Slow Growth in Employment

 

1.     Slow Growth in Employment

 

2.       First is the extraordinarily slow growth in regular employment. Regular employment in the organised sector over the last decade or so grew at only about 1%, while the rest of the average 6 to 7% growth in GDP came from the growth in output per worker or labour productivity. In contrast, during the earlier decades, when GDP grew on an average at less than 4%, regular employment grew at the annual rate of 2%. The recent drive to increase labour productivity is related to globalisation. International trade means increasing the importance of the external compared to the internal market, while corporations compete in the export market mostly by cutting costs to increase their international competitiveness. This usually means shedding labour force through mechanisation. For instance, if the labour force in a corporation is downsized to half at the same wage, labour cost per unit of output would also be halved. Let one example suffice to illustrate how this process is working in practice. Tata Motors in Pune reduced the number of workers from 35,000 to 21,000 but increased the production of vehicles from 1,29,000 to 3,12,000 between 1999 and 2004, implying labour productivity increase by a factor of four. The aggregate picture broadly conforms to this. According to the Economic Survey of the government of India (2006-07), total employment in the organised sector declined from 28.2 million in 1977 to 26.4 million in 2004, because the much talked about growth of the private organised sector under the reform policies of the government hardly compensated for the decline in employment by the public sector. Another telling piece of evidence against the belief that corporate-led industrialisation and greater direct foreign investment would promote more employment came from the headlines of The Times of India (7 July 2008). Long hailed as most dynamic in these respects, a recent comparison of the various states of India suggested Gujarat and Maharashtra have been among the slowest growing states in terms of creating either nonagricultural or manufacturing jobs.

 

3.       With regular employment opportunities growing far too slowly compared to the number of job seekers, more and more people are being pushed into the unorganized sector. Agriculture, in particular, has become even more overcrowded. According to the National Sample Survey (61st round), approximately 110 million agricultural workers (out of a total workforce of 400 million) found employment for 209 days in 2004-05 compared to 220 days in 1999-2000. People desperate for a livelihood join the ranks of the so-called self-employed in the unorganised sector, the fastest growing category, marked by long hours of work with negligible earnings, lack of any social security or labour protection and extensive use of child labour. More than half the hawkers of Kolkata, and more than one-third of the hawkers of Ahmedabad belonging to this category of the self-employed are retrenched industrial workers, now threatened once more with the corporatization of retail trade in this era of globalisation in the name of economic efficiency. This vast informal sector is increasingly becoming a refuge for people devoid of all hopes, and reminds one of the hell imagined by the great Italian poet Dante. On its gate is written, "You enter this land after abandoning all hopes".

 

4.       The second reason for growing inequality lies in the style of economic management pursued by the government. While opportunity for regular work is growing at a grossly insufficient pace despite a high growth rate of output, the government has become increasingly weary of spending more for social welfare like health, education, public distribution and social security for the poor. Government expenditure remained more or less steady around 22% of GDP throughout 2000-07, with health receiving 1.4% and education receiving 2.9% of GDP, on the average. The apparent reasons given are lack of "money" and poor public delivery system for social services. However, these are superficial justifications, and there is a more compelling reason which has come out into the open due to the financial crisis. Globalisation of finance made the government highly sensitive to the moods of the stock market and the financial sentiments of major players in that market. Even after the recent dwindling, India still has a relatively large foreign exchange reserves ($250 billion), but unlike China which has been enjoying export surplus for several years, our reserves come mostly from capital inflows exceeding balance of payments deficits, like deposits from non-resident Indians and portfolio investments by various international financial institutions. These are far more fickle in nature and can be withdrawn at a relatively short notice if the mood of the financial market turns sour. A main thrust of the pro-market government policy has been to keep the financial market happy by being on the right side of the international Monetary Fund and the World Bank insofar as they have a central role in shaping international financial opinion for banks, credit-rating agencies, and other financial institutions. This means following their economic guidelines in formulating policies. As a result, the government minimised its welfare spending by letting it stagnate as percentage of GDP even during the years of high growth. The cost of this squeeze of expenditure on social security, education and health falls mainly on the poor who cannot turn to the market due to lack of purchasing power and job opportunities.

 

India’s struggle for the Idea of India

 

India’s struggle for the Idea of India

Our defense minister, Mr. Rajnath Singh had courted a controversy.  He made a statement that Vinayak Damodar Savarkar was advised by Mahatma Gandhiji to file a mercy petition to the British government. Vinayak Damodhar Savarkar had filed his first mercy petition in 1911.  By this the defense minister wanted to white wash Vinayak D. Savarkar of all his dubious role in the freedom struggle.

