Beyond Coalgate: End of Political Authority

A news item in The Times of India on August 23 had the heading: ‘Court says commercial activity seems to top Centre’s priorities’. The item was on tourism in tiger reserves.

It was published six days after the same paper had carried another headline for its lead news item, a fascinating one for a banal piece of news. It read: ‘CAG estimates: Our likely loss Rs 38,00,00,00,00,000’. Somewhere coal blocks, somewhere land, somewhere something else had been gifted to industries for a song. This is nothing new, for it is known that in the days of Manmohanomics these are just routine things, all part of a great ‘reform’ agenda without which our industrial barons (along with our babus and politicians of course) can neither survive nor thrive.

Since then the media has carried on writing about it (mostly about coal and, curiously, very little about the Dial affair), without delving into essential details like what is at the root of all this. More bizarre was the attitude of the main Opposition party, the BJP, that compelled a wash-out of the monsoon session of Parliament on the coal issue. Bizarre, for they themselves went on doling out such favours when in power.

But all those who reported and followed up or those who utilised the CAG report were dealing only with the symptoms of the disease: they had no intention to cure the disease.

That is why no one took notice when, in allusion to the Centre’s shifting stand on tiger reserves, the Bench of Justices A K Patnaik and Swatanter Kumar said the Centre appeared more concerned about commercial activity than protecting tigers. In reality, the Bench’s observation threw light on the disease that has assumed the dimension of cancer now. It threw light on the basics of Manmohanomics.

The essence of Manmohanomics being pursued in this country since 1992, without any major corrective applied so far, lies in having maximum concern for the gains of commercial bodies and minimum for the people’s livelihood, safety, security, or the environment. The conse-cutive governments since 1992 had followed this path. The BJP, being no exception, cannot claim any superior status for it as far as its management of the economy is concerned. The mindset of its leaders became clear once more recently, when one of its Chief Ministers (the very man who presided over the affairs of his State when the genocide of Muslims took place) found the reason for malnutrition in women in the State in their desire to be slim. Neither is the CPI-M any different, and their record in West Bengal (one cannot forget the police firing on the farmers of Nandigram) stands testimony to their unabashed tagging along with the basic tenets of Manmohanomics in the present century.
As a consequence of this broad unity on Manmohanomics, with all the parties and media and mainstream intellectuals rallying around it, the country now is facing a crisis of political authority. Members of the elite have monopolised the governance of this country (except for a few people like Mamata Banerjee and Nitish Kumar), and are unabashedly patronising other members of the elite in the name of seeking a ‘higher rate of growth’. Consequently, this leadership has lost the ‘authority’ that provides one a wide acceptance not because of the power one wields, but thanks to one’s moral high ground of observing ‘rajdharma’. Mahatma Gandhi had that authority, Nehru had, even Indira Gandhi had in spite of her controversial acts. To a lesser extent, Rajiv Gandhi and Atal Behari Vajpayee too had some authority that made them acceptable even to the deprived sections. Rajdharma essentially means following the path of natural justice, and that demands more attention to the weaker people.

But now, almost every act of the top echelons of the political leadership is suspect in the eyes of the majority of the people. It has denuded the whole political class of any authority. The process of favouring the rich was on for many decades, but now it has become an open, naked policy of the government. In retaliation, the underprivileged people, that is, the majority of the Indian people, have given up all hopes of getting justice from the government, and have started having their own way. The ugly revolt of workers in the Manesar plant of Maruti, the riots in Assam and its exploitation by the ultra-Hindu organisations, the assertion of Talibanised panchayats of Haryana and eastern UP, the open anti-Bihari jihad of a branch of the Thackeray clan—everything indicates India has started advancing towards the past. Even the Army, confronting a morally low political leadership, has started asserting itself. And an anarchist force—that called itself the CPI (Maoist)—is still gaining support of the poorest people living in remote areas.

The situation is grave; and it is worsening. But, as history shows, when injustice is the order of the day, anarchy follows inevitably.

