#
So, I have a question for you. Where does your sense of purpose come from? In my case,
#
frankly, it's mostly from ego and self-interest. I want things for myself, whether it's success
#
or fame or maybe some creative accomplishment. I stand at the center of it. Sometimes, yeah,
#
I want to make the world a better place in some way or the other, and I'd do things
#
to that effect. For example, I could cite altruistic reasons for doing the seen and
#
the unseen, improving the quality of discourse, creating an important historical record, especially
#
when it comes to the lives of people, and so on. But even these could boil down to conceit.
#
And ultimately, when I think of waking up happy and looking forward to the day ahead,
#
it's for personal reasons. But with some remarkable people, it is clear that they think
#
way beyond themselves. My guest today has devoted his life to a higher cause. He has
#
not let apathy touch him. He has not let setbacks temper his resolve. He has energy and optimism
#
and also the humility that we all must have to accomplish anything. And I feel like this
#
is infectious. Every time I meet him, I end up feeling a little more idealistic, a little
#
more energetic and always much smarter. Maybe that's the best selfish reason for me to do
#
this podcast. I expand my own world. And maybe by doing that, I expand yours as well.
#
Welcome to the seen and the unseen. My guest today is Jayaprakash Narayan, one of the people
#
I most admire in modern Indian politics. JP started off as a physician, was inspired
#
by the original JP in the early 70s and repelled by the emergency and joined the IAS to try
#
and make a difference to the nation. He soon realized that in his words, quote, the public
#
sector is a private sector of those in public office. Stop quote. He decided to enter politics,
#
started the Lok Sattar movement. He was an MLA for a while. He was a driving force behind
#
much reform such as the RTI Act and was an influential and respected figure in national
#
politics. I see him as an eldest statesman today, a man of immense wisdom we can all
#
learn from. My last episode with him, A Life in Indian Politics, is one of my favorites.
#
And when we got together for this recording, I decided not to repeat anything from there,
#
but to add to it, to explore the gaps, to discuss higher order questions and also to
#
chat about what has transpired since we last recorded in 2019. So please listen to both
#
episodes together to get a complete picture of JP's life in times. But first, let's take
#
a quick commercial break. Have you always wanted to be a writer but never quite gotten
#
down to it? Well, I'd love to help you. Since April 2020, I've enjoyed teaching 27 cohorts
#
of my online course, The Art of Clear Writing, and an online community has now sprung up of all
#
my past students. We have workshops, a newsletter to showcase the work of students and vibrant
#
community interaction. In the course itself, through four webinars spread over four weekends,
#
I share all I know about the craft and practice of clear writing. There are many exercises,
#
much interaction and a lovely and lively community at the end of it. The course costs Rs 10,000 plus
#
GST or about $150. If you're interested, head on over to register at indiancutt.com slash
#
clear writing. That's indiancutt.com slash clear writing. Being a good writer doesn't require
#
God given talent, just a willingness to work hard and a clear idea of what you need to do
#
to refine your skills. I can help you. JP, welcome to the scene in the on scene.
#
Thank you, Amit. It's always wonderful to have a conversation with you.
#
You know, the last time we spoke was in 2019. I think in November, we spoke the episode was
#
out in December 2019. And some time has passed since then. And this time in a sense is even
#
more momentous than any stretch of four years would normally be because there have been two
#
years of COVID. I think that in different ways change the way people look at themselves and the
#
way people look at time. And I actually want to ask you about a subject I've been thinking about
#
a lot, which is how one looks at time differently with the passage of time, right? Because when we
#
are young, like when I was 20, it seemed to me like 25 was unbearably old, who would wait that
#
long? I wanted everything now, you know, 50 seemed like, oh my God, so far away and old man and all
#
of that. And now I'm almost 50. And I'm looking back and you kind of one, of course, in your in
#
in terms of your personal life, you look at time differently, you realize the importance perhaps of
#
trying to live every moment of trying to live in the present, because you realize so much has
#
passed and you didn't really engage with it as deeply as you could have. But I also look at
#
history in the world differently. Whereas, you know, a span of passing of 50 years no longer seems
#
as deep as it it would have when one was young. And, you know, in your case, you were born
#
practically in the middle of the century, a few years after, you know, India got independence,
#
and so much has a way that you looked at time changed, especially since you embarked upon
#
endeavors that we've discussed in our last episode. And by the way, I'll try my best not
#
to repeat anything from the last episode. But you've spoken so vividly about your entire life there.
#
And it's been a life of striving and trying to get things done and trying to bring about change and
#
all of that. But any change if there has been has been glacial. So at both a personal level,
#
and the level of kind of looking back at this nation and at with an understanding of political
#
currents and economic currents and so on and so forth, do you look at time differently?
#
I think it's a very interesting question. From a perception point of view, how you perceive time
#
with age, I actually read somewhere that there is a formula. Let's say there's a 16 year old,
#
as opposed to a 64 year old, that means you're four times older. I believe time moves twice
#
as fast, square root of the multiples. I don't know if it's accurate, how they measured it.
#
I thought it's an interesting perspective. But unquestionably, almost everybody who has
#
lived some years, they recognize that time seems to fly much faster. I think that's human,
#
maybe biological. In terms of the work that we do, our perception of society and our perspectives,
#
and I was a very desperate young man, probably a very desperate not so young man also.
#
Because when I left government and embarked on this journey, I thought in five years time,
#
we will transform the country. And my God, if it's not transformed, what will happen?
#
I remember with the Chief Secretary and others, very affectionate and very concerned,
#
pleading with me, don't take too many chances, stay clean, or at least wait for a few more years
#
when you're compensable and so on and so forth. I said, my God, in a few years is too late.
#
So there's a desperation that if India doesn't change in a few years time, my God, what will
#
happen? I think two things. One, as you hinted, a realization that great societies just don't
#
change in a few years or so, however much you wish. In some respects, some changes do come
#
suddenly. You can't anticipate exactly. Sometimes technology accelerates the changes and so forth.
#
It takes time. And I think with age, recognition that it probably doesn't matter as much as you
#
think it does, except a few issues. Some issues do matter. They are so seminal that if they don't
#
get corrected quickly, there could be a very serious long-term consequence. Most others,
#
we exaggerate the impact of either the good things or the bad things. So you tend to become
#
more strategic. You tend to become a little more careful. I used to work 30 days a month,
#
travel most of the days, writing three or four columns a week or 10 days, even while traveling
#
without the aid of this modern technology and internet and so on and so forth. Travel, research,
#
conferencing, studying, writing. Life was full of activity, every minute, every hour.
#
As you grow older, I think you tend to have a strategic sense. You marshal your energies,
#
identify the most important areas. As they say, the wise general chooses his battlefields very
#
carefully. So I think it's a very interesting thing. In our last conversation, you spoke about
#
reading Satra and Kamu and how they no longer are so much of an influence on you. But you mentioned
#
Kamu is a myth of Sisyphus as something that does resonate. I didn't double-click on that
#
in that conversation, but I want to double-click on it now because it seems to me to almost be
#
a tragic metaphor of the futility of caring too much about change. I'll go a little beyond that.
#
Take it in a more metaphysical plane. My daughter at the age of eight asked me,
#
Dad, if the universe is going to be a cold, lifeless one in the long term, what's the purpose of it all?
#
In a fundamental sense, Kamu is right. Not necessarily about human society or in the
#
short or medium term, but about the existence of humanity. I don't have an answer to that. I
#
always tell her, look, we are incapable of looking that far beyond. We can look at 25, 30, 40, 50
#
years and think of a society which could be more humane, more sensible, which could give us more
#
happiness and more sense of purpose. If you think beyond that, all life loses meaning. Planet Earth
#
loses meaning. Maybe the solar family or Milky Way galaxy loses meaning. So I think at some level,
#
you must suspend your disbelief. You must forget too much of a knowledge of astronomy. It's
#
interesting intellectually, but if you're too much into astronomy, all life becomes meaningless.
#
But as much as Kamu's essay itself, I was struck by the actual myth of Sisyphus,
#
which of course is about Sisyphus being condemned by the gods to roll a stone uphill. And when he
#
gets to the top, it goes back down and he goes back down and starts again. And that almost sense
#
of futility that for the rest of eternity, he's going to try and do something that fundamentally
#
cannot be done. There I disagree with Kamu in terms of human history, human society, since of course
#
there's a lot of unfinished task all over the world. But if you take a broad historical view,
#
not even hundreds of years, even a generation of two, how far we've traveled is quite remarkable.
#
Because our ambition is much greater, we always think of what is not done, quite rightly. But we
#
sometimes forget what we have done. No, Hans Rosling, for instance, a Swedish physician who
#
passed away some years ago, maybe oversimplified things, but the broad point he made, one thing
#
struck me. When he was born in Sweden, Sweden at that time was roughly where Egypt is today.
#
But in the lifetime, we can see the difference between Sweden and Egypt.
#
So we forget the remarkable change that at least in modern era we are bringing about.
#
I think that should give us a lot of hope. So I don't agree that it is really a myth of this
#
person. It's a futility of existence. So I'll just single out now, this is really sparked by
#
something that you just said and I was kind of taking notes. And I think that there are two kinds
#
of perspectives we can have and two kinds of views we can take on them. And one perspective
#
is a big perspective, where you look at society and country and nation and democracy and all of
#
those. And the other is a small perspective, so to say, without putting a value judgment, which is
#
my own life, the things I want to do, and so on and so forth. And equally, there are two views
#
we can apply. And one is a long view, where we think of something 20, 25 years in the future,
#
and we are focused on that and we are aiming for that. And the other is a short view where
#
we want things quickly and want to get immediate gratification. And here I'm thinking aloud and I
#
might change my mind within 10 minutes of this. But it strikes me that as far as a big perspective
#
is concerned, the nation and society and all of that, we have to play the long game, where we have
#
to realize that immediate gratification is not going to happen. We've got to have that sense of
#
purpose and just focus on processes and doing the right thing and maybe 30 years later there will
#
be change. And as far as a small perspective is concerned, our own lives, I actually now think
#
that we need to have the smaller view, where you focus on the small joys. You don't get too
#
ambitious about something happening 20 years later, 30 years later, but you live in the present,
#
you embrace the present moment, you focus in the small joys, and of course you do plan and you do
#
work for the future. But in my life, when I look back, I think what young people tend to do,
#
and I might be guilty of it as well, is that when you're young, you look at the big picture
#
of nation and society and you want to change everything in a hurry, and you look at the project
#
of you, and you have big dreams that are very far off, but you don't do anything in the immediate
#
term to bring them closer, and it should really be the other way around. I think it's a great
#
question. But the big perspective, I agree, it's a long game. There's no way you can want to
#
transform very swiftly, and thank God actually. If you can transform that swiftly and that easily,
#
maybe sometimes it's a very wonky idea, a very dangerous idea, with two caveats.
#
Sometimes technology brings about profound changes. We underestimate its importance.
#
And two, sometimes unique opportunities present themselves. Therefore, a reformer must be unique
#
opportunist in the best sense of the term. I always believe in the power of the context.
#
Great things happen not so much because somebody made valiant efforts, but because they seize the
#
moment and they're ready. You know, a prepared mind meeting the context kind of a thing,
#
what some people think is luck. With those two caveats, I think it's a long game. There's no
#
question about it, and it should be a long game. Otherwise, every tin pot dictator, every dangerous
#
demagogue can destroy our lives collectively. I don't think we should allow that to happen.
#
Insofar as the personal perspective is concerned, I'm one of those lucky ones where
#
my... What shall I say? The things that I always thought mattered a great deal. At the age of 17
#
or 18, I came to that conclusion. And the kind of life I wanted to lead, they are indistinguishable.
#
But at a deeper level, I think each of us, particularly if there is no God for us,
#
those who really have faith, true faith, they're very fortunate human beings in my view.
#
You know exactly what it's all about. You follow the commands of the God or whatever.
#
But if you're a skeptic, or if you're an agnostic, or an atheist, an agnostic, I suppose,
#
is a covertly atheist, so it's okay. I think you have to figure out what it's all about
#
at a personal level. Each of us, I think, have our own sense of that. My one sense is it's about
#
three things. The first is universal for all life forms, the survival of the individual,
#
and that of the species. Therefore, your own survival instinct and your own reproductive
#
instinct and so on and so forth. They're nothing unique. The second unique for human beings is
#
unless there is harmony in society, because human beings alone being large societies,
#
beyond kinship and so on and so forth, unless we have harmony, life is a living hell.
#
And unless there is harmony in nature, and increasingly we are realizing because the
#
disharmony is very evident, life again is living hell. Therefore, the second big goal is this
#
harmony of two kinds. And the third is even that does not satisfy us. That is still a mechanistic
#
word. Unless the freedom can be exercised in full, freedom again in two forms, the political freedom
#
of making choices and doing whatever pleases you, but the intellectual freedom required,
#
intellectual enthusiasm. If you have that genetic endowment or your ability or passion or the brain
#
power, if it's not fully harnessed, I don't think people are happy. And I think an individual's
#
quest essentially is that these three, the hierarchy of needs as Maslow said, I'm only
#
trying to put it in a different way. Once you're clear about that, the rest of the life is pretty
#
easy. And if you simply have a very typically Indian ambition, I suppose, I don't know if it's
#
universal, but certainly it's very Indian, that I want to be something, not to accomplish something,
#
but I want to be district magistrate. I want to be a minister. I want to be a millionaire.
#
Well, it's okay. Each individual is entitled to her own dreams. But to me, it seems to be
#
purposeless because once you accomplish it, you are never satisfied. It has to be deeper than that.
#
Yeah. I love what you said about an agnostic being a cowardly atheist, though I would also
#
point out that actually people have the misconception that there's a continuum from
#
where you go from believer to agnostic to atheist. And I keep pointing out that atheism has to do with
#
belief and agnosticism has to do with knowledge. So an agnostic is someone who believes it is not
#
possible to know whether there is God. And an atheist is someone who doesn't believe in God,
#
because there's no evidence of it. And it's an absence of belief, not a belief per se.
#
So it is possible to be both agnostic and atheist at the same time as I am, because I don't believe
#
there is a God and yet I believe the larger questions are fundamentally unknowable.
#
And from that notion of epistemic humility that comes with talking about agnosticism,
#
I also want to talk about a related subject of how through life one develops humility,
#
right? Like when we are young, we think, and again, all of this in a sense is a form of
#
self-reflection because I am guilty of all of these. But when one is young, you imagine you know
#
the world and you can grok everything and you've kind of figured everything out. And obviously,
#
time tempers that. At the same time, you might have great ambitions when you are young and time
#
tempers those too. And my feeling is that the good way to sort of deal with that is to develop
#
humility when it comes to knowledge, to what you know, but to at the same time,
#
have a certain arrogance of the will and believe that no, I can do all of the things I want to do,
#
no matter how bold and daring I will not give up, I can do them. So I want to know about your
#
journey through these two different kinds of domains of developing that humility and realizing
#
the limits of your own ability, the limits of your own knowledge. And also despite that, despite
#
knowing how the system is so much bigger than you imagined and so on, despite that having the will
#
to kind of keep going and keep, you know, hammering away. I think you put a beautiful limit.