In 1911 Gandhiji was in South Africa.  Our defense minister Rajnath Singh was not only peddling falsehood but he also got history wrong.  His statement was far from the truth.  Mahatma Gandhi would have been glad to support the release of Savarkar from the Cellular jail but he would not have suggested Savarkar to ask mercy from the British government.  Savarkar assured that he would not do anything against the British empire and that he would cooperate with the British Empire.  This assurance by Savarkar would go dead against the conviction of Mahatma Gandhi.

The significance of the statement of our defense minister is very clear.  There is an attempt on the part of the present ruling dispensation to re write the history of India.  This is similar to none other than the British Empire’s policy who divided the Indian society along with the lines of religion to ensure that the Indians do not unite and fight against the British Empire.  “Teaching of Indian history in schools and colleges from a basically communal point of view made a major contribution to the rise and growth of communalism.  For generations, almost from the beginning of modern school system, communal interpretation of history of various degree of virulence were propagated, first by the imperialist writers and then by others.  So deep and widespread was the penetration of the communal view of history that even sturdy nationalists unconsciously accepted some of its basic tenets.”  Bhipan Chandra and Mukharjees, Indian Struggle for Independence.

It was a struggle before adopting the constitution. There were two ideas of India put forward by two opposing political persuasion.  One was the idea of “One Nation” and another was “Two Nation Theory”.  The idea of two nation theory was promoted by Mohamad Jinnah and By Vinayak Damodar, Golwalkar, Hedge War, the leaders of Hindu Mahasabha.  Both Mohamad Jinnah and the leaders of the Hindu Mahasabha held that in India there were two nations, one the Hindus and the other, Muslims.  Their idea of India was based on religion, Hindu Rashtra and Islamic state.  The idea of Nation was identified with the religion of the majority of the people (majoritarianism). 

From 1906 Jinnah propagated the theme of National Unity.  Sarojini Naidu gave him the title ‘Ambassador of Hindu Muslim Unity’. But Mohamad Jinnah   went away from the Indian National Congress to the Muslim league and formed the Islamic republic.  One must remember that Mohamad Jinnah was not a devout Muslim.  In his life style he was the most secular persons.  He did not believe in the Muslim customs and religious practices.  He even smoked and ate pork.  His Islamic State was a political move to become the prime minister of Pakistan.

 

The idea of India of the Hindu Mahasabha will become clear to us if we read the instruction Golwalkar gave to the Muslims and to other religious minorities.  He said, “The non-Hindu people in Hindusthan must either adopt the Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and hold in reverence Hindu religion, must entertain no idea but those of glorification of the Hindu race and culture, i.e., they must not only give up their attitude of intolerance and ungratefulness towards this land and its age long traditions but must also cultivate the positive attitude of love and devotion instead – in one word, they must cease to be foreigners , or may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment, not even citizen’s right.” Golwalkar, We or Our Nationhood Defined, Nagpur 1947.

But the Indian National Congress held that India is ‘One Nation’, one secular nation.  The identity of India is not defined by the religion but by secularism.  The idea of Secularism holds that all religions and all people are equal before the constitution of India.  People can follow what ever religion they want.  The religion should be a private practice of the citizens.

India’ struggle for the idea of India has been completed by drafting and adopting the “Constitution of India”. 

 

Generally, we would like to point fingers at the rightwing political parties and Politicians.   As Mahatma Gandhi had pointed out the malaise of communalism has penetrated deep in the minds of people, but worst in the minds of politicians. We have seen how many politicians have changed their coats from red to white to saffron.  The Congress party that stood for the idea of India as a secular, democratic and socialist country has only handful leaders so are really committed to the secular, democratic idea of India.  Host of Congress legislators in Karnataka left the congress party and went over to the BJP.  Similar and even worse cross over from Congress to BJP happened in Madhya Pradesh.  Jyotiraditya Shinde was known to be a staunch Congressman. He had inherited his political conviction from his father, Madhav Rao Shinde, who was a staunch secular person of the Congress party. But since he did not get power in the congress government formed under Kamal Nath, he left Congress along with his supporters and went over to BJP. 

Tom Vaddakan was a Congress spokesperson.  But he crossed over to the BJP and appears on and off on TV as a spokesperson of the BJP.  What is worst is that the Bishop of Pala peddled the jihad concept of the right-wing political persuasion.

The spirit of Golwalkar is expressed in the attempt of the Government of Karnataka which is conducting a survey of Christian churches in Karnataka to keep in check the activities of the Christians.  There have been attacks on the Christian prayer gatherings.  The basic Christian community and their gatherings for prayer has been a common practice. The RSS and Bajrang Dal have been attacking these gatherings in the name of prevention of conversion.  Christians have been accused of converting by allurement.  Conversion by allurement has become a catch phrase for the Bajrang Dal and RSS.  But there is no talk of converting MLAs and MPs by offering allurements amounting to crores of rupees.  Converting the members of the opposition parties to pulled down the democratically elected governments is seen as Chanakya’s intelligence.   Christians have been peace loving people and their contribution to education and health care is unparallel.  But now they are suspect in the eyes of the rulers.