Manmohanomics Today

At its philosophical level, Manmohanomics is concerned with the well-being of the rich and the super-rich for scoring a high rate of growth. It cannot hide the brazen duplicities, like its contradictory stand on subsidy. Manmohanomics stands for dishing out more and more subsidy to the industrial captains, and doing away with the subsidy essential for the existence of the majority of Indians. Thus it shrinks the opportunity of well-being of the majority of the population, though it claims that the extra revenue earned from higher rate of growth will ensure better looking after of the poor.

Under duress, and after all attempts at stalling it failed, Manmohan Singh had to go for a half-hearted hundred days work scheme during UPA 1; but this time he has successfully stonewalled the Food Security Bill for more than three years. The Prime Minister earlier magically reduced the proposed quantum of benefit accruing to the tribal people from mining; and now is trying hard to squeeze the dimension of compensation for the hapless populace losing land in the name of ‘development’. Also worth mentioning is Dr Singh’s relentless endeavour to open up the retail sector to foreign players at the cost of millions of families of retailers. All these are according to the basic tenets of Manmohanomics.

Today, Manmohanomics stands for three basic principles: first, give as much benefit to the top elite (the clan of industrialist, businessmen, politicians) so that a higher growth rate can be shown and a broad unity on governance among the elite is maintained; second, appease the foreign investors at any cost, if need be by crushing the interests of the weaker people of the country; and third, dole out a little for the poor and curtail attempts to widen the benefits on the pretext of the urgent necessity of reducing subsidy.

At the practical level, Manmohanomics has encouraged crony capitalism which is pegged at its highest point of glory now. It has given birth to great manipulators, opened up the gates for loot, and damaged the ethos of the Indian people by creating a situation where greed has become virtue. To give a free run to the industry, constant attempts have been made to snatch all the rights of the poor hapless workers. To brush up the picture of a shining India, avenues have been opened for the investors to have more and more profit by keeping fifty or sixty or even seventy per cent of the workers under contract, providing them about a hundred rupees per day to keep the family at or just above the subsistence level. This same ugly tactics of Maruti has come out in the open after the workers’ revolt at Manesar, but this is just a common practice of almost all manufacturing units everywhere in the country. To quell any revolt of the workers, the industrialists have the police and private armies (the bouncers), and are aided by politicians. Our media never questioned these practices followed in States ruled by all shades of opinion.

Manmohanomics today has created an immensely dangerous situation. On the one hand we have a very large percentage of people working in the primary and tertiary sectors, about three-fourths of them leading a squalid life, committing suicide, and facing the stark reality of losing job if organised chains invade their areas of existence; and on the other, workers in factories and plants are turned into industrial slaves like the workers in Dickensian England. Today, a large fleet of domestic workers, mostly women and running in crores, are keeping a substantial population above the subsistence level. But a large chunk of these families have become culturally rootless, like those of millions of construction workers, as they had to migrate to distant cities. An unbelievable scale of forced migration (for which we do not have any reliable statistical data) in a conservative oriental society is breeding causes of unrest for the future. Elite schools and colleges, hospitals and other facilities built with indirect government help denying the poor and lower middle class people its service, and thereby a share of better life, is creating further grounds of discontent.

Without making the list inordinately long, we can say Manmohanomics has created a train the first class compartment of which is running at a speed of seven hundred and fifty kilometres an hour, its two second class bogies at two hundred and fifty, three 3-tier AC at one hundred and fifty, ten non-AC at fifty and its unreserved compartment at ten kilometres per hour. What the fate of this train would be is easy to guess.
 
Double Standard on Subsidy

To save the country, what is urgently needed is a heavier dose of subsidy for the under-privileged. But those who mould the economic policies of the government, particularly those whose disconnect with the masses is near-total (like Montek Singh Ahluwalia, the most trusted lieutenant of the Prime Minister), talk of cutting on subsidy bills. Ironically, these people provide much higher subsidy to the industry! Our governments do not even count the subsidy to the industry as subsidy at all! Budget figures do not reflect that figure. Only old institutions like the CAG periodically bring into the open certain facts on such subsidies. 2G and Coalgate are two examples. That is why the present-day rulers are so peeved with and bent upon destroying the institution of the CAG.

