Indian democracy is unique!

Posted on May 11, 2011 by Pavan Gupta

This might sound like a cliche but it is indeed a substantive subject for discussion. Let us first take on the so called paragon of modern democracy, The United States of America. Can you imagine a communist party being allowed to contest elections in the US? In India, the communists are not only permitted to contest elections but have also ruled some state governments in the last few decades. Heavens did not fall! On the flip side there is a national party, Bharatiya Janata Party, that thrives on religious politics and yet it did not destroy Indian democracy. It is virtually inconceivable for any western democracy to live with robust regional parties who actually govern different states, like in India, over an extended period of time. These are very major achievements for any democracy in the world. Notwithstanding the scams and the scandals, the civil institutions in India have worked reasonably well.

India is one of the very few democracies in the world that adopted a written constitution on November 26, 1949 that came into effect on January 26, 1950 and has honored it through thick and thin. Even during the brief but unfortunate time of Indira Gandhi’s emergency, the constitution of India sustained. Very few countries can boast of such maturity in its public discourse. India has an independent judiciary and a very independent fourth estate i.e. print and electronics media. To top it all the advent of internet and the services like “facebook” and “twitter” have brought the world of information to your door step. Unlike China and few other totalitarian societies, India does not impose any restrictions on social networks or web-sites. The icing on the cake is the much celebrated RTI (Right to Information Act) of 2005, a landmark legislation that would transform India in the decades to come.

Filed under: International | Leave a Comment »

The genesis of India-Pakistan divide!

Posted on September 15, 2009 by Pavan Gupta

Any discussion on India-Pakistan relations is largely emotional. Both sides talk out of anger and distrust. Third party analysis is also meaningless without proper context. I have not read any blogger on either side who has tried to research the genesis of the suspicion between the two communities. My personal inclination has been to go way back to 1757 and trace the developments on the subcontinent since then. The fact of the matter is that Muslims were ruling over the Indian subcontinent since 1192 AD after the defeat of Prithvi Raj Chauhan. When the British East India Company won the Battle of Plassey on June 23, 1757, the Muslims of India felt humiliated and insecure for the first time in nearly 565 years. Warren Hastings, Governor of Bengal, compounded this insecurity in 1772 by equating the then official Indian languages, Arabic and Persian with Hindi and Sanskrit. For a British Governor it was common sense since Hindus were 75% of the population. For Muslims this was the ultimate insult to be compared to ‘Kafirs’ in any shape or form. This was actually the beginning of the ultimate Hindu-Muslim divide that never got bridged.

It would be dishonest for any blogger or analyst to talk about this subject without due reference to the 190 years of British role in the Hindu-Muslim conflict that resulted into the partition of India. Once the partition actually took place it was almost impossible to contain the mutual dislike and hatred amongst the neighbors. The British reluctance and the American activism compounded the problem. President Harry Truman’s enthusiasm towards Pakistan and disappointment with Jawaharlal Nehru further exasperated the volatile situation. The bilateral relationship between India and Pakistan that needed mature diplomacy without any outside interference exploded with the Kashmir dispute in October 1947 and the subsequent referral to the United Nations. There has been a virtual stalemate since then. Every time there is a new initiative by India or Pakistan to resolve the dispute, it gets further complicated by adding a new dimension to an already complex situation. With India rising as an economic power, any parity with Pakistan is a distant illusion that many people refuse to accept. The rise of China further encourages this myth of parity!

Filed under: Indo-Pak relations | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Crack open the gated communities of bureaucrats

Posted on August 28, 2009 by Pavan Gupta

When a certain section of people build walls around their society and restrict access to the general public, it develops into a ‘gated community’. The Indian bureaucrats have been one such restricted society that they have lost touch with the ordinary people. The legacy of this elite group goes back to 1774 when Warren Hastings, the Governor-General of India, created special institutions to train the civil servants for his administration in India. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the first Home Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of India, recreated the same civil service by just changing the name to Indian Administrative Service. The independent India inherited the ‘steel frame’ of the British Empire without changing its mission from rulers to administrators. Even today after 62 years of independence, these little rulers of India are oblivious of the needs of the governed. The District Magistrates are these little ‘Rajas’ of India.