#
The humility combined with confidence and perhaps also a desperation that needs to be done.
#
It's almost like being in love. No, I mean, you can't sleep. You can't, you can't enjoy
#
saying good things in life. You're breathless on occasion. If you don't have that, I think you're
#
not lived a life. It keeps you alive. But humility, I think there are three things that happen in life.
#
One, as you see more and more people in the small little pond, you are the big fish and you think
#
that the whole universe, you can control and command and so on and so forth. But as the pond
#
becomes bigger and bigger, you realize that you're just one small fish. That is one inevitable thing
#
and therefore limits of your own knowledge and your own capacity and so on and so forth.
#
perhaps a sense of mortality as you grow older, a recognition that ultimately
#
it's much bigger than you and your lifetime. But there's also a third thing. In my case,
#
I have a very special ability. I'm sure many people have it. I truly enjoy somebody's success.
#
I adore people's success, true success. If they actually accomplish something, if they think
#
something, if they really have a wonderful message, I love them. I admire them. Even when I
#
disagree with them on some issues, I rejoice in somebody's accomplishments because I treat them as
#
our accomplishments. I think each of them is a foundation for our next work. Luckily, I'm not
#
particularly perturbed with envy or something else. I think it's actually a treasure. That makes
#
it even easier to be both humble and confident. That's quite remarkable because I remember some
#
24 years ago, a friend of mine who's a well-known novelist now and we were friends then and we were
#
both unknown and we were walking through the streets of Bombay. At one point, he turned to
#
me and said that every time a friend of mine does well, a part of me dies.
#
And I just stopped in horror because I realized he was serious.
#
But his honesty in communication is remarkable.
#
But I was pretty stunned by that. What I have realized is that he was being honest about it,
#
but that's an attitude of so much of the world. On so much of social media, I just see people
#
tearing each other down. In every interaction, my rule is always assume goodwill, unless you have
#
reason to believe. Otherwise, assume goodwill, go towards it optimistically, assume the best in
#
the other person and so on and so forth. And so much social media is just the opposite of that.
#
A few months ago, in fact, I quit a lot of WhatsApp groups because I was like, I don't want
#
negativity in my life. My group of writing students is one which is full of positivity.
#
Everybody really cares about everybody else's success and that's great, but one doesn't see
#
that so often. My next question is this. In our last episode when you spoke about your trajectory
#
from being in one village, being in another village, then going to Vijayawada to college,
#
then Guntur for medical college, and then getting involved in the 70s with first JP's movement and
#
then what happened to the emergency and all of that, becoming politically aware. And that early
#
decision which you mentioned you came to at 17, that you want to make a positive contribution to
#
the democracy. Now, I was thinking about this and I was thinking that at that time for someone with
#
your energy and passion and intelligence and exposure also, because like you pointed out,
#
you were listening to the BBC all the time and getting news of the world through there and all
#
of that. That arena, the arena of the nation must appear to be the obvious arena where a grand
#
difference can be made. But if a young person is growing up today, there are many other things you
#
can be ambitious about. You could look at the world of technology and say that I will solve this
#
massive problem at scale. Or you could look at just entrepreneurship and saying these are the holes in
#
the market, this is where I'll get in. You could look at the intellectual universe and say that
#
this is what the discourse is missing and I can really play a part here. And there are so many
#
other things to sort of be passionate about. And I guess in your time with limited access and
#
there's no private sector to speak of, technology isn't available to everyone at that
#
extent. You know, if you are an enthusiastic entrepreneurial person, one natural outlet for
#
that is to say, okay, what problem do I solve? Like if we boil it all down to, I want to solve
#
big problems. All the big problems that you faced would have been problems with the nation or with
#
society. And you've jumped in there, you know, trying to figure those out. One, I would postulate
#
that a JP of today would not necessarily have only those problems to contend with. There are
#
many other problems worth solving and I would argue many of them actually have a far greater
#
possibility of coming to fruition in a short span of time and therefore changing people's life at
#
scale. I believe technology does that. I believe any good business venture can do that. So if this
#
is something that you can think about and tell me what you feel, like I know it's an impossible
#
counterfactual to imagine yourself in a current time with a lot else to do, but are there other
#
directions you could have gone down on? No, I completely agree with you. In fact,
#
I would tell young people today, all power to your own power. There are a hundred things,
#
whatever really appeals to you, there's so much you can do. The notion that it's only about the
#
nation and the government and policy and the grand themes is a nonsensical one. It was more a vacuum
#
in those days. We had nothing else really. We were frogs in the well. And as I said, the economy was
#
very closed. The communications were closed and there was really nothing much. Therefore,
#
I increasingly realize not only is it much more realizable in the short-term technological
#
excellence, but perhaps sometimes it makes far greater impact than all the political philosophies
#
in the world in making human lives better. And therefore I think there should not be any doubt
#
about that. People should pursue it aggressively. There's also another reason. One of the things
#
that propelled me into action or what influenced my thinking in my life was Richard Nixon's
#
resignation in the United States, how I thought at the time, naively as now I look back, how a
#
system could hold a very powerful leader to account and how in our country compared to Nixon's
#
infractions, maybe several folds, several times bigger infractions, and yet there's almost nothing
#
we can do. But then after we talked last time, Donald Trump became president of the United States.
#
He could yet become president of the United States. He was already president at the time.
#
2019 we spoke. Oh, 19. Okay. 16 to 20. But yeah, he might well become president again.
#
He was indicted. In a society where there's a whiff of criminality, general expectation is that
#
you would never have any chance politically that he's still a viable candidate and almost certainly
#
he'll get a Republican Party nomination. It shows that maybe as a youngster, people like me were
#
too starry-eyed. We saw the world as black and white. That's another reason why the focus on
#
improving human lives in a variety of ways and governance is just one facet of it, an important
#
facet nevertheless. I think it's so incredibly important. So I completely agree with you.
#
See, we saw the world from a certain prism and that appeared to be an incredibly important thing.
#
Maybe it's also a sign of history of that time, post-independence, therefore the overall ambience
#
and emergency being a very defining moment for many of us. But I would agree with you. There's
#
one particular thing that your heart and your mind should propel you.
#
You mentioned seeing the world in black and white and one of the things that you said about Nixon
#
was, okay, at that time, Watergate seemed like so immense. But over time, you realized how it was
#
relatively in the biggest scheme of things, a minor infraction. And actually, he was a pretty
#
good president outside of it. Absolutely. Actually, I would even go, he was an outstanding president.
#
Minus his personal prejudices and proclivities and insecurities as a statesman, even in terms
#
of domestic politics. He was the man who wanted to bring universal healthcare to the United States.
#
I think many Republicans will be shocked that one of their great leaders actually wanted universal
#
healthcare in the United States. I think he was a great president barring personal insecurities
#
in Watergate. And what I'm going to get at is that in your case, there is that development
#
of perspective where initially it's black and white and you're animated by what's going on and
#
whoa, Watergate, corruption, this, that, lying, abuses, all of that. But then you begin to take
#
a broader view. And one would imagine that in the course of human affairs, there might be some
#
people who always see things in black and white because it's convenient and they're intellectually
#
lazy or whatever. But there are others who gradually they evolve to a more shaded view.
#
However, what we see in modern times is that the incentives now, especially exacerbated perhaps by
#
social media, are driving people towards taking simplistic views, driving people towards always
#
passing judgment. Whenever we talk of whether it's Gandhi or Ambedkar or Vajpayee or whoever,
#
anybody who's been in the public life for a certain period of time, they contain multitudes.
#
You cannot pass a one-line judgment on any of them. There is so much to admire and learn from.
#
Often there are so many things to condemn as well, but they contain multitudes. And yet,
#
depending on which political tribe we are part of, there is a tendency that you want to pass
#
judgment and so-and-so is evil, so-and-so is great, and that percolates down to everything.
#
And this is disillusioning for me because my imagination was that, okay, some people might
#
always see the world in black and white, but others evolve as you mature, as you grow older.
#
I think you're absolutely right, Amit. We are increasingly becoming tribalized. Absolutely no
#
sense of evidence or logic or the larger public interest, our own gain. I remember some 27 years
#
ago, my first visit to the United States, and I went city to city, and I think from Virginia State,
#
I was going to Pittsburgh. There was an event there or a series of events there. A friend was
#
driving me. They're an Indian friend. During the drive, those were the days, if you remember 1996,
#
1997, Narsimha Rao, some of the corruption scandals, AOO, you know, and then Jharkhand
#
Murthy Morcha, MPS being bought and all that. So I said, look, when you look at public affairs,
#
perhaps you must look beyond individual middle-class notions of morality.
#
Now, there is a hierarchy of principles. Narsimha Rao was trying to bring stability and then change
#
the course of economic management in a very complex system without adequate political power.
#
And certainly, from a purely narrow moral point of view, buying off MPS in a no-continuous vote
#
is immoral, apart from being illegal. But is it right that two diametrically opposite political
#
forces, the BJP that believed broadly in market economy and these changes, the communists who
#
hated that, they would come together to bring down a government on that issue? While it may not be
#
legally criminal, is it right? Is there not a higher morality than the notions of middle-class
#
morality? I remember giving an example. For instance, there is a sage who took a note that
#
he would never utter a lie. One day, a young woman, terrified, she comes running and says,
#
Swamiji, there are four or five thugs. They are chasing me and they want to harm me. Please tell
#
me in which direction I should go and help me, protect me. He says, go in that direction.
#
A few minutes later, the thugs do come. He says, Swamiji, you never lie.
#
A young woman came in this direction. Where did she go? What is his duty?
#
So, if you reduce these large questions to a simple middle-class notion of morality,
#
it may satisfy us because we are putting down a prominent man and a man in power or something.
#
I think we are not being particularly wise. The second part of it is the tribalisation.
#
If we don't have the capacity, even as we retain our political autonomy to decide what we want or
#
whom we want, that is our choice. But if we can't view each individual decision or policy
#
in terms of the evidence, logic and the collective good or collective bad it will bring about,
#
if you do something and I love you and you're always right and if I don't like you,
#
you're always wrong. I think that's a very dangerous thing and that's happening not only
#
in India but in much of the world today. It's one of the most distressing things in this day
#
and age. I don't have the answer. I think all we can do is people like you and I consistently
#
uphold certain principles and have some first principles around which you build your
#
philosophy and your ideas and don't compromise on that and hope that eventually people will
#
wake up and realise what is in their best interest. It's not a question of moralities,
#
it's a question of people recognising what is in their best interest.
#
Couple of related questions and one is a question of ends versus means. On the one hand,
#
I completely agree with you that politics involves all kinds of uneasy compromises. You do what you
#
can to kind of make the system run and sometimes you're making the system run as Narsimha Rao
#
indeed did for the good of the people. The 1991 liberalisation helped hundreds of millions of
#
people out of poverty. It's a massive humanitarian good and politics involves making compromises and
#
doing certain things. But the danger there is that we can use that kind of thinking
#
to then lose all sense of principles in terms of, you know, it's a means versus end thing.
#
I hear you. But my broader point is that the grand question of means versus sense is
#
a very rare but vital issue. If everything is reduced to that, then you're going to moral
#
absolutism. You want to be a Mahatma Gandhi. I think it's impossible to run a society if you're
#
a Mahatma Gandhi. Reconciliation of conflicting interests is the very essence of politics.
#
Whereas in the moral certainties of means, you don't have that reconciliation of conflicting
#
interests and you cannot reduce a large number of views and dreams of multitudes of people into
#
good and bad. There's no good or there's no bad. That's the way they believe. And there's a society
#
and there is diversity and there is democracy. If you believe in that, you cannot simply say,
#
this is right and I don't care what you want, then why democracy? There's going to be a
#
gradual evolution even if there are some things which are obviously right in the light of cold
#
light of history. When history was actually happening, nobody knew what was right, what was
#
wrong. So unless you have the capacity to reconcile conflicting interests, if you reduce everything
#
to moral absolutism, supposing your own judgment is flawed, then who's going to save the society
#
from you? So yes, I do agree about the means and ends question on fundamentals, like Hitler doing
#
what he did, like emergency being imposed and converting the country into a jail. But if
#
everything is reduced to such moral absolutism, I think a society will be poorly served. Even
#
Lincoln, one of the historic figures I admire, I love him. I'm sure many people would realize
#
1864 election was actually sort of rigged. And in the midst of civil war, his Secretary of State,
#
in those Secretary of State was almost like Prime Minister of the country. He gave leave to all the
#
soldiers on the front because he was very popular with the soldiers. He brought them back to vote.
#
He did many things and Lincoln actually laughed. If soot is given a choice, he would not allow the
#
people to vote. So no, this moral absolutism and the notion that everything is reduced to means and
#
ends is not a wise thing. This is not a call for immorality in life. This is a call for a deeper
#
perspective, that there is a hierarchy of principles. That's the best thing I can say.
#
My friend and someone you know as well, Barun Mitra, keeps talking about Gandhi and means and
#
ends in exactly this context. And I completely agree with your wise words about moral absolutism
#
and about how one can go too far. At the same time, there is the worry that politics can then
#
become just a game of negotiating these conflicting interests with no other principles in play to
#
constrain you or to guide you. Because it's easy for, for example, it's easy for you and me to say,
#
okay, what is a higher purpose? Economic growth is a higher purpose. It'll get people out of poverty.
#
X, Y, Z, we could name three, four higher purposes. But those would be our subjective
#
views on what is a higher purpose? What is an end for which we can disregard the means?
#
Somebody else could say Hindu Rashtra is a higher purpose and therefore we should disregard means
#
for that and so on and so forth. And I think Barun's argument probably would be that fine if
#
you don't treat means versus ends as if you're saying only apply it in extreme situations
#
like, like Hitler or Mao or whatever, you know, but then the other danger is you don't,
#
you don't apply it at all and therefore principles don't matter at all.
#
I don't think it's a binary. Again, look at Lincoln.
#
Lincoln, I think had tremendous clarity about what kind of a world he wanted to help create
#
and what kind of a society he wanted to create in his own country. But as the film Lincoln
#
demonstrated, certainly certain means were used which were not always the perfect ones.
#
I think while this question is germane, in most occasions we actually know when the means adopted,
#
even if they are not technically legal or very moral, there's a higher purpose which is much
#
greater and it's not really earth-shaking. We are only oversimplifying issues.
#
That's the reason why political scientists often say idealists do more damage than pragmatists.
#
After all, what was Hitler? He was an idealist.
#
But couldn't it also be said that idealists have the greatest chance of affecting positive
#
change than to pragmatists? Because what were the American founders, for example,
#
They were pragmatists. They were ultimate pragmatists. They never trusted anybody with
#
power. That's why they created a federal government which fought against itself.
