Recollections of a Deepavali holiday, 60 years ago

Kasturi Buildings on Anna Salai, Chennai, which houses the offices of The Hindu.  

In 1956, Deepavali fell on November 1. As usual, it was a closed holiday for The Hindu. That meant there would be no paper the next day. The previous day the management circulated the customary holiday notice. Britain and France, which were annoyed with President Gamal Abdul Nasser who nationalized the Suez Canal, had begun air raids on Egypt and the Government of India had set November 1 for inauguration of the linguistic States to be formed in the light of the States Reorganization Commission’s report.  

I thought it was a pity that the paper was taking a holiday when such developments were taking place and felt it should at least make arrangements to bring out a supplement. A lowly sub-editor with just three years’ experience, in the highly hierarchical Hindu establishment I was too small a fry to broach the idea to the management. I, therefore, conveyed my view to S. Rangarajan, the youngest and most dynamic of the three News Editors who preside over the News Room.  I suggested that the management should make arrangements to bring out a supplement and alert the news agents about it so that they would collect the bundles and distribute the paper.

S. Rangarajan

SR (in the Hindu editorial department everyone was known by initials) liked the suggestion and told me he would talk to the management about it.  A little later he informed me that the management had accepted the suggestion and arrangements were being made to produce a thin edition. I was happy that my suggestion had been accepted. But my happiness was short-lived. SR told me a little later that the management had had second thoughts and there would be no special edition.

To avoid having to handle news copy of two days the day after a holiday The Hindu had devised a system which involved a small group of sub-editors processing the copy on the holiday. They were not required to come to the office for that. An office boy would bring the copy to the house and take it back after editing, to be typeset during the night. The work may take an hour at the most but they would get a full day off as compensation for having worked on a holiday! I was put on holiday duty but I told the Head Messenger not to send copy to my house as I planned to come to the office in the evening.

On arrival at the office the next evening I went through the agency files. There was a flood of news. A sunken ship had blocked the Suez Canal. Israeli forces had crossed into Egypt. For the first time the UN General Assembly had been called on 24-hour notice to discuss the situation. Egypt’s supporters had moved the General Assembly as Britain and France could block any Security Council initiative using their veto power. Jawaharlal Nehru, who inaugurated the Andhra Pradesh State at Hyderabad, in a hard-hitting speech, condemned the aggression against Egypt, calling it a throwback to the days of barbarism.

I telephoned SR and gave him a gist of the developments. I told him the management had made a mistake in giving up the plan to bring out a supplement. He said he would talk to the management again and asked me to wait at the office. SR called back soon to say that the management had accepted the idea of a special edition. He asked me to stay on and said he would arrange with the Time Keeper to send a vehicle to fetch a Batch Leader (that was how Chief Sub-Editors were known in the paper at that time) and two more Sub-Editors.

Rangaswami Parthasarathy

As I was talking to SR I saw Rangaswami Parthasarathy (MP), a Batch Leader, walking in. (Since the initials RP had already been taken, when he moved to The Hindu from The Mail, he was assigned the initials MP, short for Mail Parthasarathy). SR spoke to MP who was only glad to stay on to produce the special edition.

In those days The Hindu used to carry classified advertisements on the front page. Even the biggest story of the day got only a single column headline, but it could have three decks of 24 pt, 14 pt and 18 pt, in that order.

Since there were no classified ads, we could carry news on the front page of the supplement. Having worked in The Mail, MP was familiar with multi-column headlines.

“How about a banner?” MP asked me. “Wouldn’t the Editor get a heart attack?” I asked him. “We will take that risk,” he said.  

                                           

MP also broached the idea of a box item. So I picked an item to be boxed.

Stories on the formation of new states came in from different capitals. MP asked me to produce a combined intro for the news agency copy on the subject. I wrote something like this: The map of India was redrawn today ….

The UN General Assembly’s special session was opening at 0130 hrs IST. A stenographer who had been summoned went to the room where there was a large, powerful radio set and tuned into a station which was relaying the UNGA proceedings, and we prepared a brief report of our own without waiting for news agency copy.

MP prepared a layout which provided for a big headline running across all eight columns of the front page.  The Suez war story ran in columns 1 to 3 and Nehru’s Hyderabad speech in columns 6 to 8. The states reorganization roundup was the bottom spread.

We produced a four-page edition. Late at night we realized that we have to mention the price at the top o the ront page. MP woke up SR to ask what price we should mention. He said he had to consult the management. Its decision was that the thin special edition should be sold at the same price as the regular edition.

I was entitled to take the next day off as I had done a night shift. But I decided to go to the oice in the evening as I was eager to know how the special edition had fared. When the bus reached the Egmore railway station I saw a hawker doing brisk business with the special edition.

At the office, SR told me that city distributors who were alerted by the Time Keeper during the night had come in the morning and picked up copies of the special edition . It sold like hot cakes all over the city and printing continued throughout the day as distributors kept coming back, asking for more copies. He had just advised the management to stop printing the special edition and start printing of the Dak editions of tomorrow's paper which had to be sent by night trains.   

An office messenger handed me a letter while I was there. It was from the Editor, Kasturi Srinivasan, expressing the management's appreciation of the work of the small team which had responded to an urgent call and helped produce a special edition at short notice.

On January 14, 1958 The Hindu started printing news on the front page. In a survey conducted the previous year, the newspaper had asked its readers whether they would like it to carry news on the front page.  Those favouring news on the front page had only a small majority. Considering that a large section of the readers was quite happy with classified ads on that page, it was decided to change gradually. The layout pattern drawn up provided initially for only three two-column headlines on the front page: one at top of columns 1 and 2, another at top of columns 7 and 8, and the third somewhere at the bottom of the middle columns.     

For more on S. Rangarajan please see this report.  

More on Rangaswami Parthasarathy here.

Here are images of special editions on the Suez War brought out by two Los Angeles newspapers.

   

 

         









Note the use of “Allied” in the headline. Britain, France and Israel had issued an identical

communiqué simultaneously from their capitals, announcing the launch of the attack on Egypt. It referred to their forces as Allied forces. This communiqué was the only source of information for the Indian press as the national news agency depended on Reuters of Britain and AFP of France for foreign news. World War II, in which British India had figured among the Allies, was only 11 years behind at that time, and the use of the term Allies in the reports which the Indian newspapers carried attracted criticism. The US was not involved in the attack on Egypt.  Yet the LA newspapers too used the term Allies to refer to the aggressors. 

