautions to protect the American people," Mr Bush told reporters. "Make no mistake, the United States will hunt down and punish those responsible for these cowardly attacks."

The speeches clearly reflect the attitudes of the two nations. And lest you feel this is about the personal charisma of the two leaders concerned in the way their statements are written and both countries act in similar ways, here is what US Secretary of State Colin Powell said after 9/11 -

A terrible, terrible tragedy has befallen my nation, but it has befallen all those who believe in democracy," Mr Powell told the OAS assembly. "I hope we can move the order of business to the adoption of the charter," he said, "because I very much want to be here to express the United States' commitment to democracy in this hemisphere."
The session opened with a moment of silence before representatives of Venezuela, Colombia, El Salvador and Canada all made statements condemning the attacks. "I will bring to President Bush your expressions of sorrow and your words of support," said Mr Powell. "You can be sure that America will deal with this tragedy in a way that brings those responsible to justice." He added with reference to the region that "terrorism, as is noted, is everyone's problem and there are countries represented here who have been fighting terrorism for years and have seen horrible things happen in your countries. It is something we must all unite behind".

Again, not so much rhetoric, not talking about peace between US muslims & the majority population, all that came much later. What was of paramount importance was that the terrorists, americans & the world had to know that terrorism would be dealt with firmly.

Now about action that followed these comments. US attacked Afghanistan within months & dethroned Taliban. It failed to wipe out Al Qaeeda, or Taliban, and has even failed to capture Osama Bin Laden. But its actions definitely restored a sense of confidence among Americans that their government is taking care of their security. In India, except for an innocent person who was captured to be released later, there has been practically no action even after the group responsible & its origins were known.

There was a lot of controversy a few years ago when Bangladeshi Rifles killed a BSF jawan & infact hung his body on a pole, pretty much like what you would do after hunting a goat. Nothing was done even then, and Bangladesh didn't even apologize publicly. Indeed, India doesn't need to send out its forces each time an Indian is killed overseas. But India has been found wanting in using strong language even as it uses diplomatic channels.

Nepal, a long time Indian ally (remember, Nepal is the only other Hindu majority nation in the world and it is in India's strategic interest to ensure Nepal doesn't disintegrate). By stopping to send arms to Nepal & doing nothing apart from proclaiming 'we support a return to democracy', India has shot itself in the foot twiceover - China now supplies arms to Nepal in truckloads & gets closer to Nepal than India; India by a quick military coup would against the King would have gained the support of Nepal's democratic parties, Maoists and perhapes would have been able to bring them to the negotiating table. There was another nice thing that would have happened for the ruling party domestically - it would have definitely pleased the Indian Hindus no end.

India similarly did not act when Indian-origin Prime Minister in Fiji was deposed & kidnapped a few years back. A quick military action here would have proved decisive. The surprising thing is India did act decisively in the past, during the times of Indira Gandhi (in liberating Bangladesh) & Rajiv Gandhi (in Sri Lanka & Maldives) but surprisingly seems to develop cold feet everytime in recent years. Action in Fiji would have found wide-spread support from the large Indian diaspora worldwide, giving them the confidence that Indian government will take care of them wherever in the world they are. This I am sure would have helped build investment momentum in India by NRIs as well as helping diplomatically with many governments, wherever Indian lobbies are influential.

It is interesting to see how Indian action in Maldives in defeating a coup attempt was seen by its neighbours & the World media as noted in this article.

Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi told the Indian Parliament that he saw the event as having "provided an opportunity for India to assist a friendly country and frustrate an attempt to overthrow a democratically elected government." While the big powers, including the United States, endorsed India's intervention, the world media interpreted the action as indicative of "the scale of its ambitions in South Asia", as Time magazine observed, a confirmation of India's growing role as a regional superpower cum policeman.

In Sri Lanka, while the Jayewardene government breathed a sigh of relief that Male's ordeal had ended peacefully, The Island daily observed that "it would be ostrich-like to ignore the fear of small nations of South Asia, about current developments providing opportunities for what has been described as the spread of Indian hegemonism." Time also noted that, there was similar disquiet among India's other neighbours, although the governments of Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal endorsed India's action. Pakistan, however, was critical, even accusing India of having "stage-managed the coup attempt".

Indian diplomats and political analysts find such criticism unfair and point to the fact that it was Male that sought New Delhi's help. A.K. Banarjee, who served as India's High Commissioner in Male during the crucial 1987-1989 period, but was out of station in Delhi the day the coup took place, observes that "to the contrary, despite traditional cordial relations, the importance of the Maldives to India was not fully appreciated in Delhi until the coup, and it is the possibility that the Maldives could have turned elsewhere for help that subsequently established Male in New Delhi's psyche".

India's operations in Sri Lanka were not as successful, as documented in this interview of J N Dixit, India's former National Security Advisor & a leading thinker on national security. Dixit was High Commissioner to Sri Lanka from 1985-89, around the same time India sent its peace keeping force (IPKF) to broker peace between the Sri Lankan government & the LTTE. IPKF ended up fighting LTTE, and losing badly. It all ended in the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi a few years later. India's fiasco in Sri Lanka is sometimes linked to US's Vietnam, but reverses in Vietnam never stopped US from trying again.

The inaction & passiveness in recent years has however not resulted in any goodwill for Indians worldwide, as India & Indians continue to be targeted by terrorists. India didn't act even days ago when Maniappan Kutty was killed ruthlessly (whereas an Afghani colleague was let off unharmed) by the Taliban in Afghanistan, in an area where the official government of Afghanistan has little influence.

As Nitin of Acorn says, India should atleast post its forces in Afghanistan as a deterrent to Taliban, this might just prevent another Kutty from happening. And it will suit India's strategic interest as well - I wonder how India wants to be a UNSC permanent member when it is not willing to ensure security to its people. Interestingly, all the other UNSC permanent members have had active military operations outside its shores often enough.

Israeli Politics : Can we learn something from them ?

This blog has been noticeably quiet from my side on its usual focus, Indian politics. There have been a lot of significant political happenings recently that I want to write about, but I have had to necessarily distract myself to do my bit for my late friend Manju, who was killed ruthlessly for doing his job in Uttar Pradesh. May his soul rest in peace.

Ariel Sharon, the Prime Minister of Israel & the founder-leader of Likud Party did the unthinkable on November 21, 2005 by quitting the party he helped build & started a new party, called Kadima (Forward). Facing increasing opposition against his Unilateral Disengagement Plan from his own right-wing party from hard-line rightwingers, especially important leaders such as Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Israel's politics & even its existence have been dominated by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the resultant Arab-Israeli conflict. The state of Israel was created by the victorious Allied powers in the aftermath of holocaust & the Second World War as compensation to Jews. Israel still does not have a written constitution, and they have chosen to write one as they go along.

It is fascinating to read how party-list proportional system of representation has affected Israeli Politics and Israel's aborted experiment with direct elections for the Prime Minister through run-off voting, especially as Israel has already done in the past what I was recommending as an electoral system for India.