#
They understood human nature as opposed to somebody like Mahatma Gandhi, for instance.
#
I think they were pragmatic when it came to the design of the state
#
and accepting that human nature is a certain way, so you have to constrain those in power.
#
But they were idealists when it came to the question of independence itself
#
and designing what they felt would be an ideal system.
#
No, basically I don't think we're really looking at a binary.
#
You, the way you conduct yourself is your personal choice. I think in that a leader must be as moral
#
as humanly possible. But in public affairs, you cannot take an extreme view without regard to
#
the circumstances. That's why probably a soldier of fortune who really had no pretensions of idealism
#
like Napoleon, he did more good to Europe than a great idealist like Hitler, the kind of damage
#
he did, or take Mao Zedong, or take the Leninists, for instance. They were all great idealists.
#
But imagine the amount of harm they had done to their societies. Whereas Deng Xiaoping,
#
a pragmatist who transformed China and perhaps into the world,
#
and to me Deng Xiaoping is a great hero.
#
It is not an argument for immoral conduct. It is a recognition that we are very limited in
#
our understanding, the human dreams and human aspirations and incentives, and we have to reconcile
#
conflict interests, and we have to drive a large mass of people, multitudes of people,
#
with their own dreams, their own desires, their own beliefs, their own attitudes,
#
in a direction that is broadly the right one. Yes, your question is right. If the direction
#
itself is wrong, then what is the alternative? I think that is where constitution and a broader
#
vision of a society, they matter. In a country like India, or perhaps in the United States,
#
and many other countries, if the broad constitutional goal is what you are propelling,
#
and in the process there is some means and ends question, you actually focus on the ends rather
#
than the temporary means, I think we are okay. But if you want to completely invert this picture,
#
that is when the danger arises. I think that is where the fundamental law of the land is so
#
important, or a broad consensus in the society as to exactly what kind of society they want.
#
But once that is said, I don't think that absolute morality is the
#
right issue. That is the reason why many of us are not good politicians. I know I am not fit
#
for politics. I have great respect for politics. I am one of the few in India who never reviled
#
politics. I always called politics a noble endeavour. I am not fit for politics because
#
I don't know how to reconcile conflict interests, because despite my intellectual understanding,
#
my own middle-class morality does not allow me to compromise, and it is not a very wise thing.
#
I agree with you that politics is a noble endeavour in theory,
#
but are you saying it is not a noble endeavour in practice necessarily?
#
No. You see, the nobility comes from reconciling conflicting interests creatively. It comes from
#
reconciling the short-term goals with the long-term good, short-term satisfaction with
#
the long-term good, and it comes from reconciling the individual and the community.
#
To the extent that the political process achieves these three objectives is extraordinarily noble
#
because without that societies cannot survive. But if it is a quest for power without purpose,
#
then all nobility ceases. And unfortunately, increasingly we see in many parts of the world,
#
and definitely in large parts of India, the quest for power is the only purpose of politics,
#
and that's where the nobility part is in serious question.
#
Isn't it inevitable that the quest for power would be the dominating incentive in a country
#
like India where power is so centralised in the state and where for decades, in fact,
#
it was the one way of getting ahead by being part of the state in some way,
#
by being a rent seeker yourself, by being a babu?
#
I hear you. I think even obviously the economic policies we chose, sadly,
#
were a disaster for the country. But even before that, I think culturally, I'm a great
#
believer that our society has tremendous strengths. I admire our society with all its imperfections.
#
I believe without those strengths, India would have been in a thorough going mess.
#
Having said that, culturally, I think we have an incredible weakness we have not adequately
#
understood or addressed. The lust for recognition, visibility, relevance,
#
and power without purpose is intrinsic to our society, not to merely politicians and bureaucrats.
#
I remember years ago, I was in a village in Karnataka. I don't know if we had this
#
conversation or not. A local serpent in a backward village, a very poor village,
#
he came in the evening to meet my extended family. And then he told us, my son became,
#
he got elected as a lineman in electricity port. Good, congratulations. Then he said,
#
they're asking for a bribe. I need to pay a bribe. I don't have money. I need some help.
#
Now the morality of a bribe, giving bribe, taking that discussion, let's leave it aside.
#
I asked him, you got elected as a serpent a few months ago. Your son needs some help,
#
and you're not in a position to provide because of your own means issue,
#
apart from the morality question. How much did you spend for the election?
#
He said, itself 10 lakh rupees. I said, why do you spend that kind of money? There's no power
#
in this office, ornamental. There's no money. It's a small interior village in the backward area.
#
You can't afford a way to spend. The answer he gave me was so accurate and so expressive.
#
He said, unmadham, sir, unmadham. He put both his hands on the head and this unmadham, sir,
#
unmadham. In Canada, the word unmadham, which is Sanskrit word, they actually habitually use it.
#
I think it's the most graphic explanation of what's happening in India. It's not really about
#
corruption. There is this desperate yearning for recognition and visibility and relevance,
#
which is, I think, intrinsic to the whole society, and that is destroying our politics.
#
Having said that, the point you made, the initial choices we made, three of them in particular,
#
are choices we did not make. The first is the socialist mumbo jumbo license permit quota,
#
without understanding the meaning of socialism, without enhancing human capabilities,
#
the state control and taking away the autonomy of the individual and the economic freedom
#
did immense damage to the country. There's no question about it, and our psyche.
#
The second is the centralization of power. We never institutionalized local governments.
#
Ambedkar had deep suspicion of local governments because he thought,
#
cast it in villages, the domination of the false elites will continue. He was right,
#
but he did not have the imagination and others did not have the energy to look at an alternative
#
model where you combine existing villages, a large number of villages, so that the traditional
#
notion of a village with caste fragmentation and segregation, that will disappear as a political
#
unit and you force a bigger unit to come together. So instead of finding that kind of resolution,
#
they lift sympathy. Typical Indian compromise of direct principles and the 73rd, 74th amendments
#
in my judgment are a disaster. I am one of the few who openly says that over-structured,
#
under-powered bogus thing, which is a great fraud on the people of India, well-meaning.
#
I'm sure the people who designed it are well-meaning, but it ultimately proved to be a
#
fraud that made democracy irrelevant. It's all its namesake. It's notional. It's just vote and shout.
#
Third is rule of law. At least if there's rule of law, genuine rule of law, so that no matter how
#
mighty you think you are, you're still accountable, then power probably would not have been so
#
important. The lure of power, the glamour of power would have been diminished. Then or now,
#
we don't have rule of law. Well, we committed mistakes. We have to set them right, but we have
#
to also recognize the reason why we have to institutionalize these three, economic freedom,
#
decentralization and rule of law. They are relevant in any society, but in India, particularly so
#
because culturally we are prone to finding some place to try and dominate or to find relevance.
#
It's a very special cultural trait. I've seen in the Netherlands, my first visit abroad way back in
#
1991 or 1990, I was visiting cooperative banks, a rubber bank in the Netherlands, a very famous
#
cooperative bank. I was astounded to discover two things. At the grassroots level, one of the
#
greatest banks in the world, when the president's position is vacant, you have to go and persuade
#
Amit Verma or somebody bright and competent whom you trust to come and take over that position.
#
They say, look, I have my own personal dreams. I want to retire. I have to take care of my family.
#
My business is important, et cetera. Other people pursue them saying, you are the best man for the
#
job. Please, we will also assist you, et cetera. Whereas in Andhra Pradesh at the time, there were
#
one crore members of the cooperative banks. Most of them are silent members. Somebody paid money
#
for them to become members and they queue up like in a general election. Every Tom, Dick and Harry
#
who doesn't understand any financial management or cooperatives, you would contest and the election
#
is fierce and camps are run, people are bought and sold. It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make
#
any sense whatsoever. The second thing in the bank I noticed is out of 24 or so members of the
#
governing board at the apex level, 23 were from the ruling party's political background, ruling
#
combines political background. One was from the opposition background. When there was a vacancy
#
in the chairmanship of the bank, and that happens only once in 15, 20 years, 24 of them unanimously
#
chose the opposition bank. I was astounded. Petuned as we are to Indian cultural politics,
#
it was a shocker to me. I asked them, what did you do? They said, a political ideology is a different
#
matter. On that, we will never compromise. But in managing this bank, understanding money,
#
understanding the way of the future, he is the best. Our interests are safe in his hands.
#
I don't think in India, it's likely to happen for the next 30, 40 years. So there's something
#
cultural, more than individual politicians and bureaucrats. It is a sad recognition,
#
because I relished the strengths of our society. But I think we also must understand some of our
#
serious failings. So I have three big related questions to this. And the first of them is sort
#
of double clicking on this aspect of culture, where I always feel that we can get fatalistic
#
about culture also and say that XYZ is culture, what are we to do? This is how it is. But often,
#
I think it's useful to look at institutions and structures and that they determine culture more
#
than we realize. And I feel that what you have correctly pointed out is this Indian tendency,
#
the desire for the Pagri, the desire for recognition. One of my friends, when she joined
#
the civil services, she said another batchmate of hers who had joined the IAS was who came from a
#
village was saying that I will go to the village with a red light on the car. I remember whenever
#
I removed it from the official car when I took a new job, the resistance was from a driver,
#
from my duffer. How can this happen? Exactly. So you're an outlier there. And my sense is that
#
the reason that there is this desperate quest for recognition among us or some kind of power
#
is because of poverty, is because of the extreme scarcity we face that when we cannot get
#
self-actualization in other ways, this is all that is left. It then becomes incredibly tempting.
#
In the same way that I keep going back to how the reason we often seem to have such a rent-seeking
#
mentality is because for decades, there was no other way to make money or gain power,
#
but use the mechanisms of the state and use some of that power, whether as a crony or as part of
#
the state, to actually take advantage of that. So I think a lot of this has to do with A, the
#
institutions or the absence of them, and B, just that structural thing of if you are in extreme
#
poverty, it kind of, because what you want the most is what you lack the most. No, that broader
#
point you made is absolutely valid, that culture cannot be isolated. It's not genetic. It is
#
except there's a long-term institutional thing. Decades, generations, sometimes centuries. That's
#
the only difference. I totally agree with you. Why it happened in India, I don't have a ready
#
answer, which is we can guess probably colonialism and recognition suddenly, a culture which is
#
technologically advanced and much better organized has taken over. And therefore that is our
#
aspiration. The British bureaucrat or even a policeman or an official or somebody, and
#
therefore the whole society desperately seeking public office for recognition and perhaps even
#
wealth in that time. And post-independence, this whole economic mess. But I think scholars and
#
historians who understand society much more must gather evidence, but it happened over time. I
#
don't know if it was the part of Indian ethos in ancient India. I have no real understanding of
#
that, but at least what little I've read, I have not got the sense of it. But definitely colonial
#
India, you see the literature, like Kanya Sulkam in Telugu, one of the masterly treatises, a
#
fantastic play by Gurjara Appa Rao. It clearly demonstrates the mentality of the citizens in
#
the colonial era, the worship of power and so on and so forth. But precisely for the reason you
#
stated, that institutions reinvent culture or reshape it. The three things that I mentioned
#
should have been institutionalized. That's the reason why American founding fathers were
#
pragmatic, understood human nature. Our founding fathers were romantic in a broad measure, except
#
grand institutions, election commission, some of the good things they have done.
#
In making democracy work, actually what makes an illiterate people without any serious proximate
#
experience of democracy. You know, I had some solar experience, Uttara Meera inscription a
#
thousand years ago, and Lichavis and others, the republics, 2,500 years ago. But in a broader sense,
#
democratic experience was alien to us for centuries. In such a society without education,
#
without literacy, without economic ability, to pretend that vote and show to work is nonsensical.
#
I think our leaders were not mindful of that. They thought we were good people
#
and we will govern well, and people like us will come, they will govern well, things will
#
be automatically good. They never realized that people must be prepared for democracy,
#
and that means local government. They never realized that power should be held to account,
#
that means rule of law. They never realized that economic freedom and therefore economic growth
#
are important engines of democratization of society, and therefore they simply fell for the
#
Stalinist model. And these three indicate that our leaders were great people,
#
but their judgment was extremely faulty. Of course, it's in the cold light of history,
#
it's easy for us to make that judgment. So I did a recent episode with Subhashish Bhadra,
#
who's written a book called KH Tiger, very talented, young, intellectual, do listen to
#
the episode and read the book, I'll send you the link. And Subhashish made a really interesting
#
point, which I found a very wise point, and I knew it in the context of India, but I hadn't
#
thought about it enough to realize that it applies everywhere. And what he talks about is
#
that every time a constitution was made or the principles of a republic were laid down,
#
it was contingent on those circumstances in those times. For example, the American founders were
#
rebelling against an alien taxation regime, for example, for the Boston Tea Party,
#
and everything that they designed was based on the values that mattered to them in that moment.
#
Similarly, if you look at our founders, let's talk about all three of the failures that you
#
mentioned. The first failure is the status slash socialist model of government. Now,
#
much as you and I can look back and understand the damage it has done, and perhaps if you
#
transplant us into that time, we'd say, no, no, these are the principles, this is why it won't
#
work. But at that time, it was A, that kind of socialism was a fashion of the times, no one knew
#
how bad the Soviet Union was. And also capitalism was associated with colonialism because it is,
#
after all, the East India Company which came in and did what they did. So all the attitudes
#
came from there. Nehru once famously said to J.R.D. Tata, do not speak to me of profit, profit is a
#
dirty word, and so on and so forth. So for that reason, it's wrong, but it's understandable.
#
As far as the centralization of power is concerned, at the time that the constitution was being
#
framed, the country was falling apart, no one knew if the center would hold. It certainly did
#
not look anything like the lines on the map today. That was really the effort of what I call fast
#
track colonization that Siddharth Patel and V.P. Menon did, and all the means that they used to
#
make those lines on a map happen. But when you did not know whether or not the center would hold,
#
it made sense to centralize a lot of power. And especially also if you consider Ambedkar's
#
recognition of the realities of villages as dens of ignorance, apathy, et cetera, et cetera,
#
you get where he's coming from. You can now take the broader view looking back that you can add
#
that nuance that it could have been federations of villages and all of that. But at that time,
#
one can understand where he's coming from. And as far as the rule of law also is concerned,
#
what we did was we took over the British colonial system where the idea of a policeman was someone
#
who will control the people. It was a mechanism of oppression, and we just took that over. Now,
#
instead of white rulers, we had brown rulers, but it's the same mechanism of oppression
#
where your policeman is not serving you. He is a Maibaab. I think in the last episode,
#
you correctly said that the lowest constable can treat 99% of the population as if they are
#
mendicants. We should not be the case. They should be serving us. The most senior police officer
#
should have to serve every citizen of the country because you're in service of them.