Clueless in Kashmir

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Fifteen weeks after restive youth threw life in Kashmir out of gear in a wave of unprecedented protest parts of the valley are still under curfew. Where the curfew has been lifted, orders prohibiting assembly of people are in force. Schools and colleges are closed and shops shut. Some government offices are not functioning. 

In some places, policemen abandoned their posts. A few instances of snatching of weapons by protesters were reported, and 10 policemen were sacked for giving up their weapons without offering resistance.

The wave of unrest was touched off by Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani’s death in an encounter with the police on July 8. Young people, many of them in their teens, poured into the streets and stoned security personnel who replied with pellets. 

The supposedly non-lethal pellets have taken about 90 lives and injured more than 14,000 people. Pellets have blinded at least 100 youths. Two policemen have also been killed.

About 7,000 people are said to be in custody. They include several hundred detained under the Public Safety Act which allows the authorities to hold persons considered security risks without trial for up to two years.

Even as Central and state police were coping with the disturbance, cross-border terrorism flared up. In response to the attack on the Uri base, which resulted in the death of 19 soldiers, the army struck at terrorist launch pads across the LOC, killing two Pakistani soldiers and an unspecified number of terrorists.

Hardly a day has passed since then without firings across the LOC. Most of the exchange of fire caused only low casualties but last week retaliatory Indian fire killed seven Pakistani security personnel. 

The deterioration in India-Pakistan relations led to shelving of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit in Islamabad and mutual recrimination at the UN. Also, both the countries launched diplomatic campaigns to garner international support.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s bid to internationalise the Kashmir issue once again failed. So did Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s bid to isolate Pakistan. The US backed India’s call to dismantle terror camps in Pakistan but was not willing to brand it a terrorist state. China was even more protective of Pakistan. It would not even let the UN dub Pakistan-based Masood Azhar, whom India has identified as the mastermind behind the Mumbai attacks, as a terrorist.

In the recent past, prompted by India’s growing economic clout, the West was getting out of the habit of equating it with Pakistan. By juxtaposing Kashmir with Baluchistan and human rights violations on this side of the border with those on the other side, Modi has unwittingly put the two on the same level. 

As the unrest in the valley drags on and its shadow on India-Pakistan relations persists, a question arises: what next? The protagonists have no answer. 

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti cuts a forlorn figure as she urges protesters to go back, advises the police to hand-hold the misguided youth and pleads with Modi to walk the talk as the Bharatiya Janata Party’s first Prime Minister, AB Vajpayee, did. 

She heads a coalition comprising her People’s Democratic Party and Modi’s BJP. Under the agenda of governance drawn up by the two parties they are committed to “start a dialogue process with all shades of political opinion, including the separatists.” 

While Modi is vociferous on cross-border terrorism, he maintains studious silence on the youth unrest which has virtually eclipsed the Hurriyat Conference, the umbrella organisation of pro-Pakistan and pro-independence groups, which held the ground for several years. 

The youth movement is home-grown and leaderless. Alluding to the dangers inherent in the emergence of such a force, a Kashmiri commentator wrote last week: “Resist we will, resist we must, but if that resistance means turning men against men, denying people their livelihood, pushing society into an irrevocable chaos where anyone can attack anyone else, then our doom is sealed.” 

Not just the Kashmiris, but all concerned with the issue, which has been festering since the birth of India and Pakistan as free nations, are trapped in a no-win situation. The three wars the two countries fought did not yield a solution and it is foolish to imagine a fourth one will. The situation calls for out-of-the box thinking but there is no sign of it.

India has demonstrated its willingness and ability to hold territory. It needs to show it also has the ability to win the affection of the people who, by constitutional definition, are full and equal citizens of the secular, democratic republic of India. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, October 25, 2016

BRICS summit yields little

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

A verbose statement at the end of an international event is usually an attempt to cover up sparseness of the outcome. When high expectations are raised it may even become necessary to pad up public statement with platitudes to contain possible disenchantment.

The Goa declaration issued on Sunday at the end of the two-day summit of BRICS, a five-nation group (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) which accounts for 47 per cent of the world’s population, ran into more than 7,200 words. It is a good example of talking much and saying little. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi viewed the BRICS summit as yet another forum to use to carry forward the campaign to isolate Pakistan, which he launched after the attack on India’s army base at Uri.

Before the meet, there was a media campaign to make it appear that terrorism was the main issue before it. As soon as the meet ended, friendly media began propagating the idea that Modi had scored another great success in his campaign.

The Goa summit did condemn strongly terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and stress that there could be no justification whatsoever for any acts of terrorism. But, then, so did the summit held at Sanya, China, five years ago.

Of course, there was a reference to the terrorist attacks on India, which was as follows: “the recent several attacks against some BRICS countries, including that in India.” There was no mention of Pakistan or cross-border terrorism. How could they find their way into the joint statement when Pakistan’s best friend, China, is the BRICS member with the most economic clout? 

On the eve of the summit, the Chinese media had reported that there is no change in Beijing’s stand on India’s bid to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group and its demand that the UN brand Pakistan-based Masood Azhar a terrorist.

Realising that it cannot have its way at the summit, the Indian government played up the BIMSTEC (short for Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multisectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) outreach planned as part of the BRICS summit as more important than the summit itself. This grouping, which includes India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand and Sri Lanka, was in the limbo since its formation a few years ago. It suddenly became a favourite as it does not include Pakistan or China.

When BRICS took shape the economies of its members were growing at a fast pace and the International Monetary Fund had projected that by this year their combined GDP would exceed that of the US. The recent modest recovery enabled the US to raise its GDP to more than $18 trillion, but the BRICS total fell short of the projected figure as a result of slowing down of their economies. 

In the beginning, by virtue of the political traditions of its members, BRICS appeared to have the capacity to evolve as a group that can counter the influence of the US, the sole surviving superpower. The New Development Bank floated by BRICS was widely seen as an attempt to build an alternative to the US-dominated IMF.

BRICS’s presumed anti-American potential has dimmed with the recent change of government in Brazil and the cosy relationship Modi has forged with the US, exemplified by the military logistic agreement which the two countries signed recently. However, the lone superpower dispensation is palpably on the decline and new synergies are in evidence in many regions, including India’s neighbourhood. 