Israel's Prime Ministers have always had to forge coalitions to form a government as the country's proportional system of representation makes it difficult for any single party to win a majority in the 120 seat Knesset (Israel's unicameral parliament). In this scenario, their politicians have demonstrated tremendous maturity as very often its two largest parties - Likud (equivalent of Conservatives or Republicans in Israel) & Mapai (equivalent of Labour or Democrats) have forged coalitions to form fairly stable governments. Israel has had 11 Prime Ministers in about the same number of years to India's 13, and the maximum that any Israeli Prime Minister has served is 8 years, compared to about 17 each for Nehru & Indira Gandhi. Its former prime ministers have not shied away from swallowing pride & becoming ministers in their successor's cabinets, something almost unthinkable in Indian politics.

I would however concentrate on Ariel Sharon's decision to move to the centre from his earlier right-wing (& left-wing even earlier than that) by quitting his party at a time when he could have sleep-walked through an election campaign & still won the elections, had he continued with the Likud Party. He & his policies coninue to be widely popular & his disengagement plan also has popular support, as opinion polls have shown.

It is remarkable that Israel has politicians that really do put national interest first (Sharon, after all might be wrong about the disengagement plan that it will increase security) but that he has taken the risk to start a new party from scratch with policies diametrically opposite to the ones Likud & he himself advocated all these years shows tremendous political courage on his part. I wonder if during his days as Prime Minister when he was facing a lot of opposition from Swadeshi Jagran Manch, RSS & hardliners within BJP over his government's economic policies, Atal Behari Vajpayee ever thought about starting afresh. Highly unlikely. Alas, he favoured consensus !

Is there a larger conspiracy behind Manjunath's death ?

Manju died on my birthday. I don't know for how many years I would remember him & what he must have meant to his parents & friends on each of my birthdays.

I do not think I have the same courage as Manjunath aka Manju or Macha had, but I have made a commitment to myself today that I will atleast try & spread his message. I am sure Manju is there up in the skies waiting to become a star & waiting to see if his friends, collegemates, colleagues, Indians & human beings in general would provide him redemption or let his sacrifice go waste.

Manju became a whistleblower on what is in fact a continuing & the biggest scam of all times in independent India, if you take into account all PSU petrol pumps in the country.

Let me take an illustration A litre of diesel costs around Rs. 32, and a litre of kerosene (used to adulterate diesel & petrol) costs Rs. 10 (it is cheaper because of heavy subsidization as it is the 'poor man's fuel'). If a petrol pump sells 20,000 litres of adulterated diesel (diesel adulterated with kerosene in 1:1 ratio) the scam is to the tune of Rs. 2 lakhs a week for a small petrol pump. All figures are apparently average figures, and are courtesy a Star News report on Manjunath titled 'Hindustani'. An apt name, Star News!

The figure is just for diesel, margins for petrol adulteration are double that of diesel (petrol sells at about Rs. 50). Even assuming that the money an average petrol pump owner makes by adulterating petrol & diesel is Rs. 3 lakhs a week, this number multiplied by even 10% of all petrol pumps in India (assuming rest are all in cities & are better regulated) is an ENORMOUS figure, and is for EVERY WEEK. This money then goes on to fund the illegal activities of many a politician, mafia don & maybe terrorists as well.

It is important to realize that the honest Indian taxpayer loses out twice in this bargain - once when kerosene meant for the poor is heavily subsidized from the taxpayers' money & channeled to adulterate petrol / diesel and then when the same person buys adulterated & obviously inferior fuel at high prices for his vehicle. As petrol is priced & taxed in a way to cross-subsidize kerosene, LPG & diesel (to a smaller extent) the normal person who drives a petrol car / bike is virtually paying twice the money he ought to have paid in the first place. Interesting also to note is that fuel price increases must make dishonest dealers even happier as fuel demand is highly inelastic to price & it gives them even higher margins to play with & make even higher profits (this is because kerosene prices never rise in the same quantum as petrol & diesel prices do). The temptation for every petrol pump owner to indulge in adulteration of petrol & diesel with kerosene is huge as the petrol pumps get only about 10% of the money above as legal commision by the PSUs for selling its petrol & diesel.

At the root of the scam is the way petrol pumps are handed out to the favorites of ministers & political bigwigs who then help fund their election campaigns & help maintain their goons, who do all sorts of crimes at the politician's behest. To get a better idea of the scale of the scam & its pervasiveness across political parties, follow the links here, here, and here.

The money involved as estimated in one of the reports above is Rs. 25 billion, in just a few years of the NDA government. The scam though is not new & is not limited to the NDA government, as Congress governments in the past have also been widely accused of being involved.

Manju apparently knew it all along that a lot of petrol pumps in his area rampantly adulterated petrol & diesel and he often tried to reason with them. I fear he might have found out a little too much for their comfort & they with the blessing of their political bosses might have committed the gruesome act. It is difficult to believe that someone can be naive enough to kill a person so blatantly if he didnt know that people in important places would eventually take care of him.

It is in these times I feel it would have been so much better if we lived in a barbaric nation. The government would have ordered a public killing of the convicts in the most painful way, and this would have deterred other people from doing such dastardly acts. I do not deny it would have been poetic justice & I would have felt relieved by it.

Manju's death should not go waste

Manju, a year senior to me at IIM Lucknow was shot dead for doing his job on saturday. By now the news has been taken up by the national media and pressure is being applied in different ways to ensure his killers do not go free & his family gets adequate compensation.

While I applaud the efforts, I also see that the efforts to make his death count are really feeble so far. Gaurav was among the first people to link the incident with the murder of Satyendra Dubey, and though people have started saying that the real culprit is the process of 'allotting' petrol pumps rather than people earning the right to set them up through a process of transparent selection, its unlikely anything will happen unless we make enough noise about it.

There needs to be a 'Tehelka' like expose on the entire scam of allotting petrol pumps. There have been mini-exposes in the past on petrol pumps like those on former Petroleum Ministers Capt. Satish Sharma & Ram Naik.

This is also exactly the kind of case that the Supreme Court should take suo moto cognizance of and ensure the Petroleum Ministry gets its act right for once & for all and ensure not one more honest officer needs to sacrifice his life like Manju did to do his job right.

In all the support that has been flowing in on various blogs and on IIM groups, one thing that has been oft-mentioned is that Manju chose to work in a PSU & stood up despite his knowledge of the dangers involved. What has been glossed over is the fact that there are many other people (including IIM-grads) who face similar challenges to their value-systems at their workplaces (including nice MNCs) often without similar dangers involved to their lives. That most of us do not have the courage to take the principled stand that Manju did despite the danger speaks volumes on the exceptional steel in Manju's character.

Gaurav in his blog talks about his days at IBM & the process of selection of channel partners & their dealings that were so much fairer. While he is mostly right, there were occasions where 'extraneuos factors' influenced decisions, as I witnessed during my days at IBM, especially in my division. The problem clearly is not just with the public sector or political influence. Wherever influence can be used subjectively, human nature & the choices that an individual is ready to make are of paramount importance. I was one of those with moderate value-systems and chose to quit, and not only because of those reasons. Manju, quite clearly, was made of sterner stuff.

It is the responsibility of all of us to make enough noise to make sure the cause Manju died for is taken to its logical conclusion.

What should be the priorities of a welfare state ?