#
And all of these, in a sense, are circumstantial. And the larger question that I'm coming to,
#
which I asked Subhashish in a different context as well, and there's really no satisfactory
#
answer to it. But the thing is, on the one hand, I completely agree with what you said earlier
#
about the need to proceed with caution, to not have revolutionary change. I mean,
#
look at what happened to the French Revolution. So you need to proceed with caution in a Burkian
#
kind of way, gradualism, step by step, in a small way. But the thing is that every few decades,
#
something as dramatic as a constitution, the making of a constitution comes about.
#
It shatters everything. And there is no gradualistic way to change it. Only another
#
revolution or a civil war, and perhaps that will happen during the delimitation. Who knows? We can
#
talk about that later. But only something dramatic and drastic can change that. And what was born in
#
that moment of violence is something that we all have to live with, which are these three realities
#
of the Indian state that you laid out. And you know, and you can make changes of the margins,
#
but you can't sort of change it fundamentally. And I don't have an answer. I'm not advocating
#
revolution because obviously that will take us into the Stone Age. That will take us into the
#
Stone Age. And especially because you and I won't get a say anyway. The revolutionaries will be
#
people who want something different. But first of all, this is more to learn from the past mistakes
#
and throw the blame on someone. Because they did, our founders did a fantastic job. The fact that
#
they actually invested and dreamt of a republic with such diversity and poverty and tradition
#
is a miracle. And that they made it work is a great miracle. So this is more about nuances.
#
They could have done it, but it's not really about what they had done or had not done.
#
What we should be doing now, why are we not doing? It's a challenge to us. 75 years is a long time.
#
Now, the second point you made, while I broadly agree, yes, obviously great men and women,
#
they were creatures of their circumstances and therefore they made some judgments.
#
The point you made about India center hold or not, and therefore the desire to centralize,
#
that was largely about union and states. I don't think that was true about local governments. If
#
anything, to make sure that the states don't go out of control, the best way is to have a check on
#
them through local governments. But that's a more finer point. The broader point is,
#
why are you not learning lessons from them? What has happened is subsequently,
#
the institutionalized players, the legislator at the state level, the civil servant who has become
#
at one level subservient to political masters and then another level tin pot dictator in dealing
#
with the people. They found the status quo very beautiful, very advantageous to them,
#
and both the MLA and the official are opposed to decentralization.
#
Economic liberalization happened more out of compulsion than conviction, though a significant
#
number of elites were convinced and therefore it became somewhat easy and we have the genius
#
to accommodate when the time came, though we're not doing it fully or even now there are a lot of
#
unfinished tasks. Rule of law, again, those in power do not feel the pain of it. We are making
#
it an issue of either human rights or some elite notions of law. We are forgetting it's about ordinary
#
people. Absence of rule of law does not affect the rich and the powerful much. It's more an emotional
#
and intellectual thing. Absence of rule of law affects the poor every day. Somebody who collects
#
a hafta because you simply go in the morning at five o'clock in KBR park where I go for walking
#
and you woke up at maybe three o'clock in the morning and then you commuted to the central
#
market, bought some goods with the thousand rupees that you have. You came there in that cold or
#
rain or whatever and then if a VIP comes, it's closed. If there's rain, it's closed
#
and you go through all that risk and then a policeman or somebody comes and says,
#
if you don't give me this hafta, I'll make your life miserable. That is rule of law to me.
#
And that we have not figured it out even today and we're only playing games and even in the larger
#
political discourse when the those in opposition in states of the union, they attack those in power
#
quite rightly. I don't hear one person or one party saying, this must be set right. They're
#
only saying, you're abusing power. Let me come there. I'll abuse it. I'll teach you a lesson.
#
That's very deeply disturbing. And unless we raise our voice consistently beyond parties,
#
I don't think there's a hope. We're polarizing it so much now. In the last 24 or 48 hours,
#
I watched an alleged debate on what will happen in 2024 on a major channel.
#
They're all very wise people and unlike other debates, this was without any polemics because
#
these are all non-politicians, mostly senior journalists. They all spoke sense and calmly.
#
What is shocking is not one person raised any issue of relevance to the people.
#
It's all about which party will combine with whom and who will win and who will lose.
#
Nothing to do with people. And in a country beset with so many crises and problems and challenges,
#
I find it shocking, forget the politicians, that the elites have no concern about what's
#
actually going to happen irrespective of who is going to be in power. I'm not an angry man,
#
not anymore. I don't judge people very harshly, but I find it very offensive
#
that we have serious political debate totally unrelated to human lives.
#
I don't understand what is politics if it doesn't touch human lives. The education of children,
#
which they don't get despite spending enormous money, the health care that most people don't
#
have access in, people become poor in India annually, descend into poverty, descend into
#
poverty because there's no health care access, the absence of rule of law, the economic growth,
#
which is so incredibly important to lift people out of poverty, not one issue even peripherally
#
mentioned. In that sense, I think there's a great tragedy developing. A political game has become
#
a cynical, who is there one day, one very imminent public figure,
#
occupied high constitutional office. I was fulminating like this at a particular
#
moment in history, this was around 91, 92, around that time. He said, Jayaprakash, you're always
#
worried about constitution, people, democracy, et cetera. In a moment of weakness, he said this.
#
He said, you know, in the corridors of power, all this matters is who is in, who is out.
#
It was a very stark revelation. I was stunned, but I think he was incredibly right. In a moment
#
of candor and honesty, he stated the truth. I don't think we should accept that. I don't
#
think the people should accept that. So I have three digressive questions from this before we
#
go to the larger third question I wanted to ask as a question to the something you said earlier.
#
And the first of them is you said you're not an angry man anymore. So why is that? When did
#
the anger go? Was it the futility of anger or was it a lack of energy or?
#
No, it's a recognition that anger corrodes you. Unless you channel it constructively and
#
creatively, it's a wasted emotion. You have only this much energy.
#
Did you feel it corroding you?
#
If I'm angry, it will corrode me. I simply channelize it. All the time I channelize it.
#
But was there a time when you were angry?
#
Yes. As a younger man, I was much more angry until much later. In fact, I could not tolerate a
#
corrupt man. See, I had something to do with the Right to Information Act along with some of the
#
colleagues. I had people regard me as one of the people who fought against corruption. So
#
inevitably a lokaikta is there. I am made to sit next to them in an event or information
#
commissioner or somebody. When I know their individual proclivities as a former judge or
#
chief justice or something else as an official, how incredibly corrupt they were, I found it
#
impossible to sit next to them and then maintain equanimity. Now I don't care.
#
That's the way it is, but it doesn't matter. Let's not waste my energy and emotion on that
#
and worry about what this man has done earlier, why am I sitting next to him, etc. But focus on
#
what needs to be done. And even if a corrupt and bad fellow does some good thing, encourage him to
#
do that. Negotiate with him. I remember the first citizens charter in India, which came by an
#
executive order in Andhra Pradesh and municipalities. A thoroughly corrupt public official
#
signed it finally. I actually wrote a column praising him, knowing full well his antecedents
#
because I don't care about his antecedents. In this case, he did well and therefore if I show
#
my recognition and appreciation, maybe that will make better things happen. So I channelize my anger
#
now. Do I get something out of it for the people? There's this old saying about how the world is
#
a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think. So have you started feeling less
#
and thinking more? That I don't know, but certainly you must have a sense of humor.
#
In the midst of all this, if you don't have a sense of humor, if you don't
#
laugh at human failings and foibles, life becomes very, very painful personally,
#
apart from us being much less productive. So here's my second question and it's kind of a
#
two-part question and part one is that you spoke about these elites who were analyzing
#
election kya hoga, this coalition, that coalition, this vote bank, that vote bank,
#
but not actually touching on the issues. Not even peripherally. Some of them like them.
#
So first question about the elites, which is that are they overrated and irrelevant? Is it all just
#
this drama that is playing out in TV studios and social media and all of that and are they so
#
removed from the real world that it doesn't even matter? Obviously they don't, but that's
#
not the right thing because ultimately in a democracy in a modern sense, the media should
#
shape attitudes, should set the agenda. And without the oxygen of publicity and media attention,
#
sensible politics cannot work. If they completely deflect themselves and indulge in this luxury,
#
in this very dangerous pastime, they're irrelevant, but they're doing immense damage to the country
#
because there's no other mechanism. How else do you
#
conscientize people? How else do you convert the people's day-to-day concerns into tangible
#
program of action? How else do people see the causal relationship? What else is the
#
mechanism available? That is my concern. I don't care whether they're relevant or not,
#
but I care that the people have become irrelevant in the process.
#
That the media is failing. When COVID started, I wrote this column about how there are two
#
ongoing disasters and one is COVID. And I said, okay, it's a medical disaster,
#
we'll figure it out, we'll come out of it on the other side. I mean, God knows how early days,
#
April 2020, I had no idea either, but I said, it is a disaster, we'll come out of it.
#
But the second ongoing disaster was a disaster of the failure of the Indian state, according to me,
#
where we have normalized all of that. Like I gave figures like, okay, so many children die,
#
so many thousands of children die every day of starvation. This percentage of children born are
#
malnourished. There are so many things going wrong that if a natural disaster caused any of that,
#
if a natural disaster caused 8,000 children to die, the whole world would come to our aid and it
#
would be a calamity and all the news channels would be talking about nothing else. But these
#
are dispersed across the country. It's been, it's an ongoing disaster for 70 something years,
#
still ongoing to this current date. And we completely normalize it. And it seems to me
#
that this therefore holds not just to the elites you speak of who are literally blind to this stuff,
#
not just to the media who are looking for more sensationalistic, immediate things which can be
#
pinned down, but even to some extent to the people who then become apathetic and perhaps fatalistic
#
about all of this. So they don't think of governance in a larger sense. In any case,
#
in our last conversation, we spoke about the disconnect between power and accountability
#
that the ordinary citizen knows that his vote doesn't really affect anything anyway. So that
#
can lead to a kind of apathy where to the extent that good things can happen to you directly,
#
like welfare schemes or whatever, to that extent, you're willing to exercise a vote,
#
but otherwise it's expressive, it's tribalistic, it's like going to a Manchester United match.
#
one thing happened. Because the Indian state did not pay attention to these things,
#
it seduced people into believing that it's no longer the state's responsibility.
#
Therefore, when a catastrophe, very visible thing we can't ignore happens, then we pay attention
#
for a couple of days, new cycle. And that also about who is right, who is wrong and blame
#
throwing. I still remember vividly, I think within months after the current UP government
#
came to office, the first time, Gorakhpur, I think, his own district perhaps, there were
#
several deaths of children in a hospital. There was big talk about it in the country.
#
At that time, 2,000 children were dying every single day in this country.
#
Almost all of them were preventable deaths, 2,000 a day. The whole media and the political
#
system pretended as if these 100 alone are the deaths, which is a tragedy in the country.
#
And it's all about Gorakhpur, a particular party or a chief minister or an officer or somebody else.
#
And that's it. Years before that, I remember in Ahmedabad,
#
a district judge gave warrants for the arrest of Abdul Kalam
#
and two other prominent names. He did not even bother to check
#
who were the names. Somebody gave fictitious things deliberately to expose the system.
#
And the then President of India and two other names, warrants were issued.
#
But an issue came to light. The Supreme Court said, we'll go to the bottom of it,
#
as if the corruption or inefficiency of a particular judge is the central issue,
#
and it's not systemic or endemic. So this pretends that we're doing something dramatic.
#
Without actually recognizing the problem or addressing it, I think it is institutionalized
#
in the, again, the ruling elites of the country, which I find it very deeply offensive.
#
Supreme Court actually said at that time, we will go to the bottom of this particular church,
#
what happened. And everybody who has any understanding of the judiciary in the country
#
knows it's habitually happening every day in the country. And therefore, I think we have to
#
somehow refocus on things that matter. And they're not many things. They're not a thousand things.
#
Apart from the three things we mentioned, all that matters is education quality.
#
India has appallingly poor quality education. In a global survey, I'm sure some of the other
#
interactions we've had, PISA survey way back in 2009, India ranked 72nd and 73rd respectively,
#
two states, two entities were participating in that. Thank God there was a country called
#
Kyrgyzstan in that list. And therefore, we narrowly missed the ignominy of being the last country.
#
You know, when some of us started talking about it as loudly as was possible, to the extent that
#
our voice should be heard, at least some people got to know about it. You know, the government's
#
response? I hoped that the government would look at it. In a country where there's so much
#
of demand for education, even the poor are spending disproportionate sums to get education for their
#
children. Society values education. Government is spending a lot of money on education. In
#
Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, we're spending 70,000, 80,000 rupees per child per year, which is not
#
a small change in a country like India. So it's not because of anybody's deliberate act. It's just,
#
there's a common neglect, not enough understanding of what needs to be done. I hope that there will
#
be a search of that, the reasons and solutions. You know what the government's response was?
#
Henceforth, India shall not participate in peace or survey. Since then, until today, 14 years later,
#
India did not participate. And which are the countries number one and number two, number
#
three in that list? China, Hong Kong, China, Singapore. Part of it is this quest for power
#
without a purpose and the media completely ignoring their duty and the so-called intelligentsia and
#
others really not figuring out what matters in a country like India. Part of it, I hesitate to say
#
this because I don't believe in conspiracies. There is an unspoken elite conspiracy that if
#
every child gets the same opportunity as my child, then my God, how will my child flourish?
#
I don't think it is a conscious one. And I'm, as I said, hesitating to say this,
#
but I find it deeply offensive because I went to a village school, a Telugu medium school,
#
a government school. The contrast between then and now, whatever be the deficiencies then,
#
the society care to educate its children, give real meaningful education. Today,
#
kids going to the same school I think have no future. And that we are not bothered about it.
#
It doesn't trouble us. It doesn't drive us to a frenzy and anger and action.
#
I don't know what else will. I don't know what else is more moral than this.
#
There's a film, I forget the name, in which Shashi Kapoor and Amitabh Bachchan are having a bath and
#
obviously they're having a bath naked, though the camera doesn't show all that, but they're
#
naked in the bathroom. And then the door opens and a woman comes in, I forget who, one of the
#
heroines. And instead of covering their crotches, both of them immediately cover their eyes.
#
And to me, it seemed like the government saying we won't participate in pizza anymore.
#
Seems exactly that. My next question is kind of my third of the smaller three questions,
#
third of the bigger three questions will come later. But the third of the smaller three questions
#
is that you spoke about looking at the past, not to assign blame, but to learn lessons from them.