Russia has been moving close to China in recent months, and a few weeks ago it participated in military exercises in Pakistan. Taking into account India’s sensitivity, the Russians got the Pakistanis to shift the exercises out of the Gilgit area, which was under the control of the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir during the British period. But that was not enough to dispel India’s chagrin. 

Chinese President Xi Jinping came to Goa after visiting Bangladesh where he committed more than $23 billion for a slew of projects over the next five years. This is ten times more than what Modi offered when he went to Dhaka last year. China and Bangladesh signed 26 agreements and about 30 memoranda of understanding during the Xi visit. 

The summit itself may not have given Modi much to cheer but it became an occasion for renewal of Indo-Russian ties. Modi and President Vladimir Putin sang paeans of the special and privileged nature of their strategic partnership. The two countries also signed three big defence deals. ;; Gulf Today, Sharjah, October 18, 2016

Towards climate justice

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

With India’s ratification of the Paris climate accord on October 2, Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary, the world has moved closer to the goal of climate justice which appeared so distant only a few years ago. But there is still a long way to go and there are many hurdles to cross.

The accord, adopted last December at a conference attended by leaders of 185 countries, requires governments to draw up national plans to reduce gas emissions with a view to holding the rise in global temperatures below two degrees Centigrade.

India is set to replace China as the world’s most populous country shortly. Currently it is the fastest growing economy. It is already the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases and accounts for about 4.5 per cent of global emissions. 

The Paris accord will take effect only when 55 nations which together account for at least 55 per cent of global greenhouse emissions ratify it. The number threshold has been crossed already. In fact, India was the 62nd country to ratify the pact.

However, those who have ratified it so far account for less than 51.89 per cent of the emissions. The active promoters of the pact are keen to ensure that the second threshold is also crossed before the US elections in November as Republican candidate Donald Trump has threatened to pull his country out of the pact if he becomes the President. 

Nepal, Canada and seven European Union countries are expected to submit instruments of ratification to the UN this week. When they do, the second threshold of 52 per cent emission will be crossed.

The climate change issue had posed a big challenge to India, which had to strike a balance between its immediate developmental requirements and the need to limit gas emissions in the interest of humanity. 

It agreed to the terms of the Paris pact even though it was not fully satisfied with the provisions as it realised that it has a big stake in the issue in view of its high vulnerability to climate change impacts. A majority of Indians still depend on agriculture and related activities, and erratic monsoon often plays havoc in their lives. 

Initially, India, along with China, had placed more emphasis on its developmental requirements than on the need to check global warming, and insisted that it was the primary responsibility of the industrialised countries to bring down rising temperatures.

Many factors contributed to the Indian government’s decision to moderate its position. One of them was the sustained pressure mounted by the industrialised countries, particularly the US. It also came under increasing pressure from the less developed countries, which bear little responsibility for the deteriorating global situation but will suffer the most if things get worse.

Studies, which revealed how melting glaciers and rising sea levels resulting from global warming, can impact India’s huge population led to a better understanding of the situation and the need to act quickly. 

Ahead of the Paris meet, along with other countries, India had submitted to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change a list of contributions it intends to make during the 2021-2030 decade. In it the government committed itself to taking steps to reduce the emission intensity of its GDP to 30 to 35 per cent of the 2005 level. 

It also undertook to raise its renewable energy capacity to 175 GW by 2022, aided by transfer of technology and low-cost international finance from the Green Climate Fund and other sources. It agreed to provide for generation of at least 40 per cent of its electricity requirements from non-fossil sources by 2030.

Now the time has come or the country to take concrete steps to achieve the goals it has set for itself. The government has made plans to constitute eight sectoral missions for this purpose.

Three missions will aim at reducing gas emissions by raising production of solar energy, enhancing energy efficiency and developing sustainable habitat. Three others will take up the task of adapting new techniques with regard to water, environment protection and the Himalayan ecosystem. The remaining two will be designed to disseminate knowledge on sustainable agriculture and climate change strategy.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had hailed the Paris pact as a victory for climate justice. But all do not see it the same way.

India has sought $2.5 trillion in finance to implement the proposals it outlined in its report to the UN commission. But the chances of obtaining funds of that order do not appear bright at the moment. 

The funds the developed countries have committed so far to the Green Climate Fund add up to only $100 billion. Unless they step up contributions to the fund India will find it hard to fulfil the commitments it has made. -- gulf Today, Sharjah, October 11, 2016

Peace need of the hour

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Much of India is in a state of high alert as the country waits to see how Pakistan responds to last week’s “surgical strikes” on terrorist launch pads across the line of control in Jammu and Kashmir.

The Home Ministry asked all states to step up vigil at strategic installations, industrial complexes, crowded places, airports, historical monuments and government buildings. Delhi and the states of Rajasthan, Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Maharashtra and Gujarat were identified as possible targets for a retaliatory strike by the Pakistan army or terror outfits based in that country.

Villages within 10 kilometres of the border were evacuated. Punjab also closed down schools as a precautionary measure.

Officials indicated that the heightened alert may remain during the whole of October as three major Hindu festivals which see large congregations fall during the month – Navaratri from the 1st to the 10th, Dussehra on the 11th and Diwali on the 30th.

India’s announcement on Thursday that its armed forces had conducted surgical strikes on several terrorist launch pads in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir was followed by a warning by Pakistan Army chief General Raheel Sharif that his country would give a fitting response to any misadventure by its adversaries. Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed, whom India has identified as the mastermind behind the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, asked Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to let the army hit back.

Pakistan barred low-level overflying by foreign commercial aircraft, citing operational reasons. Viewing it as a move directed primarily against it, India was said to be considering the advisability of banning Pakistani overflights.

India’s bare initial announcement of the surgical strike and Pakistan’s confused response – on the one hand it denied there had been any such action and on the other it threatened reprisal –– raised some questions about the nature and scope of the operation. However, they appeared to satisfy hawkish elements in the two countries at least partially.

The army operation was a calibrated response to the September 18 terrorist attack on the Uri brigade headquarters which had taken the lives of 19 soldiers. It followed diplomatic moves to isolate Pakistan, which were only partly successful, and a threat to review the treaty on sharing of Indus waters.