While writing my previous post on the issues facing APSRTC, I asked myself whether providing cheap public transport was a priority of the welfare state. The next logical question was what really are the priorities of a welfare state and have successive Indian governments had their priorities clear while providing governance to its people. I thought this question merited independent thinking on my part and hence this post. I would love to take my thinking & understanding process forward with feedback from people who come across this piece, so do let me know your views.

I have often thought what the concept of welfare state meant. To my mind, a welfare state means a government that works for the general welfare of its entire people, neither majority nor a minority of the people distinguished by race, region, religion, sect, caste, language or any other distinguishing factors. The welfare state need not necessarily adopt a socialist approach, indeed there are several western welfare states that are socio-capitalist in nature & provide a safety net for its peoples. The said government need not be a democracy either, though I believe that a democracy has the best chance and the greatest obligation to be a welfare state. However, a democracy will always have a majority bias. Sometimes the objectives of a welfare state for a certain section of its peoples might be contradictory to the objectives it would ascertain of another section of its peoples, then the overriding objective must be the one that provides ‘greatest good for the greatest number of people’.

The objectives of a welfare state can be broadly divided into these areas –

1. Security – The welfare state’s first & most important objective would be to defend its people & its territory from external & internal enemies. Modern nations would normally divide this role into two major ministries or departments – Internal Security (Home or State) and External Security (Defense). A crucial department linked to security departments (more external than internal) is Foreign Affairs. I have said in an earlier post that a country’s foreign affairs policy should be guided by its national interest & strategic defense & economic needs. This may sound simple & obvious, but not all countries seem to think so. Take a look at my views on India’s foreign policy over the years here.

2. Social development – The welfare state would ensure that its people have equal social rights & status and that the state & its agencies and also all its people do not socially discriminate on the basis of any of the distinguishing factors discussed above. Social development would encompass all forms of non-economic development, including education, health & living standards etc.

3. Economic development – This is where there is a lot of debate on how a welfare state should function. Capitalist welfare states stress on equality of opportunity whereas socialist welfare states stress on the equality of result in economic development. Capitalist welfare states would want to provide economic development with minimal government intervention whereas socialist states would strive to provide the same with complete ownership of all enterprise. Now that socialism as a line of economic thought & policy has failed all over the world and the success in economic development of free market economies is there for all to see, all welfare states should move to capitalism. The pace at which they move however must be guided by the idea of preventing & containing disruptions in the economy. The level of intervention of government in free market economies remains debatable and remains at different levels across various successful economies, but public investment into sectors that are not of strategic interest should be avoided. Existing investment in such sectors should be divested following the same strategy of avoiding disruptions.

4. To provide a constitution – A constitution is a rule book, something that a welfare state has in written form to ensure people know what is in it and then go by it. The rules laid down are such that they help ensure that all the other welfare objectives of a welfare state are met. The constitution once written would be the guiding force for all future governments & peoples. The judiciary’s responsibility as an independent body is to ensure rules in the constitution are adhered to by the government & its people. The police, as an agency of the government are there to punish the defaulters & desist others from flouting the rules.

The four major objectives are comprehensive to cover for every aspect. A safety net is a crucial objective of the welfare state that comes somewhere in between social & economic development; it ensures the welfare state guarantees a minimum income & standard of living for all its people. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme of the Government of India, for all its faults, is a right step in the direction of providing a safey net for India's poorest.

Indian governments over the years have fallen foul of following the concept of national interest & welfare of all its peoples on many occasions.

1. Security - India has seen lapses on both internal & external security on multiple occasions over the years. On the external security front, India has failed to resolve its border disputes with Pakistan, China & Bangladesh & its relations with these & other neighbors have seen many lows & several wars. Its policy of non-alignment & failure to exercise the nuclear option for a very long time meant India remained on the fringes of decision-making at the United Nations & other global fora. Its defense preparedness was grossly inadequate till the 1960s, when India lost badly in a war against China, and even after that India's defense needs given the sensitive geo-political around India continued to be ignored as popular governments find it hard to justify greater expenditure on defense when a majority of India's population continues to suffer from hunger & poverty.

2. Social Development - Large sections of Indian people remain isolated & forgotten, basic social development goals of literacy, eradication of diseases, better standards of life are far from being met even 60 years after Indians decided to take care of themselves. India still discriminates its people on the basis of caste, gender & religion & societal taboos & prejudices have been hard to overcome. The United Nations Human Development Report on India can be seen here & here.

3. Economic Development - India might have come out of its days of hindu rate of growth but much of the growth we see these could be despite the government's best efforts, rather than because of its best efforts. Central & state governments remain confused on economic policy, often swinging between reformist & stridently anti-reform. Lack of consensus might be doing us more harm than widely accepted, but a democracy tax is perhaps inevitable & not completely undesirable for a stable, all-inclusive development on all major economic & social indices.

India now has a National Human Development Report (NHDR) that follows on the lines of United Nations Human Development Report (UN HDR) to track human development in different states in India and is a creditable exercise that can provide direction to future government policy at central & state-level on human development.

4. To provide a Constitution - India has done well in providing an excellent constitution to its people, but adherence & implementation of the same has been found wanting. These articles lay out how an excellent constitution has really not been enough to build a just society in India. Ills such as rampant corruption, vested interests, inefficient & obstructionist bureaucracy and ineffective judiciary have held India back from providing development to its people.

It is high time we all took a positive interest in the development of India & contribute in whatever way we can in awakening the India that can really make a difference.

End of the road for APSRTC ?

The Andhra Pradesh Road Transport Corporation (APSTRC) is perennially in losses, its employees seem to go on strike at the drop of a hat and overall the corporation can’t seem to put a foot right at all as its actions (and including the state government’s in its regard) have come for widespread ridicule in recent times.

Recently, the state government spent millions of rupees of taxpayer’s money to hire external consultants (Professors at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore) to help them understand what is wrong with the corporation & what needs to be done to set it right. The answers that professors at IIM Bangalore came up with were so obvious that it left the general public & the opposition wondering if they were needed in the first place. Indeed, the answers were fundamental to the core of the problem –

o Too high costs (rocketing cost of fuel, massive overstaffing, high taxes)
o Too less revenues (under-priced tickets, and further subsidization for sections of society such as students etc.)

which meant the revenues of the corporation could never catch up with spiraling costs.

The suggestion was to decrease costs by

o Reduction in fuel surcharges (In India, state governments make a lot of revenue on fuel surcharges). This was becoming an unbearable cost on the corporation with increasing global oil prices
o Improve bus mileage (something that APSRTC has been quite successful at, but more on that later). This would reduce the impact of increasing cost of fuel
o Decrease no. of employees per bus ratio (BSR) to get a higher productivity from its assets (buses) by reducing expenses in utilizing them (cost of employees such as drivers, conductors, mechanics & cleaners)

And increase revenues by

o Raising ticket prices for travelers to reasonable levels
o Reducing the burden of subsidies given in the form of concessional bus passes for students etc. This could be done by either removing subsidies or state government bearing full cost of subsidies

Indeed, the answers are not acceptable to the populist state government which is just not ready to accept any of these recommendations, as this would be at a heavy cost to its image of being pro-poor, and if it does make such a move, it would be quickly taken advantage of by the opposition. The employees union is not ready to play its part in reducing employee costs and in fact wants a raise for a large majority of its workforce.