#
Now, the question that obviously comes up is that we'll learn the lessons, but who will implement
#
it? Because those who will implement it actually have the most to lose because they are benefiting
#
the most from the current system. That is why they are in power. And I can break this down into two
#
parts. That one is that some of the larger structural reforms like the centralization of power and so
#
on are problematic because the people who have to change that are the people who are benefiting
#
from it. Why should they do it? But some of the smaller problems like the power that the ordinary
#
policeman has over the citizen, for example, is something that can be reformed without necessarily
#
affecting the people who are taking that decision to reform it. And I'm just taking two examples of
#
categories, but I'm guessing there is one category of problem where the incentives are clearly
#
against the politician in power changing them. And therefore it is hard to make that case to them
#
because you can't really appeal to the self-interest. But there is another category
#
of problem. And as you point out, many people who are in politics and who are bureaucrats today are
#
people of the finest intellect. Whatever their incentives might be, they are good people. They
#
want to do good things. They understand the problems and so on and so forth. Why can't we
#
solve that second category? Start with what has your experience been? Because you have interacted
#
with top politicians, you've interacted with bureaucrats. What has your experience been about
#
A, the understanding of the issues that we are faced with and B, what gets in the way of the
#
smaller ones being sorted out? Is the sluggish nature of the Indian state as it were also a
#
huge intractable problem? I think inertia is the biggest problem. It's not so much malice or
#
conspiracy. There are two positive factors. I think in the large part, most of the politicians
#
and quite a few of the professional public servants actually want to do something good.
#
I don't believe they're all villainous, evil, bad people. This is a very caricature, Hindi film,
#
big great Hindi or Telugu film caricature. The second is, I believe actually if they do it
#
smartly, there are political incentives. And some people on occasion are discovering it and getting
#
the benefit. Rajasekhar Reddy, as Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, he understood the power of
#
vote if you provide at least some elements of healthcare or a history program. And EMRI,
#
this 108 and then emergency response. Narendra Modi as Chief Minister of Gujarat used the EMRI
#
and he was one of the greatest supporters and got the political benefit. But only bits and pieces.
#
One bright doctor of Indian origin got training in the UK and then moved to the US. He asked me
#
once in the US, why is healthcare not a political issue in India? Because there are so many words
#
in that. I asked the same question. Actually, there are so many words in that. I think there's
#
a lack of imagination because you're used to a certain way of doing things. Most of us simply go
#
in the track, go with the flow without actually engineering it. Occasionally somebody does it,
#
but only in part because again, in the absence of the overarching debate and discussion and
#
a set of solutions emerging, at least in the public domain, it's very difficult for the
#
political parties to themselves take on the task of actually innovating. If the innovation comes
#
in terms of ideas, the party can pick it up and the media can be the conduit. When both those
#
things fail, occasionally by intuition or some accident, some politician may pick up something
#
and make it work, but it does not become systemic enough to make a big impact. But I believe there
#
is hope. I believe there is hope because for instance, take the national education policy.
#
On the whole, it's a sound policy, but in a large federal system with diversity,
#
to make it happen for 260 million school kids and about 40 million college kids in India,
#
each of them would be a huge nation. It's going to take time and effort, but we must be
#
conscientious. We must make it central issues. Too many priorities will destroy things.
#
Any government or any official who has more than three or four priorities has no priorities at all.
#
Wow, wise words. Let me double down on the phrase, lack of imagination,
#
because one thing I have often wondered about is, do our opposition political parties in this moment
#
showing a lack of imagination? And I ask this in two ways.
#
100%. There is so much to attack the government and to show the way.
#
All you can think of is the ugliness all around.
#
Yeah, and I was thinking of really two dimensions across which I wanted to ask this. And one was
#
that we constantly see other parties doing what might be called a certain kind of soft
#
Hindutva, whether it's the Hanuman Chalisa of the Ahmadmi Party or even the Gandhis going
#
to temples and all of that. And one argument and one possible reason for that could be that they
#
have realized that that is a non-negotiable, so we are stuck with it. The other possibility could be,
#
as some of the defenders say, that they don't want the Hindu part of it to be something they
#
are contesting. So they are saying, we are also equally Hindu and then we'll contest on the
#
other margins. And that's one way of looking at it. But to me, there's a certain kind of
#
pandering to that vote base, which I feel is short-sighted. And the other aspect of it is when
#
I compare the political marketplace with an actual marketplace. Now in an actual marketplace,
#
which is functioning like a free market where there is ease of entry and so on, what would
#
typically happen is that if anyone within that marketplace shows a lack of imagination,
#
a newcomer will enter that marketplace and disrupt them completely and wipe them out.
#
So you have Kodak completely getting wiped out because they don't invest in digital early
#
enough. You have Nokia getting wiped out when the iPhone comes and the other Android-based phones
#
comes and so on and so forth. That's what happens in a real marketplace. But this marketplace is
#
because of all kinds of structural reasons that ease of entry isn't really there. First,
#
within our parties, you don't have inner-party democracy. You've already got to be connected
#
in deep ways or deep-pocketed to even have an entry into the party in the first place.
#
And for a new party to come in, the Aam Aadmi Party, much as I don't like them, but they did
#
a tremendous job of showing what political entrepreneurship actually can do in a limited
#
marketplace like Delhi. And to me, that seems another factor that I
#
refuse to accept. Like on the one hand, I would say everyone in the market understands the pulse
#
of the consumer better than anyone else. That's why they're there. That's why they're succeeding.
#
But I refuse to accept that what the political parties of India currently perceive as a people's
#
will is actually the people's will. My sense is that, no, people want many more things like
#
these fundamental things like healthcare and rule of law and all of that. But there is no one there
#
to fight for it and articulate it and so on. And there's a lack of imagination.
#
It's an oligopoly created by the perversions of the system. There's no real marketplace in politics
#
and there is simply no possibility of realistic entry. It's a huge entry barrier within the party
#
internal democracy, systemic because it first passed the post system. You're absolutely bang
#
on target. I genuinely hope that. I normally don't talk of party politics or anything.
#
Whatever the other flaws, I hope and expected Mr. Narendra Modi to take the transformation of
#
Indian politics seriously. Because after all, a man who chose at a very young age to do something
#
bigger than himself, you like it or don't like it, it's a reception matter, but there's a cause
#
bigger than himself and devoted, dedicated, led a life of simplicity and a very spartan life.
#
And obviously, case for the greatness of India in his own vision, et cetera. And anybody who
#
understands a bit of India recognizes the pain inflicted by politics of India today as they are
#
and how to transform it must be central issue. But apparently, either because there's not enough
#
mind space to go into other things and he thought economic management and then strengthening his own
#
base and so on and so forth are important. Or because increasingly those in power feel that
#
status quo is beneficial to them. I do not know what exactly the reason. That seems not to be
#
happening. But one day if we don't address that, I don't see how greatness of India, even if that
#
is your goal, for me and you, better lives and better society. But even if greatness of India,
#
there's nothing wrong with that goal. I don't see how that's going to be accomplished.
#
But that apart, now the challenge is
#
how do you make a political system address the concerns of India and yet be
#
politically competitive? Take the current opposition. Let me continue this train.
#
Obviously, nature abhors a vacuum, politics should abhor a vacuum and you cannot allow monopoly of
#
power. Whether it's Congress earlier or some other party now, BJP, healthy political competition,
#
good for the health of a democracy. There's no question about it. Even if soft Hindutva is not
#
what is embraced all the time by the opposition today, they are now taking the easy recourse to
#
short-term individual welfare measures which are necessary. If in the United States somebody like
#
Joe Biden gives loan waivers and puts a lot of money into people's pockets,
#
democracy, ultimately you have to also satisfy the voters. But if they don't see, put it in
#
perspective and don't see the need for balancing the short-term individual welfare measures with
#
the long-term economic growth prospects and how to bring them together and how to make people ready
#
for that, if they don't understand that it's a colossal tragedy for India, that's not happening.
#
Not only are they, take Karnataka, the five guarantees that are offered. I'm not even
#
questioning them. If they are mixed with what should happen to Karnataka's long-term economic
#
growth and what is wrong with the model from their point of view, if there is something wrong,
#
obviously politically they are saying it will probably be an alternative. I would have been
#
very happy. Nothing of the kind. Pre-election and post-election, they're only hopping on that.
#
And on top of it, now they're saying it's not even about the people. It's about a small section of
#
the organized section of the vocal people, the government employees who have immense power and
#
money and collective bargaining power. You are now yielding to their pressure at the cost of the
#
97% of the people to resort to unfunded, open-ended pension system, which was given up 19 years ago
#
in India quite rightly and everybody agreed. And today we are going back because the parties are
#
so weak, so inemic, they cannot withstand the pressure of 3% of the workforce of India.
#
It's a disgrace. If this is alternative politics, then I think it's a tragedy. If you cannot imagine
#
a better life for people, if you cannot identify an agenda that actually makes things different,
#
and if you cannot attack the governing system today for their failings, and there are many
#
failings we discussed, education, health care, rule of law, decentralization, and the political
#
system itself, if you have enough imagination to look at that, and a hundred other things.
#
If you cannot address that and all you can think of is, I will buy the vote either the money,
#
which everybody is buying now, I'll give a thousand rupees. Karnataka is a thousand, two thousand
#
rupees per vote. So is the case with Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, with Tamil Nadu and other
#
states are following suit. Or I will simply indulge in short-term freebies. Even that is okay because
#
they go to the large number of the poor people and they deserve some help or the other. And you can
#
always withdraw it if you find it not feasible tomorrow. There's no irrevocable legal guarantee
#
or anything like that, and you can provide something else. But a irrevocable legal guarantee
#
to a people who don't deserve it, when there's a unilateral contract that post-2004 there will be
#
contributory pension, and you're getting pension, it's not that you're not getting pension,
#
and you yield to their demands and you call it a great socialist step, I find it deeply, deeply
#
offensive and anti-people and anti-democratic. And state after state now, West Bengal never joined
#
the national pension system, which is a contributory pension. And right now, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh,
#
Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, they all went back. You know, Amit, take the US or other
#
countries, US as you I'm sure are aware, there's something called payroll tax. The employee and
#
the employer, they both contribute 6.2% of the income as tax. And every, it applies to everybody
#
in the country, private sector, public sector, self-employed people pay that much money.
#
And from that fund, you draw a pension. The average pension is about 25% of the GDP per
#
capita average. Some people get more, some people get less, but in average. In India, unfunded, not
#
a rupee is funded by the government or by the employee. Amit Verma doesn't get anything because
#
there's no social security system for you. Private sector employees don't get anything.
#
The 97% workers of India don't get anything. It's only for the privileged 3% workers, unfunded,
#
index linked, irrevocable legal commitment, open-ended. So much so an employee who retired
#
at 10,000 rupees wage can get 80,000 rupees pension. And for 3% of the people, the expenditure of the
#
exchequer is 15%. For 100% of the people in the United States, expenditure is 15%.
#
The enormity of it, the political leaders don't understand. And when they give up,
#
and then they pretend to be the socialist or pro-people, I find it deeply offensive,
#
deeply offensive. Well, socialism in practice has always benefited only the elites,
#
but here's what you earlier said about Mr. Modi, that maybe if he were motivated by a desire to
#
assert India's grandeur or his own legacy and so on, things could be better. And I'm reminded of,
#
and I want to ask you a question about power because you've been in proximity with power
#
and with people in power. And I'm reminded of this anecdote which serves as a good metaphor,
#
not an anecdote. I mean, there was a new story I read maybe 20, 25 years ago. I can't remember
#
who it related to, so if some listener can help me, I'll be grateful. But it showed the
#
picture of a mafia don with the five people who succeeded him after one by one they died. So
#
basically one guy died, his right-hand man would succeed him and all the way down. And this mafia
#
don himself was something like five foot six or five foot four, and everybody else was shorter
#
than him, which meant that each person picked as his right-hand man, someone shorter than him,
#
so he would not be a direct threat to himself. And this seems to me to be an interesting metaphor
#
of how small-minded people would tend to surround themselves with yes men who will never challenge
#
them or be a threat to them. And I wonder if this is one of the perils of being in great power,
#
that you might then tend to reject people who challenge you and to embrace people who are
#
essentially yes men. And if you yourself are a simplistic thinker, then they would also
#
become equally simplistic thinkers. Like I was chatting with Rajesh Jain, who was a guest a long
#
time back on the show, and Rajesh told me something interesting about the PMO. And I told him,
#
I'm going to quote you on this, and he said, yeah, yeah, quote me. So what Rajesh has said was that
#
people in the prime minister's office or people around the prime minister, they're like day traders,
#
not Warren Buffet. So everything that they do, whether it's demonetization or anything that they
#
do, is really with some simplistic short-term aim in mind. They're not thinking long-term,
#
they're not thinking deeper consequences. So partly this came to my mind because I was a
#
little skeptical about the faith in any one man, especially someone who seems to have fallen for
#
that trap of, like when Modi started in 2014, he had access to great advisors. But he pretty much
#
ignored all of them or those he didn't ignore are people who I think debased themselves by becoming
#
yes men and getting down to his level. But then I want to ask a broader question, not about Modi
#
in particular or not about this tendency by itself in an abstract term, but in your interactions with
#
people of power, and you've interacted with what the last four or five prime ministers and all of
#
that, you've known politicians so intimately. What is your sense that, you know, does power
#
have this kind of effect on people where it diminishes them? Are they aware of it? Do they
#
fight it? Have you ever been tempted by this? In general, power tends to isolate you because
#
there are so many seen and unseen barriers now. People put a protective cocoon around you.
#
But again, it's very individual. Even in our country, a man like Vajpayee, I had never met him
#
personally. And the more I think of his accomplishments with the limited power he had
#
under the coalition with a very difficult political management, I am astounded.
#
A, when you interacted with ministers during his time, you actually felt the ministers are empowered.
#
They were confident. The old man would back them up as long as they did the right thing.
#
Even if a mistake is committed, it's not a big deal. But they really were in charge,
#
double command. And B, he looked at the long term, at the national highways,
#
or the mobile telephony, or the FRBM Act, or the national pension system, or something else.
#
Nobody forced him. There was no need to do many of those things. If he simply went about business
#
as usual, nobody was going to complain because nobody was asking for that. But he went under an
#
80 year old man thinking of the future. To me, it's astounding. So that's the second thing.
#
Even in political management, it was during his time that disclosure law came.
#
During his time that political funding reform of the Tehelka scam, I remember meeting everybody,
#
key players, including George Fernandez, who was accused in Tehelka scam, when we persuaded them,
#
they all were more than willing and across party lines. And Congress party constituted a committee
#
with Dr. Manmohan Singh, the chair on party finances. The BJP NDA government accepted
#
a Congress party's internal committee report in total and enacted the political funding law.
#
That morphed into no electoral bonds. There is a story behind it. Even if I'm digressing,
#
I think it's interesting. Arun Jaitley, he was the law minister at the time. And LK Advani,
#
he was looking after all these matters. I think unspoken kind of a jurisdictional thing, all
#
electoral reforms, other matters, he more or less, they say. So I fought for and got a
#
100% tax exemption to the donors for political contribution so that honest politics gets honest
#
money. If you revile politics and think that politics doesn't mean it's a silly approach,
#
and everybody came into the world unanimously, that was an act. The second part I asked for is,
#
as electronic media campaign is going to be increasingly important, let's move towards that
#
and therefore give free air time on private and government electronic media, not in government
#
alone, as a part of licensing condition. That's what the law is, to recognize political parties
#
in a certain degree of manner. The second one was never implemented. I don't know who, why they
#
stopped it. I can imagine. The first one was implemented. Mr. Arun Jaitley told me several
#
times subsequent. He worked so hard for this. Mr. LK Advani said, now that the donors get 100%
#
tax exemption, why should we collect cash? So collect only by check. Despite being in power,
#
within three months, the receipts to the ruling party fell by 90%.