Therefore, Gandhiji wrote, “Communal harmony could not be permanently established in our country so long as highly distorted versions of history were being taught in her schools and colleges through the history text books.”  A. N. Vidyalakar “National Integration and Teaching of History. 

Even today, we have innumerable attempts to distort the historical facts and undermine the role of the freedom fighters like Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabh Bai Patel and even Mahatma Gandhi.  The Indian Council of Historical research published a poster on freedom fighters.  But this poster did not include the Jawaharlal Nehru though it was Nehru along with Vallabhai Patel Mahatma Gandhi and many other fought for 30 years for freedom.  Nehru spent ten years in jail during the freedom struggle.  Mahatma Gandhi called Nehru the jewel of India.  The present dispensation blames Nehru for all the ills of the society.  The people who believed in two nation theory like Mohamed Jinnah blame Nehru for the partition of India.  Nathuram Godse, who killed Mahatma Gandhi is portrayed by some as a hero and his statues are being installed.  Vinayak Savarkar was one of the accused in plotting to kill Mahatma Gandhi.  Now he has been portrayed very differently.

We have moved away from the past to the 21^st century.  Imperial rulers who divided us to rule for their benefit have gone.  We have no need of the mischief played by our rulers from abroad. We have come of age.  We must recognize that the most serious challenge our country is facing is that of communalism.  It has assumed menacing proportion, threatening the very unity of the country and the basic character of Indian culture and civilization.  When our constitution declares our republic as secular, we need to separate religion from politics, economics and large areas of culture.  We need to treat religion as a private and personal affair of the citizens.  In a multi-religious society, like ours, secularism means the state being equidistant from or showing equal respect for all religions, including atheism.  Political parties have used religion to gain political power.  There should be all out effort to prevent communalization of politics and abuse of religious symbols by politicians.

We have a huge task to extricate our youth from this climate of communalism and hate campaign.  All the school and particularly the families have a task of placing before our youth the facts of history of freedom struggle and the greatness of a democratic, secular and socialist idea of India. Democracy means equality of all before the constitution.  It is important that we familiarize our youth with the tenets of our constitution.  Studying the Constitution of India should be part of the curriculum of the high school education. 

THE FUTURE OF INDIA AND THE NATIONAL MONETIZATION PIPELINE

 

Wither India

With The National Monetization Pipeline

 

What is the National Monetization Pipeline?

The government, and particularly, the finance ministry has announced that a list of public assets will be leased to the private investors for a period of time to raise Rs. 6 lakh crores over the next four years.

What Assets? Only those assets which are already operational, will be leased out to the private investors. 

26,700 Kms highways worth Rs.1.6 Lakh (L) Crore (Cr); - 400 Railway stations and 150 trains (Rs.1.5 L. Cr); - 42,300 Circuit Kms of Power Transmission Lines (Rs.0.67 L. Cr); - 5,000 MW Hydro, Solar and Wind Power Generation assets (Rs.0.32 L. Cr); - 8,000 Kms of National Gas Pipelines (Rs.0.24 L. Cr); - 4,000 Kms Pipelines of IOC and HPCL (Rs.0.22 L. Cr); BSNL and MTNL Towers (Rs.0.39 L. Cr); - 21 Airports and 31 Ports (Rs.0.34 L. Cr); 160 Coal Mining projects (Rs.0.32 L. Cr); and 2 Sport Stadiums (Rs.0.11 L. Cr) etc. for various durations of lease. It is claimed that the funds so generated will be invested in expanding infrastructure.

The assets in creation, in the process of building up will not be included.  These could be considered to be leased out only when the building of these assets is completed.  The building up or completion of, or creation of assets has to be done by the government.

We have already in existence the assets which have been leased out, such as the airports. Adani has been given the Mumbai Chhatrapati Shivaji airport, Thiruvananthapuram airport for the purpose of operation.  And Mundra port in Kutch which had in one of its containers massive quantities of drugs coming from Afghanistan.

The leasing out of the assets means that the ownership of the assets remains with the government but they will remain at the disposal of the investors during the period of the lease agreement.  Once the lease period is over the assets will be handed over back to the Government.

The investors will pay the government lease amount for each of these assets.  This amount may not be the cost of the creation of the assets.  This lease amount will become an income for the government.  The government would like to earn about Rs. 5.96 lakh crore.  As far as the investors are concerned, they will run the assets, eg., the airport, and earn money for themselves.  If the government was running these assets, they would also earn the money for the government. But the time the government would earn the money equivalent to the lease amount, it will take several years.  Leasing the assets will give the government immediately this amount and investors will recover their investment and their profit over a period of time.