Privatization of the state-owned road transport corporation would take much of the burden off the chest of the state government and push the issue of long-term viability of the corporation into private hands. This could be a good idea especially as providing cheap road transport to the public is really debatable as to whether it is one of the priorities of a welfare state. The state government could indeed focus its attention on the needs of the really poor within its state & focus on other developmental & socio-economic issues rather than worrying about the financial health of one of the many companies owned by it. The experience of Mumbai & Delhi (large private-owned & run road transport corporations here) as also its own experience of separating APSEB into APGENCO & APTRANSCO (State Electricity Board of Andhra Pradesh was split into two separate companies focusing on power generation & power transmission exclusively. However, these two companies have not been privatized yet, which would have been the logical extension of the reforms process.) should have given it confidence to go ahead with the privatization but it is not really an option as employee unions are vehemently against any such plans and even the current dispensation is not really pro-reform. (The splitting of APSEB was carried out during the previous government led by TDP, which is now in the opposition, but given the nature of Indian politics, will oppose tooth-and-nail any Congress plans of privatizing APSRTC.)

APSTRC thus continues to run up huge losses and remains a lag on the state exchequer. The employee unions allege the state government does not have the best interests of APSRTC in mind as some people in the government own private road transport companies & APSRTC directly competes with them. In such trying circumstances with multiple political, social, economic & employee relations ramifications staring the state government, its continued inaction is only likely to make the problem worse.

It is high time that the state government takes tough corrective measures to rescue & resurrect APSRTC, starting by increasing bus fares, reducing BSR & restructuring loans as suggested by professors from IIM Bangalore. Privatization would be the next logical step, but that might be too tough to digest for the current government.

The Indian voter has nowhere to go !

Apart from the inherent fallacies in India’s democratic system (see below - 'First past the post - about time we got past it ?' & the addendum), there is another major reason why the viewpoints of the minorities would get increasingly marginalized. The choice available to the ordinary voter in terms of the ideologies to support is fast narrowing in Indian politics.

With the increasing realization that India is due for a sustained spell of coalition politics, much like in Italy & Japan, most parties are worried about their survival and are aligning themselves with one of the two major blocks getting formed. These two blocks are led by the Indian National Congress (INC, often called Congress), India’s grand old party that helped India gain independence & the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the rightwing Hindu nationalist party.

Before I get to the problem that the Indian voter has in terms of choice, it will be useful to look at how the two major blocks come into being. The Indian National Congress, which has ruled India for much of close to sixty years of Indian independence, for the first time came out of its arrogant stance to form a broad-based alliance for the 2004 General Elections. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a much younger party in comparison, learnt its lessons early. After the 13 day rule in 1996, it was forced to shed its normally accepted communal image to be able to enter mainstream politics & provide a reasonable alternative to Congress, which had long occupied the center-stage in Indian politics. It was quite a fantastic transformation for the politically ‘untouchable’ BJP to transform itself from a party for Hindus till 1996 to a party for Hindustan by 1999. Moderately conservative leaders like Atal Behari Vajpayee & Jaswant Singh came to the fore, pushing hawks such as L K Advani & Murli Manohar Joshi out of the limelight. The transformation was complete in 1999 when after two aborted attempts at providing stable governance in 1996 & 1998, BJP & its 23 other allies came to power and completed a full term, the first non-Congress government to do so in 58 years since independence.

In India coalitions at both national & state-level have so far been mostly a loose confederation of parties, coming together either just before or immediately after elections & mostly for opportunistic, tactical reasons to assume power. Coalitions so far have normally not been based on ideology, and parties not tied to a common ideology are less likely to stick together through thick & thin. Examples of this abound, like in 1977-80, 1989-91, and 1996-98 at the national level. Opportunistic alliances have been the norm rather than an exception in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous & politically most significant state and also in several other states from time to time.

This is the reason that coalitions in India break down often midway through the term or sometimes immediately after elections if the coalition does not do well enough to get a chance to govern. Notable exceptions to the rule, however, have been seen in West Bengal & Kerala where the coalitions have done well over the years and have stood the test of time. West Bengal has been ruled by a coalition government led by CPI(M) unchanged for close to the last 30 years. A good case in point is also Kerala, where LDF led by CPI(M) & UDF led by Congress are the two major political forces, both stable coalitions based on ideology.

National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was formed by the BJP in an attempt to come over its political untouchability. BJP was able to get strong regional parties to join the coalition once it distanced itself from its core demands of -

• Building of Ram temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya
• Scrapping of Article 370 conferring special status to the disputed state of Jammu & Kashmir
• Uniform Civil Code to be applied for people of all religions across India. This was to prevent Muslims from having their own separate personal law

BJP recognized these points as extremely controversial & dispensable in the short to medium-term with a view to gain acceptability with the larger electorate & also with other political parties. The 3 core demands of the BJP, and its major election planks, while eminently debatable in terms of their legality and use to the common man, were without doubt chosen with a particular community’s feelings in mind. Shedding these issues made BJP more acceptable to the people, and associating with the BJP was then seen as a lesser evil by other political parties. See ‘tactical voting’ in my previous posts.

Another important reason why BJP found it easy to get allies once it shed its communal tag was that most of its allies, strong regional parties, fought directly against Congress in their respective states. Congress-baiting was where they had common views & it was politically convenient to be aligned at the national-level with a group fighting against Congress, their main opponent in the state. This was especially true in the four southern states, where BJP was virtually non-existent as a political force, whereas Congress was fighting strong regional parties in almost all the states. Congress, on account of being a broad-based national party, lost out in that sense to BJP in the early days of coalition politics as it was still fashionable to be anti-Congress.

Only when BJP was close to completing its term in office that it had started becoming fashionable to be anti-BJP & also by that time Congress had weakened considerably in many states, so it was ok for Congress to agree to be a junior partner to strong regional parties in several states (especially in northern India) and a broad-based Congress-led alliance came into being.

The two major broad-based coalitions, the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) led by the Congress & the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led by BJP have matured with time & have come to stay. Regional parties now realize that their options are limited outside either of these blocks. This is evident in the fact that there have been minimal desertions from the NDA even after it lost the national elections. Talks of a third-front have not really gained momentum, and its highly unlikely they ever will, as the parties left out of the two major blocks will be forced to join one of the two or gradually become politically insignificant.

This ‘stabilizing’ of Indian coalition politics, however, is not without its pitfalls. As the two coalitions arrange themselves with broadly distinguishable social & economic goals & policies, and annihilate all other viewpoints slowly but surely in the Indian polity, the ordinary Indian voter would be forced to make a choice between just the two options. This is predicted by the Duverger’s theorem (see the post on FPTP).

The reason why I am really bothered about the gradual consolidation of political viewpoints is not just that I like to have more options. I am also not happy with the two major options that are provided to me.