Satyanarayan Gangaram Pitroda, better known as Dr Sam Pitroda cracked open this gated community in 1984 when he was invited by Rajiv Gandhi to join the Indian government and revolutionize the telecommunications sector. He established the Center for Development of Telematics (C-DOT) and the rest is history. India, where it took 10-15 years to get a telephone connection, is today the second largest mobile-phone user in the world. Nandan Nilekani is another high-powered outsider just drafted by Dr Manmohan Singh to radically change the social security system in India. It took India 25 years to enlist another entrepreneur to invade the still powerful gated community of Indian bureaucrats. Just like Sam Pitroda in 1980s, Nandan Nilekani would face tremendous pressure from the ‘little rajas’ of India to leave them alone. My wife and I have some shocking experiences with these IAS, IPS and IFS officers who shamed India at the Syracuse University, New York.

Filed under: Indian Politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Sharad Pawar and the politics of sugar!

Posted on August 27, 2009 by Pavan Gupta

India is the largest consumer of sugar on planet earth but it is only the second biggest producer of sugar after Brazil. This means that any significant drop in domestic production could send the price of sugar way up not only in India but worldwide. That is exactly what has happened during the last 12 months. Sugar prices have gained 50% in the last one year. This has happened even before the current drought hit the nation last June through the middle of August 2009. The reason for this fiasco is the stupid politics of Shri Sharad Pawar. He himself is a sugar baron from Maharashtra and the Minister for Agriculture and Food, Government of India. There lies the conflict of interest. The price of sugar directly impacts the personal interests of Sharad Pawar! This is precisely the problem of sugar shortage in India. Is he responsible for creating this artificial shortage? This possibility must never be ruled out!

“India’s demand and supply has become an important factor in affecting the trend of sugar price, even though the situation in Brazil, the world’s largest sugar producer and exporter remains stable”, said Vibul Panitvong, executive chairman of Thai Sugar Millers Corporation, Thailand. He further elaborates, “India was expected to produce 22 million tonnes of sugarcane over the 2008/09 harvest, but actually produced 14.7 million tonnes. It was due to this uncertainty in production that India had to import a large amount of sugar last year, when it actually used to export around 4 million tonnes of the sweetener a year”. This is a shocking statement as far as I am concerned. India is not some third-world country in Africa any more; we ought to have a comprehensive agriculture policy as well as a sophisticated monitoring system of demand and supply. How can a third-rate sugar baron from Baramati, Maharashtra take the whole country to ransom? This fraud must be investigated!

Filed under: Indian Agriculture, Indian Economy, Indian Politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Enlisting Nandan Nilekani should only be the first step…

Posted on August 26, 2009 by Pavan Gupta

There is no excuse left for the Government of India not to do what it needs to do. Dr Manmohan Singh is no Indira Gandhi; he has a very fine brain. Sonia Gandhi is no Indira Gandhi; she lets others use their brain. Rahul Gandhi is no Indira Gandhi either, he actually uses his brains. The Government always had Montek Singh Ahluwalia, then they got Kapil Sibal in the cabinet and then Shashi Tharoor in the Ministry of External Affairs. Now that the Government of India has also enlisted Nandan Nilekani to head the department of Unique Identification Authority of India, there is no reason why India should not leap-frog to the next level of development. It has the required brain-power to articulate the vision for a new India! Shweta Rajpal Kohli of NDTV spoke to Nandan Nilekani on Monday August 24, 2009, on his appointment as a full cabinet rank minister by Dr Manmohan Singh to streamline the identification card system. Nandan underplays the appointment and compares himself to a plumber who is assigned a job to create a pipeline to the consumers. This is a huge statement and he is exactly right. What India needs is a set of good implementers who can make things happen. Just THINK about his statement!

There are always some very good ideas available to the Government of India but it never had the resources to implement them. Now that they have the money to do the things that have been discussing for decades, the communists and their ‘Left Front’ became the cog-in-the-wheel. That problem has also been solved by a sophisticated Indian voter early this year. What remains to be seen is if this government has the backbone to stand-up to the entrenched interests and implement the much touted reforms. Nandan Nilekani has been extremely articulate in his book ‘Imagining India’ about the problems India faces and some simple solutions to those impediments. The Unique Identification Card system is one such solution. Nilekani believes that once the remote consumer is identified and given a tamper-proof ID card, they could then access any product or service directed towards them by the government or any other agency. The problem that I see with this very exciting proposal is that how do you guarantee that the consumer got the service and that he or she was able to retain it? Take for example cash transfer, the remote consumer could be in debt and the creditor could be waiting alongside the recipient to strip him/her off the money. In this case the identified recipient would be left high and dry. How would the government guarantee that the aid or any other service is received by the needy and used to achieve the objective? I hope Nandan has an answer to that!

Filed under: Indian Economy, Indian Politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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