The government says by leasing the assets to the investors they will free the capital (investment) stuck in these assets.  The government will immediately get back about 14% of the total investment in these assets from the lease.  The government can invest this lease amount to create new assets and infrastructure. In this manner the National Monetization Pipeline (NMP) will boost the Indian economy.  It will generate new employment and new infrastructure.  Further the newly created infrastructure can be leased out to more investors by the private capital leading to government further earning and investing in creation of new assets and creating more employment leading to growth. This pipeline will be a continuous process.

What are the fault lines of this NMP?

1.      First of all, we must understand that the assets being offered for leasing have been created through the contribution of the citizens, all of whom pay either direct or indirect taxes to the government.  The citizens have stakes in the management and operation of these assets.  They have elected a government to govern which means the government and their agencies should operate these assets for the public interest and not to be handed over to the private capital to generate profit for themselves.  The assets offered over the private investors are performing assets which serve the people.

2.      There is a big doubt if the private capital will come forward to take the public assets on lease.  There is a standing offer to them of the sale of Air India.  But there are no takers for this airline.  The buyers have to abide by some stringent conditions which keep them away.  Those who come forward to take the assets on lease will prefer to take most profit-making assets, like airports, harbour and ports.  Finally, only two or three investors like Ambani and Adani will come forward.  This will lead to formation of monopoly and oligarchs.

3.      The governments in the past have tried other means to hand over the assets to the private capital through the schemes like “Disinvestments”, “Public Private Partnership”.  These have not worked well.  In the case of disinvestment, the government has sold the profit-making assets for a song, resulting in handing over tax payers’ assets to the capitalists.  The Centaur hotel of Mumbai was sold at a very lowest price.  The buyer sold this hotel within a month making huge profits.  The new buyer is making a roaring business out of it.  Finally, it the public that have lost their wealth to the private capital.

4.      The government will lease out to the private capital assets built by the government from the taxpayers' money.  When these assets, like Airports, Railways, roads, ports and harbours go under the control of the private capital.  They will try to get maximum profit out of it.  When the private capital hands over these assets to the government after the stipulated time we will not be able to know the condition in which these assets will be returned. 

“A farmer buys a young healthy, milk yielding cow.  He leases it out to a milkman for three or four years.  The milkman milks the cow and feeds less to make maximum profit.  After three or four years the farmer gets the cow back in a miserable condition, an under nourished and low milk yielding cow.”

5.      If these assets are leased to the cronies of the government as it has happened in the case of airports it will result in monopoly.  If the private players (monopolists) charge the consumers high consumer fees, then the consumer will suffer.  Initially the consumers pay to build these assets through their tax money and the same assets land in the hands of the private capital who further exploits the consumer.

6.      In the year 1991, Narasimha government along with Dr. Manmohan Singh liberalized the Indian Economy.  The economy was liberalized, opened to the world market, for private investment.  The National Monetization Pipeline is part of the same privatization programme.  This reform has seen a sea change in the Indian economy.  We have a lot of foreign investors in the country.  There was indeed high growth.  But on the other hand, we have seen a lot of petty producers pushed out of production.  The industrial growth has led to the forcible displacement of peasants from their land.  If we take an example of tribal population then we will see that their land holding which had been sustaining their families have been forcibly evacuated from their land and their lands have been taken over by Adani and Vedantas to explore minerals. From 1991 to 2011 the number of cultivators has fallen by 15 million.  These people have been reduced to wage labourers or keep migrating to the cities in search of non-existing employment.  Of course, the economy has seen tremendous growth. We have noticed that the GDP growth and growth in employment is inversely related.  We can see the way auto industries are organized.  The high automation has improved the quality of cars but it has not created proportionately equal employment.  In many cases it has displaced the workers.

8.      The reform in the labour laws have encouraged foreign and domestic investment leading to higher industrialization.  But it has reduced the bargaining power of the workers.  There is a widespread practice of contract labour.  Usually the semiskilled workers, as and when needed by the industries, were hired through the contractors.  But now even the highly skilled workers are hired through contract labour.

9.      The three farm laws which the Modi government has introduced will reduce the farmers to the condition of contract farmers.  The procurement and farm market will be controlled by Ambani and Adani who have already built massive store houses to store food grains.  Farmers will become mere extensions of the corporates. These corporations can even create artificial famine by hoarding food grains, forcing the poor to starve.

 

The real issue we would like to address here is the “Paradigm of development”? 