NDA is a coalition largely made up of Congress-baiters & reformist parties such as BJP, BJD, TDP (outside support), Janata Dal (United) etc. and right-wing parties such as BJP, Shiv Sena, Akali Dal etc. The broad ideology of NDA can be categorized as Rightist Reformist, on the lines of its major social & economic policies. NDA government at the centre was mostly reformist & globalizing & most serious voices against aggressive reforms came mainly from the RSS-loyal leaders of BJP. Though the bias was only moderately right-wing thanks to leaders such as Vajpayee in power, communial bias in case of Gujarat riots is now being investigated.

In contrast, the UPA is largely made up of Congress & non-competing allies (mostly regional socialist parties such as RJD, Lok Janshakti, JMM, NCP & TRS. SP & BSP provide outside support.) apart from a big dependence on the left. The dependence on the left is likely to continue across multiple elections as they are well-entrenched in their political constituency & any political arithmetic for UPA would not work without their support even in the long term. Indeed, the influence of the Left parties on UPA is obvious in the name itself ('Progressive' a word with strong leftist connotations is their middle name). The composition of UPA points to a strong Leftist Secular bias for UPA. Leftist parties are largely atheist, & socialist parties such as BSP denounce India's major religion, opting for Buddhism as their philosophical leader B R Ambedkar did several decades ago. Their social policies are largely anti-reform (euphemistically referred to as pro-poor) and thus anti FDI & anti globalization in general.

As the options available to the Indian voter largely converge to either Leftist Secular or Rightist Reformist, voters with an ideology different from either of the above have nowhere to go. For example, I would have loved to have a government that was Reformist Secular, which was aggressive on reforms, had a foreign policy based on national interest but was secular & faith-sensitive, if not faith-neutral. Somebody else might want to support Rightist Anti-reform, but (s)he too has no choice but to choose one of the two options available. Convergence of political views will provide stability, but is bound to marginalize minority viewpoints. It is important that we provide a democratic vent to these viewpoints & the emotions attaced with them, or else India might be on its way to some more trouble in the years to come.

An addendum to 'FPTP - about time we got past it ?'

I felt my previous blog focused too much on the ills of FPTP and the need to change it but did not go enough into the alternatives. So here it is...

PR method of voting allows for apportioning of seats in proportion to the votes received for a political party or group of parties. PR list methods could either be with an open list (the electorate votes for the candidates as well as the party) or closed list (the party approtions the seats within its members in a way it deems fit). Coalitions would still continue in the PR method of voting, infact become even more indispensable than now. Greater maturity among political parties under PR method of voting (if seen) should lessen the burden of instability on the electorate, while carrying all major sections of the polity together.

Run-off methods are normally used for single winner elections, where the winner is chosen in a multiple set of elections (the weak performers in the initial rounds of voting drop out to support stronger candidates, normally joining their cabinet in return). Instant Run-off method (IRV) is a condensed variant of the Run-off method. It uses a single round of voting (and thus is just as cheap & fast as FPTP) but voters can rank candidates. Single-winner elections are normally used successfully when the entire country is a single constituency (like in countries with executive presidency) and this means India moves from being a parliamentary form of government to some variant of a presidential form of government. Majority would get a chance to rule, & minority would get its pie as well, when it chooses to support the majority candidate. While this will ensure stability, Run-off methods, though fairer than FPTP, do not provide safeguards against tactical voting & elective dictatorships.

A mixed method of voting such as Parallel voting or Additional Member System and combines the best points of PR system & plurality system (such as FPTP) but as Arrow's impossibility theorem (see below) states, no system can be without faults, and unless the Indian government really shows the will to make changes, India is likely to live with FPTP for a long time to come.

First past the post system - about time we got past it ?

India being a multiparty democracy, one would think that the average Indian voter is spoilt for choice. There are a multitude of registered political parties, representing pretty much the entire demographic & social landscape of the country. These parties operate at different levels – some at a state or regional level, others are national. To look at a comprehensive list of all registered political parties (about 800 !)in India, see here.

One would think every political view would be accommodated in India’s multiparty democracy, where the aspirations of its peoples of different region, caste, race, language & religion can be voiced & would be heard. This, unfortunately, is not quite so because of a faulty voting method.

India follows the Westminster model of parliamentary democracy, where the electorate elects members into the parliament at the national level & legislatures at the state level, and they in turn elect the Prime Minister & the Chief Minister for the country & state respectively. The Prime Minister / Chief Minister then chooses his council of ministers to work along with him in the government & they work with collective responsibility. A good article on the basic structure of the Indian Government is here.

Now the critical part in the whole system of Indian democracy is how the directly elected legislators actually win an election. India follows the system of the ‘First past the post’ or FPTP, where the candidate polling the most number of votes (irrespective of whether that constitutes a majority or not) wins. FPTP is described really well here & here. A specific explanation of why FPTP was chosen and is applied in India is found here. The article also talks about how FPTP has historically ensured stable governments in India (till 1977) and also talks about distortions that came about due to FPTP in 1977, 1989 & 1996 where the ruling Congress party lost heavily despite not doing so badly in terms of proportion of votes.

FPTP system is one of the simplest systems of voting, and is especially useful in cases where the elctorate is largely illiterate and cannot understand fairer but more complex systems of voting. A good explanation of the advantages & disadvantages of FPTP is given here.

The advantages of FPTP are

• FPTP is fast & cheap to implement (vital for India's grand scale of elections)
• Easy to understand (Close to half of India's electorate remains illiterate)
• Eliminates extremist viewpoints from mainstream electoral politics (the reason why y0u would never see a Lashkar-e-Taiyba candidate standing in elections)

The disadvantages of FPTP are that it leads to

• Elimination of perfectly reasonable minority viewpoints as well, gradually leading to a two-party electoral system. See Duverger's law.
• FPTP also leads to disproportionality of representation (number of seats won is not in line with proportion of votes polled)
• Regionalism - Strong regional parties in concentrated areas emerging relatively stronger than broad-based national parties
• Tactical voting to ensure that 'lesser evil' candidates win
• Safe seats for politicians where a significant minority ensures that the majority of voters never get a representative elected
• Wipeouts & Clean sweeps are possible with small changes in proportion of votes polles
• Elective dictatorships - Massive majority in the parliament (in terms of seats) even with minority vote share
• Wasted votes - Not all votes need to be counted to determine the winner, especially if a candidate takes an assailable lead in the first few rounds of counting. This leads to wasted votes & feeling of disenfranchisement.
• Abstentation - A large portion of the electorate might believe their vote does not matter, especially in the cases of safe seats, leading to a feeling of disenfrachisement.
• FPTP allows Gerrymandering, i.e. redistricting of constituencies to suit political purposes

The disadvantages of FPTP are far too serious & far too many to be ignored any longer. The argument most often forwarded in the support of FPTP is that its the simplest method & any other method of voting would be too complicated for the large illiterate population of the country to understand. However, India's poor & illiterate largely remian disenfranchised even with FPTP either due to caste / religious leaders inciting them to vote for a particular party or due to abstentation. There has been significant debate in some countries whether its time to look beyond the FPTP, especially in the UK. Jenkins Commission was set up in UK in 1997 to propose alternative & fairer methods of voting. The recommendation, however, has not been accepted.