Pakistan took no precipitate action and no one of consequence condemned the Indian strike. International response was limited to advice to both countries to resolve all problems through talks.

Internally, the surgical strike helped Prime Minister Narendra Modi to redeem his strongman image, and the opposition parties quickly rallied behind him. He desisted from displaying the braggadocio which often characterises his public utterances, leaving it to the party faithful to blow the trumpet.

However, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar could not resist the temptation to make a scornful remark. “Pakistan is in a state of coma, just like an anaesthetised patient after surgery,” he said. His Pakistani counterpart Khawaja Muhammad Asif who talked of exercising the nuclear option invited a sharp rebuke from the US.

But hawks on both sides kept war talk alive. India’s jingoistic electronic media played up the strike across the LoC as a game-changer, but responsible commentators endeavoured to put things in the right perspective. They pointed out that there had been similar strikes in the past and cautioned against rushing to the conclusion that cross-border terrorism is now a thing of the past.

Indian officials put the number of launch pads destroyed in the attack variously at six to eight. Analysts noted that the attacks were not on terrorist training camps, scores of which exist in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, but on launch pads which are places where trained terrorists halt briefly before being led across the LoC by guides.

Low-ranking ruling party politicians proclaimed the end of the policy of strategic restraint, but Modi and the army brass said nothing to that effect. In fact, they sought to convey a different message. While releasing information about the strike, the army had stressed that it was a one-time operation. In a speech on Sunday the Prime Minister said India did not covet anyone’s land and had never attacked another country.

A terrorist attack on adjoining army and Border Security Force camps at Baramula in the Kashmir valley showed that the game remains unchanged.

Amid the beating of war drums, leading public intellectuals in both the countries sounded notes of caution. Pratap Bhanu Mehta, head of the Centre for Policy Research, a New Delhi-based think tank, wrote: “...in both India and Pakistan, regimes have now tied the mast of their popular legitimacy to taking strong action against the other. That is not a reassuring thought.”  Asma Jahangir, Chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, tweeted: “Epidemic of insanity hits India and Pakistan again. No one wins a war. End terrorism and violence against each other and within our countries”. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, October 4, 2016.

Time to move from rhetoric to reality

BRP Bhaskar

Gulf Today

The daring cross-border attack on the Indian brigade headquarters at Uri in Kashmir, which left 17 dead and about 30 injured, several of them seriously, poses a severe challenge to the Narendra Modi regime even as it copes with the situation created by more than two months of civil unrest in the valley.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who has emerged as the government’s chief spokesman on Kashmir-related issues, blamed the attack on the “terrorist state” of Pakistan. Modi, in a tweet, assured the nation that those who were behind the despicable attack would not go unpunished.

The social media and television channels were abuzz with the informed and the uninformed offering Modi advice on what punishment to give. Suggestions from former army officers and diplomats ranged from calls for surgical strikes to passionate pleas for well-thought-through responses.

Terror groups have targeted military establishments on more than 10 occasions since the eruption of insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir in the early 1990s. In terms of casualties, the worst attack was the one staged by a gang of three at the Kaluchak cantonment in 2002 in which 31 persons were killed and 47 injured. Of the dead, three were army personnel, 18 were family members of army men and 10 were civilians.

The most audacious of all Kashmir-related terrorist actions was the 2001 attack on the Parliament House in New Delhi. Six police personnel, two Parliament security guards and a gardener were killed but no MP was even hurt. The government, headed by Bharatiya Janata Party leader AB Vajpayee, viewed the event as a proxy attack by Pakistan and drew up plans for a military response but did not go ahead with it.

The Uri attack was the second one this year. In January a group of terrorists had sneaked into the large air force base at Pathankot. The encounter that followed resulted in the death of six defence personnel. It was apparently a calculated attempt to derail the India-Pakistan peace process. Following the attack scheduled official level talks between India and Pakistan were cancelled.

Going by the government’s accounts, the terrorists directly involved in all these attacks were liquidated in the encounters that followed.

Since the Pathankot attack, with one thing leading to another, there has been continuous deterioration in India-Pakistan relations. In his Independence Day address on August 15, Modi, in a marked shift from the position taken by all previous governments, openly voiced support for rebels challenging the authority of Pakistan in Baluchistan.

The ground situation in Kashmir took a turn for the worse when protests erupted after security forces announced the killing of young Hizbul Mujahideen commander Buran Wani in July. Many parts of the valley have been under prolonged curfew, and at least 80 persons have been killed, more than 100 blinded and several thousand injured in firing of supposedly non-lethal pellets by central security personnel.

As Pakistan despatched a large number of special envoys to world capitals to mobilise opinion against human rights violations in Kashmir valley, India decided on a similar effort with the focus on Pakistani rights violations in Baluchistan and Kashmir areas under its control. The flip side of such tit-for-tat manoeuvres is that they put India and Pakistan politically on the same level.

Some observers see in Modi’s toughening stance the influence of National Security Adviser Ajit Doyal, who, since retirement from the police, has attracted a bunch of admirers by recounting his exploits as an intelligence officer and has openly advocated a hawkish line. But he is also believed to be the one who sold to Modi the idea of inviting all South Asian leaders to his swearing-in ceremony in 2014.

For Modi the time has come to move from rhetoric to reality. Recent events have revealed two grave weaknesses which India can ignore only at its peril.

One is the ease with which terrorists have been able to intrude into fortified military establishments. The Uri attack resulted in heavy casualties as it took place when one unit was taking over from another. If the attack was timed with prior knowledge of the changeover, it indicates the terror planners have good intelligence support. Clearly, strengthening of the security environment deserves a higher priority than reprisal.

The other is the alarming degree of alienation in the Kashmir valley. In the past civil unrest manifested itself mainly in the form of demonstrations in Srinagar streets. This time young stone-throwers were out in the streets in the countryside and police personnel abandoned many stations. Restoration of normalcy must come first. All else can wait.

The Centre must not forget the healthy atmosphere that prevailed in the valley during the three armed conflicts with Pakistan. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, September 20, 2016 

Housing sector paradox

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

India’s real estate sector is headed for a crash, the US way, a business journalist warned a few months ago. Crazy as it is, the real estate bubble is not going to burst any time soon, a market watcher countered. Real estate is overpriced and if the property market were to function as efficiently as the stock market, prices must crash, an experienced analyst opined. All three advanced seemingly convincing arguments in support of their conflicting viewpoints.