#
Wow. Because it's not a question of tax incentive. In a country where there's no rule of law,
#
where the presiding deity of the country, the prime minister or the governing party can determine
#
your economic fortunes, no matter how big you are, you're vulnerable. People are not willing to pay
#
by check because the other party, when they come to power or somebody else, they will harass. Or
#
if you want to support the opposition, because that's where your heart is, you'll be penalized.
#
And therefore, when Arun Jaitley became the finance minister later, his legalistic response
#
to address that specific thing is give anonymity with tax exemption, rather than look at rule of
#
law issues and then how do you make an individual's economic fortunes invulnerable to political
#
vagaries? That is the bigger question. But there is a larger point. There is a preference to deal
#
in cash because there is fear of those in power in the country. But the point is Mr. Vajpayee
#
actually tried to address some of these things. And he used to always say, I don't know if you
#
remember, all of us are entering political public life by uttering a lie. We're signing an affidavit
#
saying that we spent only this much money. All of us know that we exceeded that amount.
#
Even if he could not do much about it, he was conscious. He was generating a debate.
#
So he was an extraordinary man. So the point I'm making is it's not necessary with all men and
#
women of power. It's also, I think, individual. Are you capable of absorbing and listening
#
and finally making up your mind? Or are you so insecure that if there is a
#
mind which is different from yours or not yes men, you cannot take it?
#
Again, Lincoln comes to mind. Lincoln was a relatively minor political figure in the
#
Republican party establishment at the time. People like Seward, the former New York governor,
#
a major figure in the party then, or Salman Chase, the former Ohio governor,
#
theoretically very sound in the anti-slavery and all that. He made all of them his cabinet members.
#
That's why that book you must have read, The Team of Rivals.
#
Team of Rivals, brilliant book. And it doesn't mean that his power was
#
diminished. Ultimately, he was a decision maker. Famously, when the cabinet, when Lincoln asked
#
him to put something to vote, 12 people said no. He said 12 nays and 1 ay. They have it.
#
At the end of the day, he would call the shots. But he was not afraid to surround himself with
#
people who would dissent and listen to them and make up his mind. That is true leadership.
#
What you said about the attitude of people in Vajpayee's cabinet and the way all of that
#
moved and the way that they would listen. I have a bunch of friends who are economic policymakers
#
and they speak of that time with nostalgia, but they also speak of relatively less recent times
#
with nostalgia in the sense that they'll talk about how in that time, that establishment,
#
Vajpayee's establishment would still speak across the aisle to Chidambaram and listen to what he
#
had to say on economic policy and so on and so forth. There was mutual respect and talking
#
across the aisle. Equally, in 2014, when the Modi government came back to power, Arun Jaitley was
#
finance minister. Chidambaram had been cleaning up a mess left behind by the disastrous Pandav
#
Mukherjee and Jaitley for a long time. There was some continuity for a few months between the
#
Jaitley and the Chidambaram ministries where they were pretty much, you know, they understood that
#
sound economics is sound economics. You're doing what you got to do. I'll do what I got to do.
#
They continued down that way. But the sense that I get increasingly is that now we don't talk across
#
the aisle anymore and that partly that there is a cultural shift within the elites and within the
#
bureaucrats and within politics itself where you no longer talk to the other side. And partly,
#
I also see a shift that we referred to earlier when we spoke of tribalism and polarization,
#
that everybody is busy demonizing the other side to the extent that you behave as if nothing good
#
can emerge from the other side. Everything the other side does is wrong. In our conversation,
#
the example I gave of that was, you know, there were people who were criticizing the BJP when
#
they were against FDA and when they became for FDA, the same people continue criticizing them
#
for being for it. Right? And perhaps another example, I don't know what you think about it,
#
is the farm laws themselves. You know, the farm laws, of course, were, I think the way they were
#
put forward in front of the people announced was rushed through parliament was just bad politics.
#
But was it bad economics? Very sound laws. They're absolutely necessary. Very sound laws and many of
#
what was proposed in the farm laws were in the Congress manifesto before that. And yet the
#
Congress opposed it just because it was something that the BJP did. And the principle today seems
#
to be you oppose whatever the other guy does. It doesn't matter what are the individual merits of
#
a law or a policy or whatever. And this makes movement or reform in any direction quite difficult,
#
doesn't it? The answer is obvious. It's a very dangerous thing for our country. Farm laws is a
#
classic example, a classic example that Sharad Joshi, my good friend from whom I learned a lot
#
of agricultural economics, one of my mentors and heroes, he always argued for a liberal regime,
#
you know, some protection is required for the farm sector and entry of retail chains so that
#
the supply chain is compressed and we get valuations and so on and so forth. Some policies
#
are time needed at the initial stage. Some like retail chain policy on paper it exists, but you're
#
not allowing it to happen. So we are damaging the farm sector enormously. And as somebody said,
#
God save me from my friends, enemies, I can take care of them. It's the friends of farmers who are
#
more dangerous one than the enemies of farmers, unfortunately. Let's leave it at that. But the
#
broader question that you raised, I think there are several layers in that. In the states, in many
#
states, this kind of, you know, I will not deal with the opposition, I'll treat them as enemies,
#
has happened for quite some time in many states. Some states are exempt, but in many states it
#
happened. I remember Anthapadeshwara, and by men and women of goodwill, well-meaning people who
#
never understood what politics is, NTR, he's a great man. I knew him intimately, worked with him,
#
a man of great heart, integrity, and his contribution to India's federalism or creating
#
an alternative to Congress or ethical politics is unquestioned. But he truly believed for quite some
#
time that Congress is the enemy. In Telugu there's a proverb, the crow cannot come from that house to
#
this house kind of thing. He actually believed that if somebody interacted with the opposition,
#
he thought that was betrayal. So this kind of a thing happened in many states. Some states are an
#
exception. Karnataka was refreshing, at least for some time I noticed. But Tamil Nadu, if you
#
remember the opposition leader, cannot even come to the assembly and vice versa. If you're in power,
#
you would jail them and vice versa. That model is now exported to Delhi. Just as very high degree
#
of centralization where chief minister alone matters, ministers are inconsequential, that's
#
true in most states. That's now exported to Delhi. There was always some degree of centralization,
#
but never so much now. So there is an inadvertent export of the state's model to the Delhi. That's
#
one thing. Second is, apart from the overall tribalism and deterioration in some parts of
#
political culture, emergency still is playing in the minds of many people in BJP. Mr. Narendra Modi
#
himself, they all felt betrayed because they were formative years, engaged and all that.
#
That anger, some people overcame like Mr. LK Advani and Mr. Vajpayee overcame, but many others
#
were not able to. The third is, Congress also played that game. Post Gujarat riots and other
#
things, some of the language used, some of the efforts made were to delegitimize everything and
#
to take an extreme level and therefore there's now a tit for tat kind of a thing. Whatever it is,
#
it certainly is very dangerous for democracy. I used to tell Mr. LK Advani and Mrs. Gandhi
#
that, look, this whole idea that Vajpayee government is for India shining and Hindutva
#
and Congress is for secularism and Aam Aadmi is market segmentation. At the end of the day,
#
except that with some certainty, I can say Mrs. Sonia Gandhi will never become BJP president and
#
LK Advani will not become Congress president. 90% of the rest are interchangeable. Party is more
#
a label than to get a symbol. Therefore, while you fight politically very strongly that competition
#
is required, you bury the hatchet and look at the big picture where at least on the three,
#
four fundamentals you're all together and there you quietly cooperate. That is always my stand.
#
I think that sense is missing. I heard a story, I don't know how far it's accurate, but I'm not
#
surprised if it's actually accurate. Mr. Jeswant Singh made a commitment to George Bush in the US
#
that they will send troops to Iraq and they'll be happy to have our boots and their money and
#
strategically and so on and so forth. He came to the prime minister and briefed him and said,
#
I gave a commitment, let's do it. Vajpayee just said, do you understand the danger that you put
#
us in? He said, what's the matter? He said, why should we get into their war? We have India,
#
the world's second largest Muslim population. We have to build harmony here and ultimately our
#
people will die there. What do we get out of it? Then just one single panicky. I believe Mr. Vajpayee
#
lifted the telephone, that's what the story says, called up Mrs. Gandhi, the opposition leader.
#
He said, no, Iraq and all the pressurizing, what do you think? And Mrs. Gandhi said, no,
#
why should we be involved in that? He said, then why are you not making noise about it?
#
She said, what shall I do? Write to me, make some noise, make statements, attack the government.
#
And then he said, look, we're a democracy. If you allow the opposition voice, if you actually
#
have an interaction, it benefits you, not only the country. You can get out of very tricky
#
situations, dangerous situations, but that requires enormous wisdom. If the prime minister
#
of the opposition, if the chief minister of the opposition cannot have an equation to talk on
#
telephone and say, let's have lunch and discuss, I think it's bad government. But unfortunately,
#
even countries like United States and Britain, perhaps is a little better. Germany is even better,
#
but US is a terrible example. This degree of polarization, we are learning the wrong things
#
from other countries too. This is such a brilliant story about Mr. Vajpayee, just such a brilliant
#
story. And the fact that we've almost come a full circle since then, since there is no question of
#
anything like that happening in the current day. This also makes me wonder about something
#
a good friend of mine was chatting about recently, where he was saying that,
#
and both of us are in agreement that so far, this government hasn't rigged any elections.
#
As my friend Nitin Pai says, it's easier to rig mines, why do you need to rig machines?
#
But at the same time, he said that I'm worried about 2024 or even 2028,
#
that if the BJP finds they are losing, they might well rig elections or they might well
#
suspend democracy. And I said, okay, that's a bit alarmist, why do you feel that way?
#
And his answer was that I feel that way because they have gone too far in hurting the other side.
#
And they know that the moment the other side comes to power, the tables will be turned,
#
so and so minister will definitely go to jail, etc. So they cannot allow that to happen because
#
now it is existential, no longer does that collegial atmosphere exist between parties.
#
These are all vastly exaggerated fears. As somebody who has managed elections,
#
hopefully understood the electoral process and did some work at least in trying to improve the
#
election process, I'm absolutely certain election is not about three election commissioners in Delhi
#
alone. There is a whole missionary across the country and however disgraceful their conduct is
#
normal administration, many of them are corrupt and competent buffoons. But come election time,
#
a certain culture, a certain systemic approach and certain institutional behavior, and the public,
#
watchful public eye, and the media, all these make sure that things are perfectly okay.
#
I'm not saying everybody acts as a wonderful hero. Now we had chief election commissioners
#
who were completely partisan and who had a terrible track record. Navin Chawla was an emergency
#
accused. There was Sanjay Govind, the Ecolite. He should not have been made election commissioner.
#
But heavens did not fall. He became chief election commissioner. Heavens did not fall
#
because the system is strong enough. We must trust ourselves. I don't think any political party is an
#
incentive in rigging. Our politicians, because power is so important for them, they're like
#
examination going students. They're terrified before the election. They always see the worst.
#
The examiner will ask the toughest question. The one question I did not prepare for, I did not
#
read, or some such thing. Much of it is meaningless. If you remember, this electronic voting machines,
#
Chandrababu Naidu, the great champion of modernization, Amarinder Singh in Punjab,
#
Jayalalitha in Tamil Nadu, each of them in the last elections, they blamed the electronic
#
voting machines. Each of them with thumping margins, next election with the same EVMs.
#
So don't take these things. And in India, there's too much of conspiracy theories.
#
That's absolute nonsense. I agree about the technology and I agree about the institution,
#
but then a party can suspend democracy itself like the Congress did in 1975. And that is what
#
I'm much more optimistic. This country is much more resilient. In 1996, Congress learned the lesson,
#
the hard way. I'm absolutely certain that any damage to our democracy will not be a dramatic
#
dictatorial takeover. It will be a creeping decline in institutional strength and a creeping decline
#
in the conduct of politicians in our own readiness to embrace that behavior or accept that behavior,
#
like failure of rule of law, perverting crime investigation across the country. It's not merely
#
in Delhi. Real crime investigation and police are in the states. Ninety-eight percent of the
#
crime investigation is in the states. In every single state, whichever be the party in power,
#
there is a habitual abuse of power by every single MLA. We're pretending as if it's a
#
Modi phenomenon or some other phenomenon. There's a deeper systemic phenomenon.
#
And it's perhaps, like you said, an erosion so gradual that we may not even
#
realize it is happening. So I'm not worried about some BJP or somebody becoming dictatorial.
#
I don't believe they are enemies of the people anymore than anybody else is the enemy of the
#
people. I think their hearts are in the right place about the constitutional freedom as
#
we know the party. And there are black sheep everywhere in the country.
#
Vilifying this group or that group is absolutely wrong.
#
On that positive note, let's take a quick commercial break and on the other side of it
#
we'll continue our conversation. Long before I was a podcaster, I was a writer. In fact,
#
chances are that many of you first heard of me because of my blog, India Uncut, which was
#
active between 2003 and 2009 and became somewhat popular at the time. I love the freedom the form
#
gave me and I feel I was shaped by it in many ways. I exercise my writing muscle every day
#
and was forced to think about many different things because I wrote about many different things.
#
Well, that phase in my life ended for various reasons. And now it is time to revive it.
#
Only now I'm doing it through a newsletter. I have started the India Uncut newsletter
#
at indiancut.substract.com where I will write regularly about whatever catches my fancy.
#
I'll write about some of the themes I cover in this podcast and about much else. So please do
#
head on over to indiancut.substract.com and subscribe. It is free. Once you sign up,
#
each new installment that I write will land up in your email inbox. You don't need to go
#
anywhere. So subscribe now for free. The India Uncut newsletter at indiancut.substract.com.
#
Thank you. Welcome back to The Scene and the Unseen. I'm chatting with JP Narayan on
#
the nature of Indian politics, on his own life and so on and so forth. And we last spoke four
#
years ago. So tell me in that time, what has changed? In the sense, what have you been doing
#
in that time? You've spoken about that earlier transformation of Lok Sattar from being a movement
#
to a party to a movement again and sort of you're taking a backseat from actual electoral politics
#
at the very least. What have the last four years been like? What have you been thinking? What have
#
you been doing? One realization has dawned on me that there's no appetite for political reform in
#
India, whether the elites or the media or the political parties or the key leaders in the
#
country for whatever reason, as I mentioned before. Therefore, can we protect economic growth
#
and a holistic economic growth on a sustained basis? Because I think because of a variety of
#
factors, internal and external, partly luck globally, partly because successive governments
#
have done a few right things in this country since 1991, we are reasonably well placed to have 67%
#
growth rate on a sustained basis, provided we get some things right. Therefore, right now,
#
my most important preoccupation is how to protect the growth impulse of India. And that's the context
#
in which I'm deeply troubled by some of the things like going back to old pension scheme,
#
because politicians are running scared without any imagination or concern for the country's future.