To understand what would be a good alternative to FPTP, it would be useful to take a look at other voting methods, the theory & maths behind them. Voting systems across the world are listed here. Arrow's impossibility theorem (Nobel Prize for Economics, 1972) demonstrates that no voting system can be perfect, as aggregation of a multitude of preferences is always going to result in a degree of irrationality & unfairness.

In India the First Past The Post system has led to the following -

• Regionalism - Strong regional parties have emerged, undermining the strength of broad-based national parties. Regional issues have become more important electoral issues than those of national importance.
• Two-party system - Duverger's law (see above) is being proven right as India moves from a multi-party democracy to loose coalitions to two large & somewhat cohesive coalitions with clearly identifiable & distinguishable social, economic & foreign policies. Even at the state level, multi-cornered contests are fast becoming rare
• Tactical voting is being seen especially in states where the elections are fought more on the lines of caste & religion than on development, e.g. 'Keep those communal guys out at any cost', 'Laloo should be defeated at all costs'; elections being reduced to 'vote against' politics rather than 'vote for'
• Wipeouts & Clean sweeps - Especially in the state of Tamil Nadu, where the entire electorate is deeply divided between the two major political parties
• Elective dictatorships - Nehru ruled with significant majority all through, there was not enough political opposition to his social & economic policies in his time. A stronger opposition (in terms of seats in the Lok Sabha) might have prevented some of his mistakes from happening. Indira Gandhi (1971-75) and Rajiv Gandhi (1984-89) ruled with such massive majority but failed miserably. Indira Gandhi had imposed Emergency by the end of her term; Rajiv Gandhi lost badly in 1989 due to Bofors & other reasons to be out of office.
• Safe seats - Bellary, Amethi, Rai Bareily have remained Congress bastions, irrespective of local or national issues, candidate fielded etc. Similarly several seats for other national & regional parties, where consecutive elections have returned the candidate of the same party, irrespective of the candidate & issues.
• Gerrymandering - In India, the exercise of delimitation of constituencies is now on. Though sufficient safeguards have been provided in the Delimitation Act, I would not be surprised if allegations fly thick & fast of politically-motivated actions by the Delimitation Commission.

FPTP, the cheapest of the voting methods around today, still costs about Rs. 1000 crores (about US$ 225 million) for a general election. FPTP is no longer fast either, as due to massive criminalization of politics, general elections are often spread over more than a month to manage the logistics of massive armed forces depolyment to ensure free & fair elections. Elimination of extremist views from electoral politics has actually proved counterproductive, as such agenices have now resorted to alternative (almost always violent) methods of ensuring that their voice is heard.

Though FPTP is supposed to lead to stable governments, coalition politics in India has ensured most governments are too pre-occupied with self-sustenance to bother about mundane things like good governance & development. In the last 16 years, India has had 9* governments, only 2** of which managed to last their entire term. Not once did any political party or pre-poll alliance achieve simple majority in 6 general elections since 1989. Coalition governments always pay the 'democracy tax' on their performance.

This shows that FPTP has not been able to provide stability to the nation, has not come cheap & has not been fast. An alternative system, either a variant of Proportional Representation (PR) or a Run-off method of voting would atleast be a lot fairer to the electorate than FPTP and would provide the necessary voice to India's significant minority.

* The 9 governments are those headed by V P Singh, Chandrashekhar, P V Narasimha Rao, A B Vajpayee, H D Devegowda, I K Gujral, A B Vajpayee, A B Vajpayee & Manmohan Singh. Manmohan Singh-led government is currently in office.

** The 2 governments that completed their terms were those headed by P V Narasimha Rao (1991-96) & the third government formed by A B Vajpayee (1999-2004).

Gaurav Sabnis is popular !!

Was just curious to see how popular Gaurav Sabnis has become on the net since his IIPM expose. He was a popular blogger even earlier, and though I have no idea how popular he was before the expose, he certainly seems to have been climbing the popularity charts ever since. A search on Gaurav Sabnis on Google yields 110,000 results !!

Comparing that with net popularity of Indian celebrities, one can check that Mahatma Gandhi, Manmohan Singh & Aishwarya Rai have about 2 and a half million links each, Shahrukh Khan has about 1 and a half million. Surprisingly, India's most popular Bollywood actor ever, Amitabh Bachchan has just about 728,000 links against his name. Clearly he is not as popular among the netizens as Aishwarya or Shahrukh are. Cricketers Sachin, Sourav & Rahul are all around 400 - 550,000 links. Rahul Gandhi, a 'youth icon' has about 228,000 links against his name, or just about twice those against Gaurav Sabnis.

Indian celebrities are way behind Americans, though, thanks to better internet access in the West. Indeed, most of the American celebrities are pretty much 'world celebrities' as well and that has helped. In contrast, Indian celebrities are virtually unknown outside India.

George Bush has 112 million links... phew !! Guess you would find a lot of the Dubyaman jokes in all those links ;). Pop star Michael Jackson has 55 million links against his and Britney Spears has 14 million links against her name. David Beckham is about 10 times as popular as Sachin is on the net, with over 4.3 million hits against his name. Indian actors Aishwarya & Shahrukh are way behind their counterparts as well with Tom Cruise at about 14 million links & Julia Roberts at about 7.4 million.

How able is our Union Cabinet?

The current Union Cabinet has quite a few people who are not popularly elected. This is not to say that members of the Rajya Sabha (Rajya Sabha members are elected either indirectly or are nominated by the President) should not become ministers, but it becomes a bit too much if 4 of the 6 major cabinet posts in the current Government are filled by people not popularly elected. One of the other two, though a veteran, won his first Lok Sabha election in 2004. What is worse, most of these seniormost cabinet ministers have never been popular political leaders in their entire political careers. This would have still been passable if all or a good proportion of them were doing their jobs well. Some of them are indeed highly qualified, though not necessarily suitable for their job. Though only 3 of these 6 senior ministers have been Congressmen all their lives, all of them have always been 'respectful' to the Nehru-Gandhi family. The average age of these six senior ministers is over 70, with the youngest being Mr. Chidambaram at 60. All others are over 70 years old. The high proportion of Congress old-timers holding important posts at the government shows that loyalty (read sycophancy & coterie politics) works at the very top in India’s ruling party.

Right at the top of the Union Government is Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, a former RBI Governer & Professor at Delhi School of Economics. He was brought into active politics about 15 years ago and has since managed to maintain his respect for being a good economist and generally clean, though the performance of his government since he took over in May 2004 has left much to be desired. He suffers from the double handicap of being a political light-weight in his party as well as not being a popular leader among masses. His lone attempt to get elected to the Lok Sabha from the posh & well-educated South Delhi constituency in 1999 was disastrous enough to persuade him to never contest again. He wouldn’t have been Prime Minister if Sonia Gandhi wasn’t foreign born and he was a bigger political force. Mr. Manmohan Singh was a good candidate as a Congress Prime Minister, in the event Sonia Gandhi couldn’t make it, because he was such a light-weight and uncontroversial person that he was easily acceptable to most factions in the party. This is precisely the reason why the likes of Pranab Mukherjee & Arjun Singh could not make it to the hot seat this time. This was the same reason that led to Late Mr. P V Narasimha Rao being cajoled back from retirement to become India’s 9th Prime Minister as influential & popular mass leaders such as Sharad Pawar, Arjun Singh, Madhavrao Scindia & also Pranab Mukherjee were all vying for the Prime Minister’s chair after Rajiv Gandhi’s death.