There has been no crash but there are signs of stagnation on the housing front which presents a paradox with widespread homelessness on one side and proliferation of unoccupied residential units on the other.

In the cities, where big real estate companies are engaged in feverish building activity to cater primarily to the upmarket, a large number of flats are lying unsold. According to a property research firm, in the Mumbai metropolitan region alone there were about 226,000 unsold apartments at the beginning of the year. This was 31 per cent more than a year ago.

In the real estate business, a fall in demand does not lead to a fall in prices because builders have the capacity to hold on until they get the desired prices. The conventional explanation for this is that the industry has access to black money. The government indulgently looks on at the flow of black money into construction as it brings hoarded wealth back into circulation.

Urban housing costs remain high as land is scarce and, therefore expensive. There is also mismatch in the market between supply and demand. The big builders are offering villas and luxury apartments costing upwards of Rs 10 million. Most buyers are looking for flats priced not more than Rs 5 million.

A recent official report estimates that the number of homeless persons is about 78 million. They need affordable housing. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set for the country the goal of “housing for all”. However, he has not formulated an action plan for the purpose. Instead, he is continuing with the decades-old scheme under which states take up housing projects for the poor with Central assistance. It cannot end homelessness in the foreseeable future.

Last November, in a bid to give a fillip to the industry, the government removed all restrictions on foreign direct investment in the real estate and construction sector except for a three-year lock-in period for select projects. An industry spokesman claimed the step would have a huge positive impact on the housing sector as a whole, especially the affordable housing segment. However, there is no indication so far that foreign investors are interested in that segment.

Chinese and Japanese developers have shown interest in industrial projects. A leading Chinese firm has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Haryana government to develop a new industrial city in that state at a cost of $10 billion over a period of 10 years. Japanese firms, which are ready to invest up to $2 billion in industrial projects in the next two or three years, are said to be seeking strategic partnerships with Indian builders.

Much of the recent urban construction activity has been carried out flouting regulations with the connivance of corrupt politicians and bureaucrats, posing a grave threat to the environment. The floods that played havoc in the newly developed suburbs of Chennai city recently were the result of reckless construction blocking natural drainage. Governmental agencies were as much to blame as private operators.

The Judiciary is seized of many instances of construction in violation of regulations. Last April the Bombay High Court ordered demolition of a 31-storey apartment complex in the city which has become a national symbol of political corruption. An appeal against the judgement is pending before the Supreme Court.

Last week the Madras High Court directed the Tamil Nadu government not to register plots and buildings if there was violation of regulations. According to officials, the judgement may adversely affect those who bought plots in more than 300,000 housing colonies in the state. 

Both the judgements indicate a hardening in the stand of the courts. Earlier when faced with fait accompli, they were generally inclined to take a lenient view, considering the cost incurred and the hardship that would be caused to the buyers. It remains to be seen whether the Supreme Court will also take an equally tough position. --Gulf Today, September 13, 2016.

A worrisome job scenario

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

With the working population rising rapidly and job opportunities lagging behind, India, which has replaced China as the world’s fastest growing economy, is in the most challenging phase of its developmental effort.

According to the latest UN projections, India’s population will outstrip China’s by 2022, six years earlier than previously calculated. While China has to contend with an ageing population, India, theoretically, has an advantage over it by virtue of its larger working population. But to take advantage of the demographic situation, it has to improve its ability to create jobs.

Currently an estimated one million people enter the workforce each month. The rate of job creation, which has always been short of the requirement, is now declining. A recent official survey revealed that eight labour-intensive industries, including textiles, garments, BPO, metals and automobiles, created only 135,000 jobs last year. They had created 490,000 jobs the previous year.

A study of the performance of more than 1,000 companies by a private rating agency also showed that the job creation rate was falling. Together these companies created only 12,760 jobs last year as against 188,371 in the previous year. The manufacturing sector companies recorded a 5.2 per cent decline in job growth. In the previous year there was a 3.2 per cent growth.

Three industries account for the bulk of employment in the organised sector. They are manufacturing (40 per cent), banking (23 per cent) and information technology (18 per cent). Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambitious goal of creating 250 million jobs over a 10-year period cannot be reached unless they generate more jobs.

Some analysts have suggested that studies based on the performance of companies may not reflect the true position as industries are increasingly outsourcing certain types of jobs. But, according to the official survey, there was a decline in contractual jobs also last year.

The dismal situation revealed by the studies has prompted critics to taunt the Prime Minister with questions like “Where are the promised jobs, Mr. Modi?” The fact is that low job creation has been a feature of India’s economic development even before Modi’s time. Between 1991 and 2013, India recorded an average annual growth of 6.5 per cent but did not create enough jobs to attract even half of those entering the labour market.

Modi’s expectation that increased flow of foreign direct investment and his Make in India programme will boost job creation has not materialised. About 60 per cent of the FDI is in the form of private equity investment, which may fetch the investor a decent return but does not necessarily result in job creation. The Make in India programme requires skilled labour for manufacturing and high-end services. Skilled workers form only two per cent of India’s labour force.

Medium, small and micro enterprises are the backbone of the industrial sector. There are about 40 million such units and they employ about 100 million people, making them the largest provider of jobs. Falling exports and difficulties in obtaining timely credit hamper their ability to play a bigger role.

Official and unofficial studies limited to the organised sector do not give a full picture of the job situation. More than 90 per cent of the country’s working people are in the unorganised sector where wages are low and underemployment is widespread.

Although China has fallen behind India in the rate of growth of the economy, it is still ahead in job creation. According to Human Resources Minister Yin Weimin, China created more than 13 million new jobs for urban residents last year. However, the pace of job creation is slowing. The target for this year is only 10 million new urban jobs.

China’s major problem on the job front now is the rehabilitation of 1.8 million workers who are expected to be laid off by state-owned coal and steel plants as the economy switches from the investment-led model to one that relies on domestic consumption, services and innovation.

Interestingly, Arvind Panagariya, Vice-Chairman of the Niti Ayog, which has taken over the functions of the erstwhile Planning Commission, senses an opportunity for India in the Chinese downturn. He believes the high wage levels in that country will tempt manufacturers of certain items like textile and footwear to view India as an attractive alternative location.