Manmohan Singh and his associates, like Montek Singh Ahluwalia, always stress on ‘what the industry needs’. They do not have the guts to say straight that the industry needs subsidy. Providing land for a song, offering captive mines for cheap, contributing government money (through the government organisations and banks) in the name of PPP, wilful inability to recover loans forwarded by banks—all these are subsidies provided to the industry. So, to make the record straight for those who are not afraid of telling the truth, we have two kinds of subsidy: one for the industry and one for the poor. Certain things, like the entire money spent as subsidy on petrol, subsidy on diesel for the SUVs or family cars, or on LPG provided to those whose per capita per day income is above five hundred rupees, do not belong to either category, and are a total wastage. It is a pity that the great reformers of our time cannot abolish these, but try to deprive the children of the poor from their mother’s milk by reducing the subsidised food provided to the mother.

Manmohan Singh as the Finance Minster of former PM P.V. Narasimha Rao targeted PDS and labour laws for demolition. Twenty years later, the game is still on. Now, the Planning Commission (for the record its Deputy Chairman is Montek Singh Ahluwalia and its Chairman is Manmohan Singh) takes it to the absurd low by its effort to abolish poverty by making poverty synonymous to living a life akin to street dogs. Perhaps, a street dog lives a better life than a human being on 26 rupees in the rural and 32 rupees in the urban areas. To do justice to the Commission, it should also be mentioned that they made up their proposal just by adding the weightage of inflation with the pre-existing poverty line that is Rs 28.35 for the urban and Rs 22.42 for the rural areas. However, when the old poverty line (which is barely a subsistence line, better to say death line as those living below it are living dead thanks to the lack of all facilities of civilisation) is allowed to exist, it simply means the government has failed to achieve anything worth mentioning after twenty years of reform. Any claim, like ‘the percentage of living dead in our country has gone down’, is not only insensitive, but obscene. Even if no one lives below it in the country where you have such an ugly demons-tration of wealth like ‘Antilia’, it is no achieve-ment for any sensitive society. Why do the top men not realise this? Because, they want to make a cut on the subsidy bill by fudging the figures of the poor.

Subsidy, both for the unfortunate poor and the industry needs to be provided if the necessity is there. Subsidy for the poor is urgently needed to empower the nation. We have the required manpower, particularly of young people, with which we can outplay any country in this world. But for that, we have to enable that chunk of young generation that is rotting in poverty; we have to bring an end to the system that provides sub-standard education through the schools in villages by half-educated teachers; we have to provide nutritious food to the poor children; we have to provide for proper medical care everywhere. Only by doing all these can we make way for India taking its pride place in the global society. Only those suffering from severe myopia think the we have to cut the amount of subsidy for the poor. In a way, such thinking is against the interest of the nation.  

Similarly, for the nation’s progress providing subsidy to the industry is often needed. Indus-trialisation, without harming the environment further, is necessary as it provides job to the people directly and also helps develop a chain of work outside the factory. It adds to the prestige of the country, thereby attracting further investment. The extra revenue the government earns from a bigger industrial base makes it more capable of catering to the poorer people and provide infrastructure for further industrialisation. Unfortunately, such subsidies in the form of cheap land, cheap power, natural resources at a discount, infrastructure for free and so on are often being provided to further the individual interest of members of the elite in place of general industrialisation. It sometimes goes to the level of absurdity, like when the power supply body gives a discount (a kind of subsidy, assuming that the power tariff does not provide for supernormal profit, and that there is shortage of power in this country) to the owner of ‘Antilia’ for heavy power consumption, instead of levying penalty for misuse of power in a colossal house in which very few people reside.