This is not to say that Congress has a long list of popular leaders with a mass base that they can use to win elections on their own. Pranab Mukherjee, an extremely influential leader in the Congress Party & Defense Minister of the country, also often seen as No. 2 in the union cabinet after Mr. Manmohan Singh, is a virtual political non-entity in his home state of West Bengal. His party is often a distant third in the state, far behind the Left combine which has ruled the state uninterrupted for close to 30 years now and Trinamool Congress, a breakaway section of Congress party led by Mamata Banerjee. He has won Lok Sabha elections just once (in 2004) in his long political career.

Natwar Singh, the just deposed External Affairs Minister, was probably one of the most qualified for his job. As a career diplomat, and having been loyal all through to the Nehru-Gandhi family of the Congress he would have been the best to take up the role of India’s Foreign Affairs minister. Instead, he shot off his mouth every so often, as documented in the post below. He had to relinquish his portfolio yesterday, after the Volcker report controversy. He won elections just twice from his home state of Rajasthan in a political career spanning close to 25 years. He is currently a member fo the Rajya Sabha & a minister without portfolio, and is facing a judicial probe into the Volcker Committee allegations.

Shivraj Patil, one of the more popular leaders of the Party in his state of Maharashtra, and currently the Home Minister (Minister of Internal Security / Secretary of State) of India should really have not been on the list, for he had won 7 consecutive Lok Sabha elections and was a member of the Lok Sabha from 1980-2004. However, he managed to surprise himself, his party & even his political opponents by losing elections from the Latur constituency just when it mattered most. ‘Loyalty’ won him the day, and the Former Speaker of Lok Sabha (1991-96) was catapulted to one of the most important jobs in the country. Unfortunately, his performance has not been anywhere close to inspiring, as per both independent assessors, like here & here and his Prime Minister, who reportedly gave him less than satisfactory performance grades for his first year performance.

Arjun Singh, once a popular leader from Madhya Pradesh & a claimant to the country’s top executive post 15 years ago, is now a poor shadow of his former self. Old & quite senile, he is spending his days in the HRD ministry doing things that are exactly the opposite of whatever his predecessor, Mr. Murli Manohar Joshi of the BJP did in his term. After losing 3 consecutive general elections (1996-99), he stopped contesting popular polls & is now a member of the House of Elders.

In sharp contrast to the other senior ministers in Manmohan Singh’s cabinet, P Chidambaram, India's Finance Minister is a popular leader in his constituency. His standing in the entire state of Tamil Nadu is insignificant, however, as in a state dominated by Dravidian politics, the Harvard-educated Chidambaram remains very much an outsider. Chidambaram, however is seen as one of those ministers who came to have the Finance Minister's post not because of his 'loyalty' to the Congress or the Nehru-Gandhi family but due to his sheer ability and track record as a previous Commerce Minister (1991-96) & Finance Minister (1996-98). He is being seen as doing reasonably good work, within the limitations of coalition politics and is a member of an extremely qualified team. However, he is not a trained economist unlike the other members of the team, Dr. Manmohan Singh (see above), Montek Singh Ahluwalia (Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission) & Dr. Y V Reddy (Governer, Reserve Bank of India). When compared to most of his predecessors, however, Mr. Chidambaram is extremely erudite & open to reason.

To look at pretty good article on how these senior ministers & some more in the Union Cabinet have performed in the last year & a half of UPA government, follow this link.

Time to make a move, Mr. Natwar

Things have moved quickly in the last 24 hours, and they have changed from bad to worse for Mr. Natwar Singh, India's Foreign Minister. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who had looked like supporting Mr. Natwar Singh initially has clearly changed his mind after a lot more damaging evidence came to light. The latest move from the Prime Minister pretty much clears the deck for a dishonorable exit for the foreign minister.

It is indeed sad, however, on the state of Indian democracy that it has taken a major corruption allegation to make Mr. Singh go, but not because of tons of foreign policy faux pas that he has kept making ever since he took over as India's foreign minister last year, as documented here, here, here and here.

Mr. Natwar Singh continues to hold is ground and says that the Volcker Committee report is politically motivated, with the US being vindictive against people close to Saddam Hussein & his Baath Party. His main argument remains that several countries around the world have rejected the report, but this does not stand because Volcker Committee Report does indeed blame over 2000 individuals & entities in 66 countries around the world for having taken part in the Oil-for-food scam, and it is obvious that most of them have rejected the report, as did Mr. Natwar Singh in an interview with NDTV 24x7.

Quite clearly, the fact-finding committee & the Judicial inquiry committee would take many months, maybe years to come out with a final report, and even after it does, to conclusively prove the guilt of Mr. Natwar Singh & others is something that might take decades or it may even never happen. It might very well be that Mr. Natwar Singh made no mistake knowingly, but a tainted Foreign Minister with an international scam staring at his face is too big a burden for the Government to carry. He has lost the moral authority to continue as a minister in the Indian Government, much less as the Foreign Minister of India.

To ensure that the Government of India retains its credibility, Mr. Natwar Singh must be asked to go in no uncertain terms. This is all the more important since Mr. Natwar Singh, as the Foreign Minister, is technically the boss Mr. Virendra Dayal, who has been appointed as the Head of the Inquiry Committee to probe into the allegations made by Volcker Committee. Mr. Dayal, as a special envoy of the Government of India to the UN would liase with the UN, its members & the Volcker committee to collect relevant material which would be the pre-cursor to the judicial probe into the allegations.

Six decades of Indian Foreign Policy - A critique

India foreign policy in the Nehruvian era (Jawahar Lal Nehru, the First Prime Minister of Independent India) was guided by Prime Minister Nehru’s (1947-64) often misplaced sense of idealism. It was not until more than 50 years after independence that Indian policy-makers started seeing foreign policy as an instrument to advance the country’s national interest.

In the Nehruvian era India saw itself as a savior of fellow poor & just-independent Afro-Asian nations, most of who were of little use to India at any major world forum. India was happy to be a rallying point for these countries, often fledgling democracies aping Indian / Soviet systems of governance. The Non-Aligned Movement led by Tito & Nehru which started as a mechanism to protect the interest of these third-world countries as against the developed world was a natural outgrowth of this line of thought.

India could have very well have become a part of the first world, exerting power & prestige as did China which had a similar just-independent status in the 1940s. It was by choice that Nehru’s India became a poor man’s champion and itself a member of the poor, third-world block. Foreign policy in those days was seen as an instrument of advancing Gandhian principles at world forums to anybody who cared to listen, which was almost always the same Afro-Asian nations whose cause India so dearly espoused.

The socialist hangover continued with successive governments for much of the second half of the 20th century. India was for total destruction of WMDs, a laudable but impossible goal; India often sided with the poor Arab countries, who were against the might of US & Israel. All matters of multilateral importance were battles of David vs. Goliath, and India invariably sided with the underdog.