Amartya Sen, the economist, has pointed out that India is trying to become a global economic power with an uneducated and unhealthy labour force, which has never been done before and never will be done in the future either. Clearly the government has to do more to realise its goal. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, September 6, 2016.

Kashmir’s shadow over SAARC

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

With India-Pakistan relations deteriorating in the wake of violence in Kashmir, now in its eighth week, the fate of the 19th summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, scheduled for November 9 and 10, hangs in the balance.

SAARC, which comprises India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, together account for 21 per cent of the world’s population but only nine per cent of the global economy.

SAARC members differ vastly in size and economic strength. India with an estimated population of 1,330 million and gross domestic product of $2,073.5 billion is much larger than the other seven countries put together. Pakistan, the second largest country, has an estimated population of 194 million and GDP of $270.0 billion. The Maldives with only 371,000 people is at the bottom of the population table. Bhutan with a GDP of $2 billion has the smallest economy, but it attaches more importance to gross domestic happiness than to gross domestic product.

India-Pakistan differences have held SAARC back from time to time in some areas. A common market is one of SAARC’s objectives but Pakistani fear of Indian economic domination has stalled progress in that direction. In 1995, a ministerial meeting decided on the creation of a South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) as a first step towards the goal of a common market. It was only in 2006 that an agreement in this regard went into effect. A decade later, intra-SAARC trade is still only a little more than the region’s GDP.

A South Asian motor vehicles agreement was negotiated by SAARC officials ahead of the last summit at Kathmandu in 2014 but Pakistan was not ready to sign it. Believing that it backed out as it now attaches economic integration with China more importance than South Asian economic cooperation, India decided to go ahead without it.

The relations between the two countries took a dive early this month when Laskar-e-Taiba chief called for demonstrations when Rajnath Singh visited Islamabad for a meeting of SARC Home Ministers. Rajnath Singh was flown from the airport to the meeting venue in a helicopter and he flew back immediately after the meeting without joining a lunch from which, curiously, even the host, Pakistan’s Home Minister stayed away.

Arun Jaitley stayed away from the SAARC Finance Ministers’ meeting in Islamabad last week, depriving it of much of its importance. Nevertheless, SAARC Secretary General Arjum Bahadur Thapa of Nepal called upon the group to move from SAFTA to South Asian Economic Union.

With India and Pakistan at loggerheads, speculation is rife over whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend the November summit. Reports in a section of the Pakistani media have indicated that he might stay away although so far no one of consequence in India has suggested such a step is contemplated.

Modi made a personal investment in improving relations with India’s immediate neighbours when he invited the leaders of SAARC countries to his swearing-in as Prime Minister in 2014 and all, including Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, promptly turned up. Several setbacks followed but he demonstrated his readiness to walk the talk with an unscheduled stop at Lahore on his way home from Afghanistan to greet Sharif on his birthday.

The current wave of unrest in Kashmir began when protests erupted over the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani by the security forces. At least 67 persons were killed, over 6,000 injured and more than 100 blinded by pellets as youths defied the curfew. Pakistan launched a campaign against the human rights violations and India responded by raising the issue of rights violations in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Baluchistan for the first time.

Even as Modi and Chief Minister Mehmooba Mufti, whose Bharatiya Janata Party and People’s Democratic Party which are partners of the coalition that rules the state, began efforts to restore peace in the troubled valley, Nawaz Sharif deputed 22 diplomats to internationalise the issue. Under the Shimla Pact signed after the 1971 war which resulted in Bangladesh’s formation, the two countries are committed to resolve issues, including Kashmir, bilaterally without outside intervention.

Some course correction may take place sooner or later since Sharif, as the host, and Modi, as the leader of the largest member country and one who began his prime ministerhip with a commitment to friendship in the neighbourhood, have much at stake in the success of the SAARC summit. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, August 30, 2016.

South Asia’s Olympic blues

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

As sportspersons from 206 countries put in their best and the medals table at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics started lengthening, three among the world’s most populous nations were experiencing a not-unusual drought.

By the eleventh day of the games, several hundred medals had been given away but India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, which with populations currently estimated at 1,382 million, 193 million and 163 million rank second, sixth and eighth respectively in the global chart, did not figure in the medals table.

The closest they came to winning a medal was when Dipa Karmakar, the first Indian gymnast to enter the Olympics finals, finished fourth in the women’s vault event, missing the bronze by 0.15 points. It was the best Indian performance yet in gymnastics. Indians celebrated the event the way they had done when Milkha Singh missed the bronze narrowly in 400 metres at Rome in 1960 and PT Usha missed it even more narrowly in 400 metres hurdles at Los Angeles in 1984.

It was the time of the year when the Government of India announces awards for sports persons, and the awards committee recommended that Dipa be given the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, the nation’s highest sporting honour.

On the 12th day, Sakshi Malik, another young woman, ended India’s medals drought by taking the bronze in the 58 kg category of women’s freestyle wrestling. It certainly was an occasion to celebrate as she is only the fourth Indian woman to climb the Olympics podium and the first to get a wrestling medal.

“Daughter of India made us proud,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted. Indians set the social networks ablaze. Haryana, Sakshi’s home state, offered her a job and a cash reward of Rs 25 million.

Mocking the celebration, Pakistani journalist Omar R Quraishi wrote: “Finally one of the 119 competitors that India sent to Rio has won a medal – a bronze – now see how they portray it as if they won 20 golds”.

As he wrote those lines, the seven Pakistani sportspersons in Rio were packing their bags to go home, having failed even to qualify to participate in the finals of their events. Pakistan’s best performance was by a woman shooter who finished 28th among 51 who participated in her event.

In its 69 years, Pakistan has won 10 medals – eight in field hockey and two in individual events. The last one was the hockey bronze of 1992.

Bangladesh, now in its 44th year, is the most populous country which has never won an Olympics medal.

British-ruled India, which included the present-day Pakistan and Bangladesh, began its association with modern Olympics at the second games held at Paris in 1900. The lone participant from the country that year was Norman Pritchard, son of a British couple, who competed in four athletic events and won silver medals in two of them. He later became a Hollywood actor under the name Norman Gordon.