#
The second is, without getting into big political reform,
#
can we at least improve the delivery of education and health care?
#
Because these two are politically winners if they actually deliver. I don't think governments are
#
unwilling to do that, except that the space is not there in the mind, they're too preoccupied
#
with other things. Probably it's more bureaucratic failure than political failure because their job
#
to get things done and they're not imagining a new way of doing things either. So there are
#
some green shores like new education policy, national education policy, etc. The third area is
#
can we look at some emerging issues which are completely grown by the political system
#
and by the elites in the country? Urbanisation. We are still at 30% urbanisation, which is nothing
#
compared to what it's going to be. But our imagination of urbanisation is like Mumbai.
#
Millions will descend upon Mumbai and all kinds of ghettoisation and urban poverty. You see,
#
in the case of COVID particularly, apart from the health care issues, the migrants from villages,
#
how they suffered, I think if it's not saved in our memories, if we don't take this seriously
#
to look at the future, then I don't know what is this experience about.
#
So clearly, we need to do a lot about it. Without urbanisation, there's no future.
#
I'm not a great believer that rural India, idyllic India, I grew up in a village but I know what a
#
village is. So I don't accept the notion that living in a village is the best possible thing.
#
But unless in-situ urbanisation takes place, unless you create a large number of local
#
migrants with all the amenities, and luckily we have today technology coming to our aid,
#
television and mobile phone have reached every corner of the world.
#
Supposing quality education, quality health care, basic infrastructure, 24-hour water supply,
#
stormwater drainage, sewerage are also available. There's no good reason why there cannot be local
#
urbanisation with linkages with rural areas and people are not emotionally dealing from their
#
environments and therefore there's no alienation and there's no distress in urban areas because
#
urban poverty is far more grand than rural poverty. For decades in India, we've talked about rural
#
poverty. Today, I think the real challenge is urban poverty. Therefore, in-situ urbanisation,
#
a model which is sensible, without undermining big cities, I understand the cluster effect,
#
I understand the power of big cities, I understand the importance of greenfield
#
cities to attract investment. But alongside with that, unless urbanisation is managed well
#
and unless we recover the lost ground on account of the farm sector reform,
#
what happened was a very tragic thing, but much more needs to happen in addition to
#
the failed effort in respect to those three laws. So these are the things which are somewhat
#
not really partisan political issues, but they're not engaging the attention of the
#
not only decision makers in politics, but even the elites in the media in the country.
#
And in my judgment, politically speaking, they're harmless issues. I mean, they're not controversial
#
issues. I think we have to make an impact on each of these things. For instance, we have taken up
#
the issue of education in an innovative way, how to use technology to improve the assessment,
#
the quality of assessment, stress-free, not based on rote learning, but genuine outcomes that
#
require memory, the ability to communicate effectively, the ability to apply logic and
#
come to reasonable conclusions in a scientific manner, the ability to use basic mathematical
#
concepts for problem solving, how to measure it and how to remediate it. So I think these are the
#
issues that are bothering me right now quite a bit. And I've obviously had episodes on both the
#
farm laws with Ajay Shah where we both kind of agreed that politically it was a disaster,
#
but economically they were damn good and sort of discussing the tragedy of that. And I've had
#
episodes on education and healthcare as well. I'll link them all from the show notes. And
#
I have recently started, I've always been and remain a big proponent of urbanization.
#
The greatest migration in human history is from rural to urban and people do that because it can
#
be part of larger economic networks and all the benefits that result. But I'm also beginning to
#
see a silver lining beyond that, which is that urbanization to me is a technology to deliver
#
greater connectivity, cluster effects, all these things you spoke of. But now there are other ways
#
of also delivering some of those thankfully because of technology, because of ubiquitous
#
broadband, some of it made possible. And COVID sensitized us. Earlier probably we would not have
#
thought about it much. Yeah. You're right. Yeah. So, you know, a lot of the benefits from urbanization
#
can actually happen via technology also, you know, and outside the ambit of the state, which is great.
#
Here's a question I want to ask you. You spoke about the importance of economic growth and
#
obviously, as you know, I couldn't agree more. Now, the general narrative I have been getting
#
from many of the economists who've come on the show, like Ajay Shah, Pooja Mehra and so on,
#
is that A, before the reforms of 91, there was a lot of groundwork which went in in the decade
#
before. Montek was also on my show, so Montek spoke about it. A lot of groundwork which went
#
on from the late 70s through the 80s of people within those elites, whether they were bureaucrats
#
or policy people or whatever, you know, putting together a plan for where they would like to
#
take India in terms of liberalization. Then that great opportunity happened. Obviously,
#
it was partly the balance of payments crisis and the IMF intervention and all that. But the point
#
is the policies were ready. Everything was ready. And perhaps it was fortuitous that someone like
#
Narsimha Rao, who was prime minister, was able to make all of that happen. And the way the
#
narrative goes is that we have a 20-year period till 2011, which is almost a golden period,
#
where it doesn't matter which party comes to power. They get it and they're going along with
#
that consensus. And you have the elites working within government throughout and you have different
#
politicians and whatever else they might believe, they are on board with it. And for a variety of
#
different reasons, which Pooja has written about in her book, The Lost Decade, around 2011,
#
that kind of changes. There is a downward trend. I mean, the short story is Pranab Mukherjee as
#
finance minister and so on and so forth, and there is a downward trend. And for a brief few
#
months, Chidambaram tries to reverse it and gently continues. But then that momentum also
#
stops circa 2015, maybe, and the disaster continues. So basically, from 2011 till now,
#
there haven't really been the kind of gains that we should have seen. And what people like,
#
I won't name anyone, but different people also bemoan is that there is no longer even that
#
consensus among the elites, that we need to go in that direction, that liberalization is good,
#
that free enterprise is good, and so on and so forth. And of course, it's not there among
#
the politicians, as we can see, where everything is about optics. And the general abstract principles
#
of free market don't sell because you can't make them concrete. Whereas giving freebies
#
sells in the political marketplace, even if it rebounds economically. So I want to ask you about
#
one would have imagined that since 1991, since seeing hundreds of millions of people come out
#
of poverty, there would at least have been a consensus on this among policymakers and among
#
politicians. That economic growth is a way forward, we want to deliver more of it, this is what we
#
have to do. But increasingly, we find that that is not the case, that Modi has in many ways gone
#
back to Nehru's top-down thinking, as well as embracing Indira's authoritarianism in some ways.
#
And that's what I worry about, that we achieve this great success, we achieve this golden
#
period of 20 years. And it's not golden, I say, in terms of abstract numbers, hundreds of millions
#
of people came out of poverty, that's a big freaking deal, that's a humanitarian benefit to
#
mankind. What do you find of that economic way of thinking? Like, would you share in the pessimistic
#
prognosis of my policymaking friends who say that it appears to have gone? Or would you say that
#
that's true? I am much more optimistic. While some missteps were there, demonetization,
#
the way it was done. And then I believe that no one dramatic fell swoop and something big will happen.
#
Even if it was done right, for instance, you already printed the currency notes in time so
#
that you could exchange them without any difficulty, that is a logistical problem.
#
But even if that were done well, if you didn't understand the drivers of black money,
#
namely big corruption, real estate, and politics, and if we did not have a game plan to address them
#
systematically, sequentially, then all that is simply a signal. They may have been political
#
dividends, but they were devastating economic consequences, there's no question about it.
#
But barring that significant misstep, it would not be very accurate to characterize that
#
the last seven, eight years, nothing has been done. Banks were in a desperate situation.
#
They are much, much more healthy today. Inflation was broadly under control,
#
notwithstanding the global forces, et cetera. Ukraine war, the way I think our country and
#
China managed the fuel situation, it helped us and it helped the world. Western countries may
#
criticize us. If India and China did not take this stand, that energy cannot be held to ransom
#
to global politics. I think global prices of oil would have been $160 to $170. I don't understand
#
why the West was not able to see it so clearly. It was so evident. But that apart, whether
#
bankruptcy code or accent and infrastructure, there's no question that infrastructure is
#
improving. A lot more needs to be done. Or some encouragement of manufacturing. I don't agree with
#
the people who say manufacturing should not even bother. We may succeed in some respects,
#
we will not do as well as we want in some other respects. But in a country of India's vastness
#
and diversity cannot ignore manufacturing. It's absurd. Unless the low-skilled blue-collar
#
manufacturing workers increase in number. Only thing is, I would like to see a lot more
#
accent on labor-intensive things like garments. We only have one or two units in India with 10,
#
15,000 workers working in the garment sector, which they had won every district. China exports
#
$323 billion of garments and textiles. India exports $41 billion. Bangladesh, I can understand
#
quota and all that. So we have really neglected that or leather industry or a whole lot of other
#
areas where labor-intensive things are possible. But otherwise, the accent is right in a broad sense.
#
Promotion of investment. I think if you dismiss all of them as if they're of no consequence,
#
we're not being very practical. It doesn't matter which government, which party. I don't care who
#
is where. Then about the optimism versus pessimism. It is very deeply troubling that the
#
consensus is missing politically. I have no doubt. I don't understand. I'm puzzled by that.
#
When Vajpayee was doing the right things, he continued the policies of Congress.
#
The reformist Congress from 1991 to 1996. But he took it to logical conclusion. In some areas,
#
there was a fresh opening up and so on and so forth. When Manmohan Singh garment came,
#
while they obviously paid more attention to the armadmi and the short-term welfare measures,
#
Dr. Manmohan Singh, Monte Singh, Dr. Rangarajan, Chidambaram, and probably to some extent,
#
people like the Chief Minister of Delhi, Sheela Deeksha, they stood firmly for broad economic
#
reform. While Congress DNA probably is socialist license permit Raj, then and now, these people,
#
given the context and the importance they were given, the legitimacy they enjoyed, they held
#
forth. Today in Congress party, I don't see any such thing. And I find it shocking. I find it
#
shocking that India's major national party for a long time, the party that built India as it is
#
today, a party that gave us food self-reliance, a party that bungled initially on socialist policies,
#
but ultimately recovered from that, is not able to think of India's future in an economic sense,
#
is to me utterly shocking. It is bankruptcy of leadership. And I think we have to sit with
#
all parties, in particular Congress party, and make them seats in their interest and the country's
#
interest. Because if a great party thinks that the country's interests and their political
#
interests are disconnected, then you have a danger signal. Right now, it looks like Congress party
#
believes in an economic sense, the country's economic growth and their own political future
#
are two different issues. One is at the cost of the other. Then I think it's a very dangerous
#
situation. And it's not true. And there is plenty of agenda outside of economic growth and economic
#
reform, where you can differ with the governing party, with justification, and provide an
#
alternative vision, and capture the imagination of the people, and deliver for the country,
#
as Congress always strived to do. Right now, I think that bankruptcy is very, very clear.
#
They are depending either on primordial loyalties, just as BJP has accused the primordial loyalties.
#
You are only provoking alternative primordial loyalties, or short-term,
#
or I would not call it freebies in a pejorative way, because we do have to take care of the poor.
#
But complete emphasis and no other emphasis on anything else, exclusive emphasis only on the
#
short-term delivery of immediate palliatives for the people. And I think that's an extremely
#
dangerous thing. You have to balance them. And that's the context in which I'm talking about,
#
in particular, the World Pension Scheme, because that has devastating consequences to the country.
#
Other things can be retrieved tomorrow, if you like. The data shows
#
that in most states of India, salaries, pensions, and interests
#
already exceed the own revenues of the state. Without doing a rupees work for the people,
#
salaries, pensions, and interests. Pensions, in the past 17 years, since 2004 to 2021,
#
the pension burden on the states increased 11-fold. From 2012 to 2021, it increased more than
#
three-fold. So it's not a normal growth. It's way in excess of the tax realization or economic growth
#
rate, including nominal growth rate. So the burden India is going to face 20 years hence,
#
because it's 10 or 15 years hence, we are thinking it's not a problem. But it is real. It is certain.
#
It's not a conjecture. And we're not able to see that. And state after state, the dominoes are
#
falling. But that apart, I think this- Can I interrupt you and ask you to elaborate on this
#
for a while? Because I think many of my listeners would not have realized that there is a problem
#
like this. And I've heard of it vaguely, but not in the detailed terms in which you were, for example,
#
describing it in the break. And this seems to be right now the paramount thing that you are
#
worried about. So please break it down for me. What is the problem exactly? What's going on?
#
What are the incentives at play? Social security and pension and retirement is something that we
#
all should aspire for, world over. World over, what they did is a sustainable system.
#
A, it's applicable to all the workers of the country. In the United States, 65 million retired
#
people get social security, oblique pension, oblique disability. 179 million people contribute
#
to that. The existing workers, they contribute and retirement from Bill Gates to an employee in
#
garment to a private sector worker in an automobile company in Detroit. Everybody
#
contributes, employer and employee, and everybody draws. So therefore, A, it is funded. It is not a
#
burden on the future taxpayer. That means if I get a service today, why should my children's
#
generation pay out of their tax money towards huge pensions for the services they are not getting?
#
At whose cost? I mean, no family behaves like that. Our families, we always create assets for our
#
children. We don't create a debt burden and say, you pay up and that's the legacy. That's exactly
#
what government is doing. First is unfunded. The pension system until now in India is unfunded.
#
Without putting a rupee, you're asking the next generation to pay. Second is it is open-ended and
#
index linked. That means if the pension today is X amount, within 10, 20 years, the pension is
#
between 10X, 15X, not even 1.5X. There are people who retired at 10,000 rupees. They're getting 70
#
to 80,000 rupees pension with enormous increase in salaries of the pay revision commissions
#
regularly. And the index linked thing with the DA, et cetera, is escalating dramatically. That's
#
the reason why you have to go for Agnipath. This one rank, one pension, the moment you do it,
#
did out of some sense of a hype, government suddenly 1,20,000 crores is going only towards that
#
establishment cost. It is growing pension burden because if there are 15,000,000 soldiers in the
#
armed forces, there are 36,000,000 people who are deriving pension because in the army you only have
#
done 15 years' careers. And the pension burden, the moment it went up so much, it's exceeding
#
salaries in some cases. In the army, it's actually exceeding salaries. Therefore, you have to go to
#
Agnipath. Government did not explicitly say so. There was so much of discussion and debate and
#
agitation on that issue. But a similar picture is developing in the whole country. Because of this
#
index linked pension and because the dramatic increase in the numbers, right now, 15% of all
#
the government revenues in India, union and the states, total revenues, are going towards pension.
#
15%. And your point also is it doesn't actually cover all workers, only 3%.