These governments were led mostly by the Nehru-Gandhi family of the Indian National Congress, which ruled India through its first fifty years of independence almost uninterrupted. The symbolism was not lost on anybody when almost 50 years after independence, and long after Nehru was consigned to history books, Congress’s first non-Nehru-Gandhi Prime Minister Mr. Narasimha Rao (1991-96) paid a visit to Burkina Faso, offering technological & financial aid to a country that most Indians would be hard pressed to find on the World Map.

Even though India was proud to proclaim its non-alignment, there was little doubt in the minds of Western governments, not without reason, that India tilted more than a little towards Soviet Union. India often voted with USSR & its allies, and that led US & its allies to encourage Pakistan to act as a counter to India in the South Asia region.

In economic policies too, Nehruand his daughter Indira Gandhi (1966-77 & 1980-84) focused on self-sufficiency rather than increase its pie in international trade. India’s share in world trade had dropped from about 2.4% in 1951 to about 0.4% in 1980. India bet heavily on creating a large, mostly inefficient public enterprise while allowing private enterprise to continue with massive restrictions. Profit was a dirty word in these days & most large banks were nationalized in 1969 by Indira, and by & large private participation was stifled. A notable exception was agriculture, which remained entirely in private hands. That agriculture did exceedingly well under private hands to help India attain self-sufficiency in food-grain production was often overlooked. Green revolution in India was however, brought on into India by government intervention through the then agriculture minister Mr. C S Subramanium, as well as through the enterprise of small & big farmers across several states in India, who accepted the risk of using his imported seeds.

Even after India was forced to start opening up its markets under pressure from the World Bank in 1991, which saw it coming out of its worst economic crisis, its foreign policy was largely confused & directionless and not related to its economic goals & aspirations. USSR had just disintegrated, & Russia was grappling with its own massive problems in the aftermath of the break-up of the Soviet Union. US was fighting its first war in Iraq, and India sided with Iraq, offering ‘moral support’ to the people of Iraq, while stopping from condemning the act of US. Russia remained the sole supplier of almost all kinds of defense equipment to India.

The impracticality of the Non Aligned Movement, had however dawned on policymakers all over, and the movement was all but dead with the demise of Soviet Union and as the world became largely uni-polar. India under Prime Minister Rao did seriously contemplate detonating a nuclear device, but had to abort plans as it buckled under intense US pressure at crunch time.

The two short-lived third front Governments that followed were around for too brief a time and were too dependent on the Congress prop-up to make too much of an impact on foreign policy. However, it was during the time of Prime Minister Inder Gujral (1997-98) that foreign policy was accorded for the first time in India’s history the importance that it deserves. A Foreign Minister in two previous governments, Inder Gujral showed a glimpse to India what foreign policy can do for a nation, when used with sound judgment. His bilateral parleys with the then Prime Minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif brought the two warring countries back to the discussion table after a long hiatus and started a peace process, which was to be cruelly halted months after Inder Gujral stepped down.

The idea that defense & foreign policy were deeply interlinked was however brought in by Gujral’s successor, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, and his Foreign Minister, Mr. Jaswant Singh. Nuclear deterrence, national interest, no-first-strike became part of the Indian Foreign Minister’s vocabulary for perhaps the first time, after India detonated five nuclear devices between May 11, 2005 & May 13,2005. India, the land of Gandhi & Buddha, was a nuclear power. And the face of Indian foreign policy was changed irrevocably with this single event.

It was only when the right-wing nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led coalition, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) came into power that India began asserting itself as an independent power, capable of thinking for itself and able to take decisions with its ‘selfish’ national interest in mind. The decision to take India nuclear with the Pokhran tests has to be the single most momentous strategic foreign policy decision in India’s reasonably uneventful political existence for nearly 60 years since its independence. When compared with "When I don't make a decision, it's not that I don't think about it. I think about it and make a decision not to make a decision." Prime Minister Rao, Vajpayee and his allies had shown tremendous resilience & gumption to take a decision and go through with it.

This decision did bring on tremendous political & economic hardship on the country & its peoples, the fallout including Pakistan detonating six nuclear devices compared to India’s five before the end of the same month. Almost every country that mattered announced economic & political sanctions, and before long India was engaged in a bloody battle with Pakistan in Kargil. What saved India and saw it being treated differently from say, the way an Iran, Iraq or North Korea have been treated was its size, its strategic geographic location and its increasing economic might. Indian diaspora in the US & many other countries lobbied hard for an early easing of sanctions. That the then occupant in White House (Bill Clinton, 1992-2000) was a Democrat & loved curry should have helped somewhere, as is the case with most White House decisions. The high-level exchanges that followed between Strobe Talbott & Jaswant Singh (memoirs here) set out the path for a speedy return of India to the world, with India now bargaining hard from a somewhat equal position to get the most concessions out of the world community.

By the time Vajpayee’s tenure at the Center came to an end, India had mended its ties with most countries in the world, most types of sanctions had been lifted, and India was at least tacitly accepted as a nuclear power. Nuclear deterrence had helped surprisingly well, with both India & Pakistan pledging to work hard to ensure South Asia did not turn into a nuclear flashpoint. The course of Indian foreign policy, in six years, had been altered enough to ensure an about-turn is just about impossible. The focus on pragmatism & national interest, as opposed to the fancied idealism in the past is something that is tough, well nigh impossible to alter for many years.

India now exports defense equipment to a few countries, it now imports advanced jet trainers & other sophisticated equipment from many countries, including France, US, Russia, UK & Israel.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (2004-Current) is an economist by training and a political light-weight. There is little doubt that real political power is wielded by the Congress Party leader, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi. Mr. Singh is an expert on economic policy, is well read on the subject and is credited with turning around India from one of its deepest economic crises in 1991. His being an expert in a particular area of government policy, however, is a hindrance to his Government’s performance in other areas of government policy. It is unlikely that Mr. Singh would be remembered as a statesman, somebody who was able to influence national policy (foreign & otherwise) and left his own unique stamp on governance. His being an expert in a particular area & non-committal in other areas of policy & governance, apart from his being a political light-weight has however meant that policy decisions are more decentralized and made at the respective ministries than ever before, and this should be good in the long run, as some of sort of an insurance against future incompetent leaders of Government.

Most of his foreign policy decisions are left to the experienced Natwar Singh, who has continued on the philosophy of national interest first. India demonstrated a UN Security Council seat is more important than the friendship of old friend Iran, ruffling quite a few feathers democratically. The current dispensation lacks the numbers in the Indian Parliament to carry out any significant changes in the India foreign policy. Left wing support is crucial for the continuance in power of the current dispensation & hence the influence of Left parties on foreign policy would not be insignificant.

It is however, important to remember that the national foreign policy must be dictated by long-term strategic goals rather than tactical goals of getting a permanent seat at the UNSC by a particular deadline. Subtle changes must be effected in foreign policy as per the world order rather than as knee-jerk reactions to isolated events.

Only in recent years have Indian policymakers realized that economic policy, defense policy & foreign policy are more closely-linked than was thought earlier. Foreign policy should be guided by national interest. The two major pillars of national interest of a nation are its defense needs & economic development goals. Long-term economic goals & medium & long-term defense needs should guide the national foreign policy, rather than any altruistic or idealistic goals.