There was no Indian participation in the next four games. Small teams sent to the 1920 and 1924 games returned empty-handed. The 21-member contingent which went to Antwerp in 1928 included a 14-member hockey team. It snatched the gold from Britain. Thereafter the hockey gold remained an Indian preserve until 1964 except for one occasion when Pakistan took it.

On Friday, PV Sindhu earned a silver in badminton and became the first Indian woman to win an individual silver. More celebrations and rewards followed.

It was the gritty performance of two young women that saved India from the ignominy of a total washout. With their medals, India was at the 67th place when the games ended.

Why does South Asia, home to about 1.74 billion, fare so poorly when tiny Cuba, with fewer than 12 million people, bagged seven medals, including two gold and two silver? The answer is that this dismal situation is the result of social conservatism, economic constraints and political mismanagement.

Sakshi Malik and Dipa karmakar had received little support from the government and sports organisations as they battled social taboos and took to the supposedly unfeminine sports of wrestling and gymnastics. Sakshi’s first coach, Ishwar Dahiya, recalls that villagers staged protests when he started training her 12 years ago.

In evaluating Olympics performance the size of the population is not quite relevant as sportspersons come from only a small section of South Asian societies. Many disciplines require intense training for long periods, which few can afford. Most sports bodies are controlled by politicians who know little about sports. --Gulf Today, Sharjah, August 23, 2016.

Free country, unfree people

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

As India stepped into the 70th year of Independence on Monday, large sections of the population whom the promised freedom has eluded so far served notice that they are not ready to wait any longer.

The Congress, an offshoot of the organisation which spearheaded the freedom movement and dominated the political scene for most of the post-Independence period, is now on the decline. So are other parties of pre-Independence vintage like the Communist Party of India and its offshoots.

Parties whose roots lie in movements which were not part of the freedom struggle now wield power at the Centre and in many states. Topping the list is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party. It is now the largest political party.

Since Jawaharlal Nehru unfurled the national flag and spoke from the ramparts of Delhi’s Red Fort on August 15, 1947, the Prime Minister’s address to the nation from there has been the highlight of Independence Day celebrations. States hold similar events at their capitals.

This year the Centre drew up plans for the fortnight-long celebrations with the stated purpose of rekindling the spirit of patriotism. It sought to link the traditions of the independence movement with those of the army, which the nation inherited from the colonial power.

The celebrations began with events marking the 74th anniversary of the Quit India movement, the last major agitation of the freedom struggle which Gandhi had launched in 1942 with a call to “do or die”. Seventy-five ministers of the Modi government led the events at over 150 places across the country. It was a palpable attempt to appropriate the legacy of the freedom movement in which few Hindutva leaders had participated.

Speaking at a Quit India anniversary function, Modi broke his silence on the situation in Kashmir, many parts of which have been continuously under curfew following protests over the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani more than a month ago. Responding to the slogan of “Azaadi” (freedom), which resounds in the valley from time to time, he said people in Kashmir could feel the same azaadi as people in the rest of the country.

While Modi thus tacitly acknowledged that Kashmiri protesters do not have a sense of freedom, he did not go into the reasons behind it. Nor did he indicate how he proposed to create conditions in which they can feel a sense of freedom.

The presumption, implicit in the Prime Minister’s words, that outside Kashmir the people experience a sense of freedom is not entirely true.

As Modi walked up the steps at Red Fort to address the nation, several thousand Dalits converged in the small town of Una in his home state of Gujarat where on July 11 foot soldiers of Hindutva, posing as protectors of Cow the Mother, had stripped and flogged four members of the community engaged in their traditional occupation of skinning dead animals.

Worried that the Una attack and similar incidents reported from other places would harm its prospects in the forthcoming elections in the states, the BJP replaced Anandiben Patel whom Modi had installed as chief minister when he moved to Delhi.

Modi said most of the cow protectors were anti-socials. His remark angered a section of the Hindutva leadership but it did not impress the protesting Dalits. Jignesh Mevani, a Dalit activist, organised the march to Una from Ahmedabad, styled as “Azaadi kooch” (Towards Freedom).

In the troubled tribal region of Bastar in Madhya Pradesh, Soni Sori, an Adivasi activist who had suffered physical and sexual torture at the hands of the security forces, was leading a week-long march which began on August 9, the UN-designated International Day of the Indigenous People. She carried the national flag, ignoring warnings by Maoist insurgents who are active in the area.

Dalits and Adivasis together constitute one-fourth of India’s population of 1.2 billion. Outside these backward communities, too, there are large sections of marginalised people who are yet to reap the fruits of freedom. In fact, even among the rest of the population many remain unempowered. The only gift of freedom they enjoy is the right to vote in the elections.

That explains why the slogan “Azaadi” was raised by students of the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University early this year. The Hindutva establishment dubbed the students traitors. JNU Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar explained that they wanted azaadi, not from India but in India. “We want freedom from hunger, freedom from poverty, freedom from the caste system, all of that,” he said.

A free country with unfree citizens is not entirely unusual. The lack of social mobility adds a new dimension to the problem in India.

On the completion of the framing of free India’s Constitution, its chief architect and Dalit icon BR Ambedkar had pointed out that it only granted political democracy. It should be backed by social democracy, which meant recognising liberty, equality and fraternity as principles of life, he said.  -- Gulf Today, August 16, 2016

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Since the fledgling Aam Admi Party first came to power in the National Capital Territory of Delhi three years ago, its leader, Arvind Kejriwal, has been playing a high-stake game, leading to skirmishes.

In 2013, the AAP put an end to the Congress party’s 15-year-long rule in Delhi state and blocked its traditional rival, Bharatiya Janata Party, from returning to power. In the hung state assembly, it held 28 of the 70 seats, against the BJP’s 31 and the Congress party’s eight. To keep the BJP out of power, the Congress offered to back an AAP government, and Kejriwal became the chief minister.

A bureaucrat turned social activist, Kejriwal was part of Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption movement. Breaking with Hazare who was opposed to entry into electoral politics, he formed the AAP and mobilised support for it across the country using social media.

Taking a leaf from the Hazare movement for a national anti-corruption machinery, to be known as Jan Lokpal, Kejriwal drew up a bill to set up a Jan Lokpal for Delhi. The BJP and the Congress joined hands and blocked its introduction in the state assembly. Kejriwal who had been in office for only 48 days resigned.

