The state has withered away

Maoist groups and the mindless orgy of violence unleashed by them are regarded as a national scourge. No less than the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself has gone on record to say that it constitutes the single-biggest threat to the country’s unity and security apparatus, even ahead of crossborder terrorism.

But does India’s political elite look too concerned? They should, if they are not. Sitting in the smug confines of the national capital or in one of the metros, the goings on in the country’s boondocks thousands of kilometres away, is no ones’ problem. Yet, if nearly 200 districts, in the heart of some of the most mineral-rich areas of the world, are under the grip of Left radicals, any country should worry. It is not as if policy planners are sitting idle tweedling their thumbs, but the complications of the situation are enormous.

While realms have been written on Maoists, their deadly strategies and human right excesses, this issue of Governance Watch examines a hitherto untapped area of work: the response of the government machinery to Left extremism.

The word administrative paralysis in this case would be an understatement. There is virtually no trace of the all powerful Indian state in vast tracts of Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. In fact, deep in the interiors of a Dantewada or Sambalpur district, almost wholly under Maoist control, a casual visitor to the region may be tempted to believe that he is back in 19th century India.

What were once fairly well administered states, like former Madhya Pradesh and Odisha, are mere caricatures of their not-too-distant past, their official delivery mechanisms in shambles because the threat of the gun in the last two decades or so, has been so overwhelming that the civil bureaucracy, including the armed police, have simply made themselves scarce.

The logic of politics is that if you vacate space, someone else will grab it. That is precisely what has happened. Buildings which once housed crucial low-level district functionaries, have been abandoned in favour of Left radicals, hospitals have become safe houses for those on the run and in the near absence of any law and order machinery, the extremists have without fear, marked out their territory.

A ground report from Sambalpur in Odisha demonstrates how fragile the administrative system has become. In one case after the other, remnants of the former administration who despite being in a minority have displayed courage to stay on and work in very trying circumstances, take their orders from Maoists. With no protection, what can be expected? Decisions deemed administrative, like collecting taxes, are now taken by Naxalites in their absence, underlining the state’s ultimate ignominy.

To focus substantially, we have the company of two experts who have seen the Naxalite movement from very close quarters, one a serving administrator and the other, a retired one. An officer posted in Andhra Pradesh in the worst days of Left militancy, shows us a way out. His empathy and involvement in the affairs of the common man won the day for the Indian state in a remote part of the country. For the other, working and understanding the Naxalites or Maoists has been a lifelong passion. It his column, he gives us a perspective that is fresh, as it is old. The rights of the tribals have been usurped and violated and what we now see by way of rural violence is the comeuppance. For a subject which is sure to dominate headlines in the days to come, hopefully this issue would help in providing some guidance.

Chickens come to roost

Rarely has a country been at the economic crossroads as India is. In dictatorships, economic policy runs a course dictated strongly by political logic. To justify centralized rule and the lack of freedom, republics are known to pursue financial policies which have helped them achieve unprecedented growth rates on a consistent basis. A decision taken at the top – and not surprisingly, marked by utmost unanimity – has to be followed in letter and spirit down the line where dissent has no place. The results are always encouraging.

Tragically for India, where more than two million people hold elected posts in political and public life, it is precisely democracy which is being used as a bulwark against growth and development. A global project approved by the central government and likely to benefit local people amongst others is shot down merely because the state government does not deem it fit or conveniently brands it ‘anti-people’.

The chickens are now coming to roost. After a decade of high growth, India is in the throes of a development crisis where investment both foreign and Indian has slowed down. Spiraling inflation, unacceptable corruption levels and weak kneed central government policies have produced an unhealthy situation.

The debate is now centered on two classical strands of Indian economics; one, which seeks convergence with the global economic order, the other dictated by traditional Left or socialist rhetoric which says the country has to chart out its own course, independent of any world economic order. Global investor agencies are drawing dire conclusions of India’s growth story, some going as far as to suggest that its fairy tale GDP graph could now be a thing of the past.