For providing such subsidy, the government needs money. The argument is, it does not have the money. You know why? The government’s conscious decision to allow loot of the natural resources, its wilful inability to unearth and recover black money and bad debt, and such other factors are responsible for its slim purse. The money it loses by undercharging telephony companies for frequency allocation licences (whether it be Rs 1 lakh 76 thousand crores or just Rs 76 thousand crores) or in Coalgate (whether Rs 1 lakh 86 thousand crores or just Rs 86 thousand crores), could have come as revenue if the rulers did not preside over the loot.

Now, at times there can be a clash between the interests of the common or invisible man and the interests of the elite. In case of such a clash the poor people’s interests should get priority. That is what basic humanity demands. Insensitivity however charts out altogether different contours of decision-making. When we find the proposed surcharge (that is to go to the local poor) from mining is drastically reduced at the final stage, it becomes clear that the rulers are working against the interests of the poor tribal-Dalit population. When we find the concerned Minister, Jairam Ramesh, has to state openly that he will not make major compromises on the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill (reported in newspapers on September 4, 2012), it becomes clear that the topmost echelons of power are bent upon lowering the quantum of compensation, thereby making the hapless people lose their living to benefit the industrialist. When we find the Food Security Bill is going through inordinate delay (the same thing happened with the right to minor forest products, and the tribal population has not yet got real right over bamboo) we understand the intention. We understand it better, for the same government had, and still has, no crunch of money for ‘beautification’ of Delhi on the pretext of organising an insignificant event like the Commonwealth Games or something else.

All these go against the principles of natural justice. Again, if the PDS is material subsidy, labour laws serving the interest of the workers are a form of legalistic subsidy. The laws that protect the workers from sudden loss of job ensure next day’s meal to millions of people, including the children and the old. Tragically, Manmohan Singh wants to have (and almost has it now) hire and fire like the West, but without forming the social security network the civilised West provides to its people. It makes Manmohanomics not only insensitive, but also anti-humanitarian.
The truth is that awarding coal blocks to companies without going for auction, in the pretext of awarding captive mines for power plant or something else, is just a kind of subsidy. Building roads to connect all points of the production centre with the market is a subsidy for the industries (though at times it also helps the population living there). Giving government grant (on the excuse that otherwise industry will not be interested) is a kind of subsidy. Giving land for a song to industry is a huge, huge subsidy. Providing tax benefits or tax-holiday is a kind of subsidy. The list of such subsidies is almost never-ending.

Why the votaries of Manmohanomics deny this and try to put up only those subsidies provided to the poor people as subsidy? Because most of the subsidies paid to the rich cannot be justified. Why a heavy parking fee (at least a thousand rupees per month per car) is not imposed on the owners of cars parked on the roads of Delhi where people do not bother to have garages at the ground floor of their houses? The roads were made with all taxpayers’ money and a majority of the taxpayers has no car. And still the great anti-subsidywallahs have never shown the guts of imposing such fees in Delhi. It only shows how hollow they are. They have only one kind of expertise: how to grab all resources available and make good of these for the benefit of the rich.

Crony Capitalism

When the floodgates are opened for a gold rush, its corollaries flow automatically. When greed is welcome, vulgar display of wealth comes automatically. When money-making is the motive, what ensues is unabashed corruption. It inevitably produces an unholy nexus between the investor (real or wily), political class and babudom, while the brokers (nowadays often masquerading as PR agencies) make good money too. 2G and Coalgate are just two big examples of this. Thousands of other small and medium level instances of corruption are known in the corridors of power, but do not come out in the open.

Our thoroughly honest Prime Minister has defended Coalgate. It seemed one of his defence was that he did not change the rules to make auction mandatory because there was some urgency. Unfortunately it falls flat on the ground facing the fact that after the final report of CAG, our PMO gave the final push for de-allocating 58 blocks while action against another 32 was being contemplated (‘De-allocation sword on 32 more coal blocks’: Hindustan Times, September 3, 2012). On the same day, The Times of India said, a note for the inter-ministerial group’s meeting noted: “Out of the 90 coal blocks allocated to private players since 1993, 60 coal blocks with 6.7 billion tonnes (estimated reserves) valued at nearly Rs 2 lakh crore can be cancelled due to lack of progress as ascertained by the Ministry of Coal in the meeting of January 2012.†So, the urgency factor is not sticking.