He called for fresh elections to the assembly along with the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. The authorities did not concede the demand. In retrospect, he must be glad they rejected the demand.

Thanks to Narendra Modi’s vigorous, no-holds-barred campaign, the BJP made a clean sweep of Delhi’s seven Lok Sabha seats.

When fresh assembly elections were held in 2015, the Modi magic did not work. The AAP bagged 67 of the 70 seats, leaving just three for the BJP. The Congress was washed out.

Since then Kejriwal has been projecting himself as a potential challenger to Modi at the national level. On his part, Modi has not been able to forget the humiliation his party in the assembly elections. Delhi’s ambiguous constitutional status offers tremendous scope for both to act in furtherance of their personal and party interests.

Delhi, which served as the capital of many kingdoms, suffered a decline after the collapse of the Moghul regime. The British ruled the subcontinent initially from Calcutta (now Kolkata). They shifted the capital to Delhi in 1911. Twenty years later New Delhi, designed and constructed by British architect Edwin Lutyens, became the capital. 

In popular parlance, Delhi is a state, but under the Constitution it is one of seven Union Territories. Of the seven, two, Delhi and Puduchery, have elected assemblies with power to make laws applicable to their respective areas on certain subjects. With an area of 1,484 square kilometres and a population of about 25 million, Delhi is now India’s most populous city and the world’s second largest urban conglomeration.

Delhi’s unique status is based on the provisions of Articles 239AA and 239AB, which were introduced by the 69th Constitutional amendment, which was enacted in 1991, the National Capital Territory of Delhi Act of 1992 and the Transaction of Business of the Government of NCT of Delhi Rules of 1993.

Every country with a democratic system has found it necessary to devise methods to ensure that an elected body at a lower level is not able to create hurdles in the way of the federal authorities. The legislative measures of the 1990s were steps in that direction. Two factors have contributed to the present situation. One is that these are among the country’s worst drafted laws. The other is that both the BJP and the AAP are driven by political motives.

Kejriwal, who views Delhi as a springboard, is pursuing a two-fold strategy to build up a national image. He has taken some populist measures to endear himself to the people and initiated steps against some big business houses to project himself as a ruler who can act tough against the corporates. In the process, he has disregarded some of his constitutional limits.

Determined to foil Kejriwal’s plans, the Centre has used its legitimate overriding authority, exercisable through the state’s Lieutenant Governor, and sometimes even stepped beyond it. The Delhi high court recently quashed one of several cases registered by the police against AAP MLAs as the allegation was found to be false.

Kejriwal is mounting a big campaign to seize power in Punjab, where the Akali Dal-BJP government completes its term next year. The alliance and the Congress have been alternating in power in the state for decades. -- Gulf Today, August 9, 2016. 

A quarter century of reforms

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

The 25th anniversary of economic reforms passed unnoticed last month. A strong votary of economic liberalisation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is trying to carry the reform process forward. There was, however, no official celebration of the jubilee.

The reform process was initiated by a Congress government. Some give Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi credit for taking the first steps in this regard. However, if the process is to be assigned a date of birth it must be July 24, 1991. On that day Dr Manmohan Singh, as Finance Minister in PV Narasimha Rao’s government, presented his first budget in which he outlined proposals to move away from the path charted by Jawaharlal Nehru in the 1950s.

Nehru, who set before the nation the ideal of a socialist pattern of society, envisaged a mixed economy in which the private sector will have an assured place but the public sector will occupy the commanding heights. The attempt to establish a regulated private sector led to the evolution of a corrupt system which critics dubbed licence raj.

Narasimha Rao did not formally repudiate the socialist ideal, but acute economic distress compelled him to change the course. A sharp fall in the foreign exchange level had forced the country to raise money from the Bank of England by mortgaging a part of its gold reserves. Later the International Monetary Fund provided a loan to tide over balance of payments difficulties.

The reforms comprised three elements: liberalisation or freeing the economy from bureaucratic control, privatisation or divesting of state undertakings and globalisation or integration of the domestic economy with the world economy. The Left and some sections within the Congress party opposed them on ideological grounds. Businessmen who had prospered under the licence raj were not keen on changes.

In the circumstances, the Rao government and its successors chose to hasten slowly, much to the chagrin of global promoters of the new international order. As Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh too moved cautiously. Ground realities have impeded Modi’s efforts to accelerate the pace of progress in the past two years.

India began globalisation more than 12 years after China did. Today, in terms of exchange rates, China is the world’s second largest economy with a gross domestic product of $10,983 billion, after the United States with a GDP of $17,947 billion. India stands seventh with $2,091 billion. Purchasing power parity valuation puts China above the US with a GDP of $19,392 billion and India in the third position with $7,965 billion.

Manmohan Singh recalled recently that the economy had recovered faster than he had expected. Inflation came down. The balance of payments position improved.

Just as the economic progress achieved during the Mao regime stood China in good stead as it opened up, the foundations laid by Nehru provided the ballast as India ventured into choppy seas. Information Technology units’ earnings from software exports and Non-Resident Indians’ remittances helped the country stabilise the foreign exchange situation quickly after the rupee was effectively devalued.

The service sector is now the main driver of the economy. It contributed as much as 69 per cent to the GDP last year. The manufacturing sector is almost stagnant, despite Modi’s vigorous pursuit of foreign investments under his Make in India programme. Agriculture which is still the mainstay of a large section of the population recorded a meagre 1.1 per cent growth.

The flip side of the economic success story is the heavy price the poor is called upon to pay. Tribes are being dislocated from their traditional homelands to make room for industries. While the rich get away defaulting on bank loans, small and marginal farmers are driven to suicide. The Centre’s slashing of expenditure on health and education adds to the misery of the poor.

A feature of the recent economic growth is that it is not accompanied by job creation. According to the latest census report, the unemployment rate rose from 6.8 per cent to 9.6 per cent during 2001-2011. The trend continues.

What marks the post-liberalisation era apart from the past is the emergence of a middle class pleased with easy availability of consumer goods. Its seeming prosperity deflects attention from the sharp rise in inequality.

In a lecture two years ago International Monetary Fund managing director Christine Lagarde said the net worth of India’s billionaire community had increased 12-fold in 15 years, “enough to eliminate the absolute poverty in this country twice over.” --Gulf Today, August 2, 2016.