In its latest assessment, Moody’s Analytics believes that “confidence among Indian firms has been crushed by weak demand, elevated interest rates, high inflation and most significantly, the instability created by a weak central government that has badly lost its way.’’ Similar conclusions were earlier arrived at by Standard and Poor, another global agency which has pegged down India’s GDP by several notches in their outlook for 2012-13.

While it is easy to brush aside these assessments as those representing varied interest groups, it is equally a fact that high velocity global investments are tied down to what the agencies conclude. It would be no hyperbole to say that top companies around the world follow their outlook to arrive at their conclusions. By the looks of what the agencies are saying, obviously global investors are not exactly jumping with joy at the prospects of setting up shop in India.

As opposed to what is euphemistically described as ‘neo-con’ economics, there are others who take the view that instead of inviting foreign finance capital to speculate in India’s stock market, the government needs to focus on encouraging private and public investment in productive enterprises.

This school of thought is convinced that two decades of policies of liberalization, globalization and privatisation have benefited just a few people at the top and agriculture has suffered enormously. They also rubbish claims that a high GDP does not necessarily benefit everyone.

This is a view which suits India’s deeply fragmented political chess board where regional satraps with little or no vision for India, are wont to rail against the ‘global economic order’, stall initiatives like FDI in retail and stand doggedly by their positions. For instance, the biggest opposition to FDI in retail has come from politically crucial Uttar Pradesh.

In between several questions remain unanswered – in fact they have not even been asked. Where do you get high technology so critical for economic growth? Where is the money so vitally needed for investment?

These are questions that this issue of Governance Watch tackles. In a series of high profile columns and interviews, there is no spectrum of economic life which has been left untouched. There are liberal economists, top-of-the line policy honchos, Left analysts, middle-of-theroad egg heads and agriculture experts that have come together for the first time to conduct a micro-level post-mortem of India’s woes. For those following the India growth story, it must make for compelling reading.

Kudankulam effect

Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) constitute a critical element of civil society and it would be no exaggeration to say that they are, in fact, its main drivers. The civil society is a motley assemblage: voluntary activists, PIL lawyers, media persons, general do gooders, public spirited fellows and lately, a sprinkling of celebrities who have jumped on the bandwagon eying lollies on the way.

But even in this crowd, the NGO will make its presence felt. Unlike the other civil society players, they know the rules of business, they can research and dig up facts which have not seen the light of the day and have the wherewithal to pursue a case for weeks, even months and years, to take it to logical fruition. In addition, they have the resources to trail relentlessly.

India is home to one of the world’s most powerful, effective and vocal voluntary sectors. There is virtually no field of activity which is untouched: education, health, drinking water, sanitation, environment, industry, information — you name it. From somewhat modest beginnings in the 1960s, it is today a behemoth.

The results of NGO activism too have been encouraging. Some major environmental acts have been enacted at the back of noteworthy ecological campaigns , there is more than ever a starker realisation of communalism post-Gujarat, a young generation has got its teeth into anti-corruption after Anna Hazare’ campaign, a sharper appreciation of development issues has emerged and as the 2G scam demonstrated, NGO action has a sharp cutting edge as well. 

Some recent researches have focused on alternative themes, the most notable of which is the role of foreign-funded groups working as Christian proselytisers, mainly in India’s tribal belt, exploiting the country’s natural fault lines to whip up a frenzy of anti-state feelings and unhealthy secular relations. In an indictment of just how strongly networked such groups are, Rajiv Malhotra and Arvindan Neelkandan in their book ‘Breaking India: Western Intervention in Dravidian and Dalit Faultlines’, reveal patronages that go back to the US Congress and influential US and other European politicians connected to the Christian Right who consider proselytising their primary political concern. 

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s recent indictment of US-backed peace activists in Koodankulum for slowing down India’s nuclear  power acquisition programme, has raised hackles. Opinion is divided. The NGO sector sees it as a direct interference in their affairs, one which is open to competitive interpretations. Coming at the heels of greater scrutiny of their sources of funding by the ministry of home affairs and a 2010 amendment to the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA), prominent groups are a bit nonplussed over a direct attack on them led  by the Prime Minister himself. 