Once again, the concept of captive mine is based on providing subsidy. It is not only for ensuring regular supply, but also for getting coal cheap. A Minister (Sriprakash Jaiswal, the ‘Kapil Sibal’ for Coalgate advocating the no-loss theory) threatened us that the price of power would go up if coal mines are to be auctioned. A brilliant ploy. Unfortunately for him, The Times of India came out with the rude facts: Jindal Power Limited, a subsidiary of Jindal Power and Steel, owned by Congress MP Naveen Jindal, sells power at a higher rate despite getting coal cheap (‘Secret of Jindal’s success: Cheap coal, costly power’ and ‘Jindal case deflates govt’ ‘low-cost power defence’, both published on September 9, 2012). For the record, this company got its first coal blocks during the NDA regime.

How have the coal blocks on a platter made way for accruing unjustified benefits to a chosen few? First, it provided a golden opportunity to gain from the coal blocks by selling the stakes of these companies. Certain small companies, after they got the coal blocks, were sold to bigger companies (for example, Esser bought Neptune). Second, it provided unimaginable scope for the neta-babu-investor nexus. Some of those against whom actions are now being taken are promoters of Nagpur-based Abhijeet group (the Jayaswals), Congress MP Vijay Jawaharlal Darda, his brother and Education Minister of Maharahtra Rajendra J. Darda,  According to The Times of India (‘Many firms under lens have political links’, September 5, 2012) many companies against whom now the CBI is filing FIRs had political connection. Another item (‘Case of an ex-babu turned directior’) says when the Abhijeet group got four coal blocks in Jharkhand in 2005 and another in 2008, the Chief Secretary of the State was P.P. Sharma, who is now a Director in Abhijeet Power and Corporate Power. There are many other examples of babu-neta-investor nexus and the role played by Union Ministers like Subodh Kant Sahay or Minister of State S. Jagatrakshakan are quite amusing. Again, the NTPC awarded a coal mine contract worth over Rs 23,000 crore, denying another PSU, Singareni Collieries, to a joint venture company in which Santosh Bagrodia’s family had ten per cent share (‘Ex-coal min Bagrodia’s bro got hefty mininng contract’, The Times of India, September 11, 2012). For the record, Santosh Bagrodia was the Minister of State for Coal between 2008 and 2010 and the contracts were awarded between 2006 and 2010, all the while when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was in charge of the Ministry. Thirdly, for limiting the benefits among the cronies, many others were just ignored (‘CBI punches holes in Panel’s selection process’, Hindustan Times, September 7, 2012).

It is quite fascinating that Manmohan Singh, who was in charge of the Coal Ministry when a small group was looting the national resources, has owned up full responsibility in this case instead of putting the onus, as he usually does, on someone else. But it is futile to think that he will admit his guilt. What we have discussed just now should not be a matter of concern for him, because the money has gone to the pockets of the rich. It should not be a matter of concern either for the BJP or CPI-M, for they too are followers of Manmohanomics. Coalgate is a repeat game of the 2G scam, and probably will lead to similar conclusions. But the votaries of Manmohanomics will surely ensure no big shot is penalised.

Live and Do Not Let Live

Whatever has happened in the age of Manmohanomics has made it clear that there are two sets of citizens in this country: one, a small coterie of rich and influential, the highest elite, who the law cannot touch; the other, the vast majority comprising the common man (those who do not own or dare to dream to own a car) and the invisible man (those who can at best have, or just dream of having, a bicycle) living as second and third class citizens. The common man has some resources to fall back upon, though he too is at the mercy of the elite. The invisible man, living in remote areas has no security at all, neither economic nor social. And they lack in political security too for they cannot have a true representative of them, earning less than fifty rupees per day per head, in Parliament or in the Assemblies. Broadly speaking, our Parliament or Assemblies do not represent the interest of the bottom fifty (or more) per cent, as the representatives do not have any idea of their interest.