 

The state wants to transfer the wealth of the society to the wealthy capital owners and reduce the rest of humanity into mere wage labourers who would have to rely on the wages, having no share in the wealth of the society. The society to be divided into a few oligarchs and the rest of the people into wage labourers having no stake in the society.  By allowing these oligarchs to own the society’s wealth these oligarchs will rule the state.  This will make the government to rule the nation for these oligarchs.  The wage labourers may have houses, three square meals, health care and education but they will have no share in the society and the capital created from their taxes.  The meaning of their lives will be reduced to eternally wage labourers.  The government is introducing a new type of citizenship, bereft of all rights of the citizens.  In India, it is not only the pace of growth that will impress people, but also the pace of their inclusion in it. Those who are being left behind, including tribals, do not want to be mere passive beneficiaries of state handouts and corporate philanthropy. They want to be respected, earning their own incomes and growing their own wealth.

 

• Citizenship as wage labourers for the capital:  If after monetizing the national assets the government may invest the proceeds for creation of new assets.  It will give rise to employment opportunities.  But who will be the end beneficiary of this?  This investment will be to create wealth for the private capital. The lives of the wage labourers always hang on the temporary strings.  When the string becomes weak the life becomes precarious and when the string breaks the labourers fall flat on the ground.  We have experienced this during the pandemic.  The labourers were the most affected population of the society.  There were a huge number of people who lost their jobs; the miseries of the migrant labourers have remained on the TV screens long enough to be forgotten.  While the working class was pushed into the depth of poverty and suffering the private capital owners’ wealth grew in multiples.

• The state as a repressive machinery.  To prevent opposition or revolt from the toiling masses the state has assumed a greater repressive nature, abolishing the right to protest, frequently using draconian laws like UAPA, sedition that goes to deprive the rights of citizenship for people who dare to think and express their opinion.  Reform in the trade union laws which deprive the right of the workers to bargain, demand for fair wages, security of employment.

• A farmer grazing his cattle in the land near the National highway no 7 says, “life has become hard for us because our space has been taken away from us.  This highway which came up right in front of our eyes has taken away so many of our cattle, sheep and goats.  We used to be afraid of tigers which would sometimes take away our cattle.  The tigers have gone and vultures like these highways have come.  Nowadays these highways have been fenced, preventing us from entering the highway roads.  We cannot cross these roads.  Our bullock cart cannot enter the road.”

Nation building is primarily making all citizens feel that this nation belongs to them; that they have a share in the wealth of the nation.  

 

The character of a nation is defined by the character of its citizens.

 

THE IDEA OF INDIA:

The character of a nation is defined by the character of its citizens. The nation today is in search of people who will put nation before themselves, who believe that their destiny is intrinsically linked up with the destiny of the nation;  the people who do not want to use the nation to build their destiny but build their destiny by first building the destiny of the nation. 

“Citizenship is an attitude, a state of mind, an emotional conviction that the whole is greater than the part.  And that the part should be humbly proud to sacrifice itself that the whole may life.” Robert A. Heinlein.

The subject “The idea of India” is hotly debated during these days when alternative “idea of India” is being put forward by the contending section of the Indians.

They argue that those who are speaking of ‘Idea of India’ think India came into existence only after independence.  They argue that India existed since thousands of years.  But there is a big fallacy in their argument.  This fallacy is because they confuse India as a geographical territory and India as a political entity. 

The geographical land called India existed from, not only thousands of years but also from millions of years. The fact is what existed thousands of years ago in the geographical land, now called India, is not the same as what this land has come to be. It is the history that will tell us how this land has evolved from primitive reality to the modern 20st century India.

Before the British arrives in India there were many war lords, kings, and emperors who rule on difference parts of this land.  There was the Maghad empire, the Marathas ruled over huge territory of India. In the south there was a Chola dynasty, Pallavans, Maharaja of Mysore, Haidar Ali, Tippu Sultan.  From the coming of the Muslim sultans, Babar, Akbar ruled a huge territory of India.  The British arrived in India and they went in war with many of these rulers and defeated them.  They made a treaty with some which allowed them to keep their territory under their control but would owe allegiance to the British rules.  When the British rulers consolidated their hold on the entire territory of India it was in their interest to unite the territory of India. Such united territory did not exist before the British rule.

Emergence of Nationalism:

During the freedom struggle and with the influence of wester education the sentiments of nationalism took roots in India.  The leaders of the freedom struggle were looking for an identity of Nation State as the British was a nation state and empire.  The idea of Nationalism strengthened the freedom struggle.  Under the leadership of Gandhi all people of different origin, cultures, religions and economic classed got united to fight for independence for the British rule.

Hence the idea of India existed from thousands of years is a fallacy.  It is only through the rise of nationalism and finally achieving independence from the British rule that India as a Nation state came into being.

The leaders of the freedom struggle searched for the idea of India.  The founding fathers of our nation inspire and instill in us about the idea of India.   