This, they believe, is a prelude to imposing further curbs. Their rivals say more than 50 per cent of NGOs have yet to account for their global funding. There are still others who say there is need for greater synergy and dialogue between the government and the voluntary sector. 

Happily, there is one consensus: financially hamstrung governments with archaic rules of business cannot work on their own and need the help of the voluntary sector as partners to take their development programmes down to the grassroots. In a government machinery dominated by British-Raj regulations, NGOs have been able to inject a fresh dose of vitality of thinking, displaying a much larger connect with people on ground. Not helping the NGO cause is India’s difficult security environment. Conspiracy theorists are wont to raise questions on NGO funding in those parts of the country which are hit by extremism. There have been sporadic admissions from the government of NGO support for pro-radical outfits in Kashmir and the North East.

This issue of Governance Watch takes a comprehensive look at this critical area of Indian social and political life. Along with interviews, columns and views that do not tread the beaten path, it should throw light on a subject which is both vast and significant at the same time.

Clear eyed look

The Union Budget is one of the most crucial days in the Indian calendar. On that one afternoon that heralds the advent of spring, the financial health of the country, its growth rate, future projections and investment climate is kept on the table, a copious piece of public document which concerns the economic well being not just of a group of people or a community but the country at large.

Important as Union Budgets have always been, the last two decades of globalisation have added to the growing significance of India’s capital markets and with each passing year, budget proposals are received eagerly by India’s burgeoning market leaders and multinational companies in the fond hope that their sectoral aspirations are going to be met.

Yet for a vast majority of Indians, most budget proposals which are one of the most mammoth exercises of economic stock taking anywhere in the world, the number crunching and economic jargon does not make great sense out of the immediate circle of stakeholders, professionals, traders and business honchos.

For instance, a growth in exports may not tell the common man how exactly it is going to impact his or her life. Neither will the story of agriculture surplus or the baffling chart of tax exemptions explain how the country’s biggest economic draft is going to change common lives.

It is keeping this in view that Governance Watch is taking perhaps the most comprehensive look at the Indian Budget ever undertaken. It explains in a language which everyone understands the importance of the Union Budget, its implications and the subtle nuances that go into its making.

An imminently readable new element is the historic role of successive Union finance ministers and the major policy initiatives taken during their budget speech: there have been finance ministers who have presented as many as half-a-dozen budgets. Some of their presentations have great archival value and narrate in a significant way India’s growth story from a license permit raj regime in the 1950s to a free flowing global economic powerhouse at the turn of the millennium, despite teeming poverty and many other problems.

Away from the nitty gritty and of great significance is the history of the Indian budgets since Independence, the economists who put into place India’s planning cycle, men who displayed uncommon vision in shaping the country’s economic future, which despite the warts and all that, has managed to become the second largest economy in the world, keeping in view that strictly democratic methods were used in trying to attain goals.

The cover package of this latest issue looks at the role of lobbies which influence the budget making exercise: highly organised industry bodies who have a big stake and therefore try their level best to influence the finance minister into granting this or that concession; agricultural interests who press for loan waivers, better farm inputs and other freebies and the mass of common people who find their representatives in a plethora of citizens’ associations. The thrust and parry which goes into making of the budget are no less than a thriller and are worthy of being recorded. That is precisely what the current issue does.

There is the conventional wisdom that any serious yet simple understanding of the Indian budget is possible only in some top notch global economic publications.

Instead of just vomiting out numbers, facts, figures and bland statements, some global publications are able to give out the big picture story which is understood easily. This view is not entirely inaccurate either.

It doubly makes sense therefore to completely deconstruct the budget so that every facet is laid out in the simplest possible narrative.

Hopefully, the readers will get a bird eyes’ view of what is possibly the most significant document in the country, referred to under the unassuming nomenclature of the Annual Financial Statement under Article 112 of the Constitution of India. A country with a near 8 per cent growth rate is entitled to such clarity.