In such a country Manmohan Singh and the votaries of Manmohanomics are trying to do, theoretically, what Margaret Thatcher or Ronald Reagan did in their respective countries in the eighties. But when you rule for the huge benefit of ten per cent of the population, the benefits trickle down at most to another twenty per cent, but you do not touch the bottom fifty, then you stand bereft of any moral authority. Margaret Thatcher, despite her earning the nickname ‘Milk Snatcher’, was not so low on the moral count because England did not have the fat baggage of utter poverty. Ditto Ronald Reagan. But our leaders, not only Manmohan Singh but the whole lot, with a few exceptions, cannot assert any moral authority. That is why they fall silent, run away from a real debate, and try to destroy institutions like the CAG. They have created anarchy at the topmost level, and now it is fast percolating down.

The general message that has gone to the people is that this is a ‘free-for-all’ time. The leaders are just like colonial rulers who rule for a minority and do not care for the majority. What should have been priority number one to ten in this new millennium is eradication of poverty. In the last three years, the half-hearted hundred (!) days work could have transformed into a ubiquitous, real hundred and fifty days work scheme. Instead of debating it sitting in air-conditioned halls, a real leader would have provided food security to all who need it. If we had a leader who knows this country, who does not represent the parasite elite class draining the resources that belong to the whole people, steps would have been taken to impart real, worthy education and health facilities in the remote areas. Top priority would have been given to, apart from reforms or restructuring for giving justified impetus to industry and service sectors, expansion of agro-industries, rural skill base and developing one business centre in every block. But, such arduous journey towards prosperity of the whole people demands a class of sensitive leaders who are free from the myopia of looking at only the interest of crorepatis. Such a political class is not in sight.

The vacuum has started being filled up with the backward-looking forces. What has happened in Assam is reminiscent of what was common in the first three decades after independence. Raj Thackeray has amassed courage for redoing Bal Thackeray of the sixties and seventies, and is targeting the Biharis. The panchayats of north-west India, probably socially the most backward zone of the country, are raising their ugly head to curtail the freedom of the young generation, particularly women, issuing diktats with impunity against use of the mobiles
by girls and women. They are reclaiming the ground they lost to technological development, in this particular case thanks to Rajiv Gandhi, and our present-day leaders—bereft of moral and political authority—have no option other than to look the other way.

Conclusion

But while concluding this article, one positive point has to be mentioned. All is not lost yet. Every action, when it goes to the extreme, generates a strong reaction. And that is being generated in this country against the insensitive onslaught of Manmohanomics. It must be mentioned that the younger generation has grown much, much more sensitive and vocal to the cause of the invisible man. When the pundits of the Planning Commission proposed Rs 26 and 32 as the poverty line, a general outcry was heard against such gross insensitivity. This was, in a sense, without parallel. It can be expected that this generation will come up to provide a new leadership that would be able to look beyond petty commercial interests. Expectedly, for them, human beings (and tigers also) will be topmost priority. No more would a Bench of the Supreme Court have to say that ‘commercial activity seems to top’ the rulers’ priorities.

But we still do not know whether the people, who do not have any option before them to vote out the votaries of Manmohanomics (simply because all parties believe in it), will be able to assert themselves positively to change the situation. And we still do not know whether this sensitive young generation, for whom human lives are most important, will be able to bring sunshine ending the bitter days of Manmohanomics, or the dark forces will take over in the pretext of ending injustice, ending up only in harming the people in some other ways.

Diptendra Raychaudhuri is a Delhi-based free-lance journalist and author of the novel A Naxal Story. His e-mail id is dip10dra@yahoo.co.in