There was near unanimity among them about how our nation should be moulded.  During the freedom struggle the people of India with every shade of ideology had identified themselves with the Indian National Congress.  The manner in which this movement functioned during the struggle for independence indicated what idea they had for the nation that they had laboured to bring forth.

We are a nation that is blessed with many great people who have fought for great values and dedicated themselves to build the nation along these values.  We should solute to these leaders, Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel, Maulana Azad, Jyotiba Phule, Babasaheb Ambedkar, etc.

“Men and women in every age and society want to make their own history, but they do not make it in an historical vacuum.  Their effort, however innovative, in finding solution to their problems in the present and charting out their future, are guided and circumscribed, moulded and conditioned, by their respective histories, their inherited economic, political and ideological structure.  Our past, present and future is inextricably linked to it.

By the very definition of making history is in the context of our past and our vision for the future. India set on its path, on its own as it were, after independence, i.e., from 1947.  But this path has deep roots in the struggle of the people for independence.  The political and ideological features, which have had a decisive impact on the post-independence development, are largely a legacy of the freedom struggle.  It is a legacy that belongs to all the Indian people, regardless of which party or group they belong to now; for the force which led this struggle from 1885 to 1947 was not a party but a movement.  All political trends from the Right to the Left were incorporated in this movement.” (Bhipin Chandra, Mridula Mukherjee, Aditya Mukherjee, K.N. Panikkar and Sucheta Mahajan, India’s Struggle for Independence.)

The vision for the future of Indian was set by the Constituent Assembly which with long strenuous deliberation drafted a Constitution for India. At the heart of the constitutional document was the indelible faith in Indian Nationalism.  The visionary founders espoused to deliver the promise of freedom to the masses.  The primary aim of the constituent assembly was fostering the goal of social revolution and this was matched only by an interest in securing ‘national unity and stability’.  The engine of this social revolution emerged from both the pressing needs of the newly independent country and the Indian National Congress’ long experience of anti-colonial nationalism.  The leaders of the Congress successfully transplanted the goals of freedom struggle as constitutional maxims.  According to Nehru, ‘Indians did not default their tryst with destiny’.  The fundamental rights and the directive principles are the ‘conscience’ of India.

Along the history, in the context of emergency of 1975 and in 1992 the demolition of Babri  Masjid, there was increased demand for further democratization and empowerment among the economically and socially deprived.

The founders’ vision of social revolution, national unity, and stability through democracy that formed the ‘seamless web’ continued to both influence and pose problems for their successors.

The country lost its maternal immunity late in the sixties with the decline of the founding generation ...   Approaching maturity in the nineties, its most difficult time lie ahead.

Can India be a great democracy, strong in itself and, in the eyes of the world, so long as so many of its people are denied the promise of the Preamble?

If the constitution of India was the finest expression of Indian nationalism, why did it not enchant two of the most significant communities of India, the Muslims and the Dalits?

The Indian nationalists were at the heart of the founding document, the constitution.  Such nationalists believed in democratizing power, in accommodating differences and in integrated pluralism and, above all sought to uplift the down trodden through a social revolution.

What are the outstanding features of the freedom struggle? A major aspect is the values and modern ideals on which the movement itself was based and the broad socio economic and political vision of its leadership (this vision was that of a democratic, civil libertarian and secular India, based on self-reliant, egalitarian social order and an independent stand as against the rest of the world.

• Democratic ideas and institutions in India:  The Indian National Congress was fully committed to and organized on a democratic basis and in the form of a parliament.  Having experienced the British authoritarian and despotic rule which did not give any space for freedom of speech and press, the national leaders were whole heartedly committed to drive out not only the British rulers out of the country but also their despotic rule and replace it with democracy, freedom of speech and freedom of press. The national movement did not see the democratic values to be practiced only after independence, but these values were built in the functioning of the movement itself.  There were no decisions taken in the congress without thorough discussion and through consensus. Every resolution was put to vote. People were free to disagree and dissent.  Mahatma Gandhi even congratulated those who had the courage of conviction to vote against a resolution.
• From the beginning the nationalists fought against the attacks by the state on the freedom of the press, of expression and of association.  They made the struggle for these freedoms an integral part of the national movement.  The defense of civil liberties was not conceived narrowly, in terms of one political group, but was extended to include the defense of other groups whose views were politically and ideologically different.  Gandhiji thus writes on the total civil liberty, “Liberty of speech means that it is un-assailed even when the speech hurts; liberty of the Press can be said to be truly respected; only the Press can comment in the severest terms upon and even misrepresent matters.  Similarly, freedom of association is truly respected when the assemblies of people can discuss even revolutionary projects.” “Civil liberty consistent with observance of non-violence is the first step towards SWARAJ.  It is the breath of political and social life.  It is the foundation of freedom.  There is no room there for dilution or compromise.  It is water of life.” (B. R. Nanda, Mahatma Gandhi -- a Biography.)

Nehru was known for his deep commitment to civil liberty.  He kept the civil liberty at par with economic equality and socialism.  He wrote, “If civil liberties are suppressed, a nation loses all vitality and becomes impotent for anything substantial.” (S. Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru – a biography vol. one.)

 

Monetization of Assets Pipeline

 

Wither India

With The National Monetization Pipeline

 

What is the National Monetization Pipeline?

The government, and particularly, the finance ministry has announced that a list of public assets will be leased to the private investors for a period of time to raise Rs. 6 lakh crore over the next four years.

What Assets? Only those assets which are already operational, will be leased out to the private investors. 

26,700 Kms highways worth Rs.1.6 Lakh (L) Crore (Cr); - 400 Railway stations and 150 trains (Rs.1.5 L. Cr); - 42,300 Circuit Kms of Power Transmission Lines (Rs.0.67 L. Cr); - 5,000 MW Hydro, Solar and Wind Power Generation assets (Rs.0.32 L. Cr); - 8,000 Kms of National Gas Pipelines (Rs.0.24 L. Cr); - 4,000 Kms Pipelines of IOC and HPCL (Rs.0.22 L. Cr); BSNL and MTNL Towers (Rs.0.39 L. Cr); - 21 Airports and 31 Ports (Rs.0.34 L. Cr); 160 Coal Mining projects (Rs.0.32 L. Cr); and 2 Sport Stadiums (Rs.0.11 L. Cr) etc. for various durations of lease. It is claimed that the funds so generated will be invested in expanding infrastructure.

The assets in creation, in the process of building up will not be included.  These could be considered to be leased out only when the building of these assets is completed.  The building up or completion of, or creation of assets has to be done by the government.

We have already in existence the assets which have been leased out, such as the airports. Adani has been given the Mumbai Chhatrapati Shivaji airport, Thiruvananthapuram airport for the purpose of operation.  And Mundra port in Kutch which had in one of its containers massive quantities of drugs coming from Afghanistan.

The leasing out of the assets means that the ownership of the assets remains with the government but they will remain at the disposal of the investors during the period of the lease agreement.  Once the lease period is over the assets will be handed over back to the Government.

The investors will pay the government lease amount for each of these assets.  This amount may not be the cost of the creation of the assets.  This lease amount will become an income for the government.  The government would like to earn about Rs. 5.96 lakh crore.  As far as the investors are concerned, they will run the assets, eg., the airport, and earn money for themselves.  If the government was running these assets, they would also earn the money for the government. But the time the government would earn the money equivalent to the lease amount, it will take several years.  Leasing the assets will give the government immediately this amount and investors will recover their investment and their profit over a period of time.

The government says by leasing the assets to the investors they will free the capital (investment) stuck in these assets.  The government will immediately get back quite a substantial part of the money invested, (about 14% of the total investment) in these assets from the lease.  The government can invest this lease amount to create new assets and infrastructure. In this manner the National Monetization Pipeline (NMP) will boost the Indian economy.    This will help the economy to move forward. It will generate new employment and new infrastructure.  Further the newly created infrastructure can be leased out to more investment by the private capital leading to government earning and further investing in creation of new assets and creating more employment leading to growth. This pipeline will be a continuous process.

What are the fault lines of this NMP?

1.      First of all, we must understand that the assets being offered for leasing have been created through the contribution of the citizens, all of whom pay either direct or indirect taxes to the government.  The citizens have stakes in the management and operation of these assets.  They have elected a government to govern which means the government and their agencies should operate these assets for the public interest and not to be handed over to the private capital to generate profit for themselves.  The assets offered over the private investors are performing assets which serve the people.

2.      There is a big doubt if the private capital will come forward to take the public assets on lease.  There is a standing offer to them of the sale of Air India.  But there are no takers for this airline.  The buyers have to abide by some stringent conditions which keep them away.  Those who come forward to take the assets on lease will prefer to take most profit-making assets, like airports, harbour and ports.  Finally, only two or three investors like Ambani and Adani will come forward.  This will lead to formation of monopoly and oligarchs.

3.      The governments in the past have tried other means to hand over the assets to the private capital through schemes like “Disinvestments”, “Public Private Partnership”.  These have not worked well.  In the case of disinvestment, the government has sold the profit-making assets for a song, resulting in handing over tax payers’ assets to the capitalists.  The Centaur hotel of Mumbai was sold at a very lowest price.  The buyer sold this hotel within a month making huge profits.  The new buyer is making a roaring business out of it.  Finally, it the public that have lost their wealth to the private capital.

4.      The government will lease out to the private capital assets built by the government from the taxpayers' money.  When these assets, like Airports, Railways, roads, ports and harbours go under the control of the private capital.  They will try to get maximum profit out of it.  When the private capital hands over these assets to the government after the stipulated time we will not be able to know the condition in which these assets will be returned. 

“A farmer buys a young healthy, milk yielding cow.  He leases it out to a milkman for three or four years.  The milkman milks the cow and feeds less to make maximum profit.  After three or four years the farmer gets the cow back in a miserable condition, under nourished and low milk yielding cow.”

5.      If these assets are leased to the cronies of the government as it has happened in the case of airports it will result in monopoly.  If the private players (monopolists) charge the consumers high consumer fees, then the consumer will suffer.  Initially the consumers pay to build these assets through their tax money and the same assets land in the hands of the private capital who further exploits the consumer.

6.      In the year 1991, Narasimha government along with Dr. Manmohan Singh liberalized the Indian Economy.  The economy was liberalized, opened to the world market, for private investment.  This reform has seen a sea change in the Indian economy.  We have a lot of foreign investors in the country.  There was indeed high growth.

7.      But on the other hand, we have seen a lot of petty producers pushed out of production.  The industrial growth has led to the forcible displacement of peasants from their land.  If we take an example of tribal population then we will see that their land holding which had been sustaining their families have been forcibly evacuated from their land and their lands have been taken over by Adani and Vedantas to explore minerals. From 1991 to 2011 the number of cultivators has fallen by 15 million.  These people have been reduced to wage labourers or keep migrating to the cities in search of non-existing employment.  Of course, the economy has seen tremendous growth. We have noticed that the GDP growth and growth in employment is inversely related.  We can see the way auto industries are organized.  The high automation has improved the quality of cars but it has not created proportionately equal employment.  In many cases it has displaced the workers.

8.      The reform in the labour laws have encouraged foreign and domestic investment and industrialization.  But it has reduced the bargaining power of the workers.  There is a widespread practice of contract labour.  Usually the semiskilled workers, as and when needed by the industries, were hired through the contractors.  But now even the highly skilled workers are hired through contract labour.

9.      The three farm laws which the Modi government has introduced will reduce the farmers to the condition of contract farmers.  The procurement and farm market will be controlled by Ambani and Adani.  Farmers will become mere extensions of the corporates who have already built massive store houses to store food grains.  These corporations can even create artificial famine by hoarding food grains, forcing the poor to starve.

 

10.  The real issue we would like to address here is how far the government can go in following this Paradigm of development”? 

 

The state wants to transfer the wealth of the society to the wealthy capital owners and reduce the rest of humanity into mere wage labourers who would have to rely on the wages, having no share in the wealth of the society. The society to be divided into a few oligarchs and the rest of the people into wage labourers having no share in the capital of the society.  By allowing these oligarchs to own the society’s wealth these oligarchs will rule the state.  This will make the government to rule for these oligarchs.  The wage labourers may have houses, three square meals, health care and education but they will have no share in the society and the capital created from their taxes.  The meaning of their lives will be reduced to eternally wage labourers. In India, it is not only the pace of growth that will impress people, but also the pace of their inclusion in it. Those who are being left behind, including tribals, do not want to be mere passive beneficiaries of state handouts and corporate philanthropy. They want to be respected, earning their own incomes and growing their own wealth.

 

11.  Citizenship as wage labourers for the capital:  If after monetizing the national assets the government may invest the proceeds for creation of new assets.  It will give rise to employment opportunities.  But who will be the end beneficiary of this?  This investment will be to create wealth for the private capital. The lives of the wage labourers always hang on the temporary strings.  When the string becomes weak the life becomes precarious and when the string breaks the labourers fall flat on the ground.  We have experienced this during the pandemic.  The labourers were the most affected population of the society.  There were a huge number of people who lost their jobs; the miseries of the migrant labourers have remained on the TV screens long enough to be forgotten.  While the working class was pushed into the depth of poverty and suffering the private capital owners’ wealth grew in multiples.

12.  To prevent opposition or revolt from the toiling masses the state assumed a greater repressive nature, abolishing the right to protest, frequently using draconian laws like UAPA, sedition that goes to deprive the rights of citizenship for people who dare to think and express their opinion.  Reform in the trade union laws which deprive the right of the workers to bargain, demand for fair wages, security of employment.

13.   “A farmer grazing his cattle in the land near the National highway no 7 says, “life has become hard for us because our space has been taken away from us.  This highway which came up right in front of our eyes has taken away so many of our cattle, sheep and goats.  We used to be afraid of tigers which would sometimes take away our cattle.  The tigers have gone and vultures like these highways have come.  Nowadays these highways have been fenced, preventing us from entering the highway roads.  We cannot cross these roads.  Our bullock cart cannot enter the road.”

14.  Nation building is primarily making all citizens feel that this nation belongs to them; that they have a share in the wealth of the nation.