#
So, 97% people are subsidizing the 3%. In the US, for instance, the average pension received is
#
25% of GDP, actually 24% of the GDP per capita. They get something like $70,000 per capita on
#
average. GDP is $72,000 right now, $73,000. In India, take Andhra Pradesh as an example,
#
this gives you an idea of the rest of the country. They get 5,40,000 rupees average pension.
#
In a country, a state, for instance, in Andhra Pradesh, per capita income is 1,90,000 rupees,
#
about 3 times, 2.7 to 3 times. It simply is unsustainable. Not only is it unjust and
#
immoral and transferring burden to next generation, it's unsustainable. It's going to kill us. It did
#
not affect us until 1991, because salaries were very low until that time. Therefore,
#
pension also was low necessarily. But with 1996, 1997, pay revision commissions, etc.,
#
dramatically escalated that. Luckily for India, in 1999, when Vajpayee came to power, he understood
#
the damage quickly. And he really thought about the future. Then he came up with the national
#
pension system, which is the exact replica of the pensions elsewhere in the world.
#
Every country in the world, they give 100% people the pension. India still did not go for that.
#
But whatever pension is paid or whoever gets pension, in future, they said, let it be funded.
#
Employer and employee put the money. Government of India is putting 14% of the salary. Employees
#
are putting 10%. States are roughly 10-10 model. Some states have a little more. Vajpayee made every
#
state agree. It was an remarkable consensus, barring West Bengal, every other state agreed.
#
18 years implemented very well. Lakhs of crores is accumulated. Now actually the amount is
#
increasing dramatically every year. Suddenly, governments or political parties are becoming
#
panicky because they want to please the small group of 3% population. But they have the
#
collective muscle bargaining power. They have the votes. I'm not opposed to pension. The national
#
pension system that is created by Vajpayee gives them pension, but a sustainable model,
#
where it is fully funded. Right now in many states, governments are not even paying salaries
#
on time. If employees think that they're going to get pensions 30 years hence which is unsustainable,
#
I can assure you, they will get nothing. The country will be doomed. Employees will get
#
nothing. But there's a belief that somehow they'll get a large mula. At the cost of the rest of the
#
people, they're sustainable. It's not sustainable. Not only is it unjust, it's simply not sustainable.
#
Not only bad for the country, it's bad for the employees also. All we require is preserve what
#
is already there. And two, wherever they switch over, some states have switched over, we discussed
#
earlier. What do you do about them? Karnataka is now the latest threatening to switch over.
#
Madhya Pradesh elections are due. Madhya Pradesh already Mr. Kamal Nath made a statement,
#
we will go to OPS. And I suspect Congress party in the next election 2024 is going to say,
#
we'll go to OPS even at the national level. It's going to be an unmitigated disaster.
#
So that means shall we take away the autonomy of the states or the elected government at any level?
#
No. I believe governments have a right to make choices and people vote for them. But you have
#
no right to burden the next generation with a decision you make today which has 40, 50-year
#
consequences, which is legally irrevocable, which does not create assets. You may say,
#
what about a project being built for 20 years? Which assets are created, that's a different thing.
#
If it's a legal liability of a long-term kind without assets created, I don't think any
#
government has a unilateral right. Therefore, if you want to switch over, switch over, but you
#
provide the fund today on a discounted cash flow basis every year so that you account for it in
#
the budget transparently. And the people immediately understand the pain. If you make a decision,
#
then 10,000 crores of my money in this state goes this year. And I therefore cannot utilize it for
#
some other people. If the people want it, so be it. At the very least, the burden is not transferred
#
to the next generation. It's transparent. So A, stop OPS or reversion to OPS. And B, if you do
#
want to go for that, it's up to you. Then you provide the funding today in the budget transparently
#
because today's services, tomorrow's pension is provided. Because ordinary people don't
#
understand most of them, don't understand intricacies of educated people. You know,
#
this is a classic case when Machiavelli 500 years ago said, a reformer must have a great challenge,
#
a great difficulty. When you want to bring about a change or improve things,
#
the people who are likely to lose, their opposition is fierce because they know exactly
#
what is at stake. They become your very powerful enemies. They will use every means at their
#
disposal to destroy you or your reform. The people whose interests you want to protect,
#
the bulk of the people, they don't know what is at stake. Their support at best is lukewarm.
#
And this is a classic illustration. 3% of India's workers out of the 50 plus crore workers,
#
53 crore workers, 3% of the workers, they know exactly what is at stake. They are getting the
#
benefit and therefore they become powerful enemies. They fight tooth and nail. The rest
#
of the 97%, most of whom are unorganized, largely illiterate, underfunded, low wage workers who are
#
eking out a precarious livelihood. They simply don't know what is at stake. At best they vaguely
#
support you. There are politicians who fought for the people against the entrenched sections.
#
Shantakumar and Himachal Pradesh is a classic example. He paid the price. Jayaladitya, whatever
#
we had in the past, when it came to employees versus people, she actually stood for the people.
#
She paid the price. NTR, he paid the price. Sharath Joshi used to say even 30 years ago,
#
the fundamental struggle in India is between the organized sector government employees because
#
the British colonial practice, they think the government is for them versus the people for whom
#
actually the government should work. And I think this is coming to a head. And unfortunately for us,
#
the India's major political opposition party, the Grand National Party of India, Congress Party,
#
and some new parties which are otherwise reformist have become so populist like
#
Ahmadmi Party. They are completely growing the larger national interest and the public interest.
#
I am saying this very deliberately, without any malice. I worked with both these parties very
#
closely. I supported Ahmadmi Party openly and repeatedly. But if this is your notion of politics,
#
if you think 3% people's collective bargaining power today, when they're already well-heeled
#
and well-paid, at the cost of the rest of the 97% to make India's finances unsustainable in future,
#
economic doom is inevitable, and growth project will come to a halt. If you think that is sound
#
politics, it's a disaster for the country. I cannot say it with any less emphasis at my command.
#
And what you've described and what Machiavelli described is a perfect illustration of that public
#
choice phrase, diffuse costs and concentrated benefits. Except in most cases of diffuse costs
#
and concentrated benefits, the benefits don't harm the entire economy or put it at risk. And
#
in this case, as you point out, they are doing exactly that and it's kind of hard to get that
#
point across. I want to go back to talking about the Congress because in the past, for example,
#
you worked very closely with Sonia Gandhi. You worked very closely, for that matter,
#
with the Ahmadmi Party when they began and you supported them. And you worked with all these
#
people and by all accounts, they've all behaved very decently at different points in time.
#
The Congress today, as we were discussing in the break, they completely seem to have embraced the
#
wrong aspects of their legacy. Like Rahul Gandhi, who I think of as a well-meaning buffoon and I've
#
called him a handsome village idiot in the past, but let's go past all that. But his economic
#
understanding is zero to the point that he has repudiated at one point when Mohan Singh's reforms
#
of 1991 and sees some previous vision as being better for India, which is just absurd and daft.
#
That is what you should own. The 1991 reforms is what you should own and really take credit for and
#
go forward. Instead, they boast about things like Priyanka Gandhi boasted about how her father opened
#
the gates of the Babri Malchit in 1987 or whenever. That's not a thing you boast about.
#
And one thing that really gets my goat so much so that when I first saw it a couple of years back,
#
I took screenshots because I couldn't believe it, where every Congress handle
#
was putting out tweets on Sanjay Gandhi's birthday, celebrating our great leader Sanjay Gandhi.
#
And I'm like, no, that's an embarrassment. You need to forget about that. What values
#
can you possibly stand for? If you're going to accuse Narendra Modi of fascism at the very least,
#
don't promote Sanjay Gandhi in that manner. So what's kind of going on here? Because just
#
a while back, it wasn't quite like this. All the politicians you mention of the earlier generation
#
seem to have greater sagacity. I can only look at 2004 before and after. I have some understanding
#
of what happened and what I see is happening as a prelude to 2024. I see some parallels and some
#
stark contrasts. Congress party in 2002, 2003, they felt that perhaps they were not going to
#
get power for a long time. Instead of getting desperate and frustrated, what they did is
#
something refreshing. They went back to the drawing board. They were trying to figure out
#
what's right, what's wrong. And they were actually trying to look at the country
#
and then locate themselves in the country's context. And that's the right approach.
#
They're trying to rediscover a vision for the country in the contemporary context.
#
And that's how some of us were working closely with the Vajpayee government and specific reform
#
agenda. At the same time, we were willing to talk to any political party. That's how I got in,
#
they got in touch with me, whatever. It was very refreshing, very open. There was a willingness
#
to discuss, to debate, to interact, to engage, to learn that humility is there. Quite by accident
#
in 2004, they got power. I don't think they imagined that they would get power.
#
I don't think many people in the country believed that they would get power.
#
We'll come to that a little later. But because A, they thought through at least some of the issues,
#
though it was not a complete process. And B, they were very balanced and mature people with a
#
deeper understanding of economics who had a significant say and the party leadership
#
allowed them to have the say. After all, nobody says Dr. Manmohan Singh was the leader of the
#
Congress party. It's the leadership that allowed them for their own credibility and perhaps for
#
India's economic future, they wisely decided to allow these people, the Montex and Gallo
#
alias, along with Dr. Manmohan Singh, the Chidambaram and others, to really do it.
#
And then they manage politics and they reconcile the short-term things that you have to do to
#
get the poor into the mainstream and the long-term things you have to do to promote economic growth.
#
There may be some minor glitches here and there, but broadly the trajectory continued.
#
What is happening today? The fact that Congress party won at that time itself is because India
#
shining versus Aam Aadmi. The moment an election is made, a class election.
#
However good Bajpayee government was doing, however good the long-term impact of economic
#
growth is on poverty, as you said, hundreds of millions left out of poverty. These are things
#
understood only over time. At a point of time, the feeling that I am not getting what I want
#
or a better deal. And of course the envy that you're getting something that I'm not getting.
#
It's human. They play a more powerful role. The moment an election is converted into a
#
class election, and that's what BJP missed at that time. They were doing a good job in
#
economic management, but they thought that that will appeal to the country. The moment you convert
#
that into a class election, almost anywhere in the world, it's very hard for pragmatic economics to
#
win the election. It's always populism that will win. In a country as poor as India,
#
when the poor are so particularly badly served by the governing process for decades,
#
there is not a ghost of a chance of growth winning. I wish it's not true. I wish the
#
rationality will prevail. What little I understand of public life and democracies
#
world over and in India tells me. For instance, the way Macron had to face the resistance when
#
retirement age is sought to be increased. For the same pension reason, by the way,
#
to reduce the pension burden in the long term, because France pays a much higher amount of
#
pension, 21% of the expenditures on pensions, including private and government. So France is
#
the highest percentage going towards pensions for a variety of reasons. And Macron, the kind
#
of resistance he faced, and he's hugely unpopular right now. He used all the constitutional
#
strategies to get the pension thing through after months of protest. France is very rowdy
#
nation like us. They just go onto the streets, paralyze everything, block the roads. I think
#
they invented along with us or something. They do the same thing like other Western countries.
#
So that shows that it's very difficult politically to manage even in rich countries. In a poor
#
country like India, there's not a ghost of a chance. But that did not hurt the country too badly,
#
though there was interruption of the economic management and good infrastructure and other
#
things because of Manmohan Singh and his team. Today, a similar situation might potentially
#
develop. Many people are very confident that Modi will come back to power with their Modi supporters,
#
they're saying. But I see another class election shaping up. Modi and his team are focusing on
#
economic growth. You may or may not agree with all elements of it, broadly about infrastructure,
#
growth, investment, so on and so forth. And some thrifty management. Certainly the government,
#
whatever it can be accused of, the negatives, one trait they must be given is thrifty management.
#
No, for instance, COVID management, while the rest of the world simply went gung-ho about excessive
#
spending, enormous pressure was there on the government. They did take care of the poor. At
#
the same time, they did try to manage it in a thrifty manner. And that's, I think, saving
#
grace for India. It's helping us a great deal today. All that part is okay. But a signal is
#
being given that he is not in favor of the short-term welfare measures. While actually
#
he's delivering short-term welfare, his power base in North India to my understanding is
#
he delivered, unlike in the past, the freebies very effectively. In the South, always there was
#
a better culture of delivery. North, he delivered, therefore he strengthened his base. But somewhere,
#
I think, he's impatient. And therefore they talk about every culture.
#
I think that's the wrong thing. A prime minister or a government or a major political party must
#
reconcile the short-term individual welfare measures with the long-term growth. They cannot
#
side entirely on one side, either only growth side or only welfare measures, as Congress is now
#
saying. So now we have a polarization between growth and the ravities or the short-term welfare
#
measures. And without the kind of guardrails that we had in the form of Manmohan Singh and his team
#
in Congress party, which is very strange to me, that Congress gives up on its own legacy of economic
#
reform and its own legacy of so many good things, including food security of India, which was the
#
legacy of Congress in 1970s. Until that time, we were ship to mouth in this country. While you own
#
up your mistakes if you don't own up your successes and then build on that. And if you believe that
#
there are some distortions and the poor are not adequately taken care of, development should be
#
done more decentralised. This is a very legitimate stand. You take that stand, but don't simply become
#
a populist completely destroying the future of the country. That danger is now very real.
#
A, the prime minister must now reconcile the short-term welfare delivery with the long-term
#
growth and use that language to mobilize people. And B, Congress must rediscover the art of
#
reconciling both these and rediscovering the importance of growth. Otherwise, this country is
#
in danger. One additional point. I think Aravind Panagari and some others made this. It's very
#
well known, but they gave numbers to this. The difference between the 7% growth and 8% growth,
#
even that one percentage difference, both are high growth, in 10 years time is 50 lakh crore rupees
#
in India. It is 600 billion dollars in 10 years time. Forget what it means in terms of jobs and
#
economic growth and wealth creation. In terms of pure government revenues, when the tax GDP ratio,
#
that means out of the total GDP, how much money government is taking at taxes is about 19% or so
#
in the country. That means about 9 to 10 lakh crores revenues are going to be lost every year
#
because you compromised on one person growth. So even in terms of providing welfare to the poor,
#
if you think a little ahead of time, not merely tomorrow, somehow getting power today,
#
this is much smarter strategy. There cannot be an argument against growth,
#
even from welfare point of view. I find it absurd that in this country, we're actually viewing growth
#
as antithetical to welfare and welfare as an answer to the eradication of poverty.
#
N. T. Ramarov started 2 rupees a kg program way back in 1983. Do you know what the total subsidy
#
at that time was? 330 crores. In the government of India and state put together, I simply took
#
the market price of rice at that time and the price at which the rice was supplied to the poor.
#
Market price was 3 rupees 50 paise a kg at that time. People got it 2 rupees,
#
their subsidy of 1 rupee 50 paise. 22 lakhs tons of rice was distributed in a year, 330 crores.
#
Do you know how much rice is being distributed now? At that time, if 1.3 crore families were
#
given rice, this ration cards and rice, today in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, there are 2.3
#
crore families. At that time, if it is 22 lakh tons, today it is 64 lakh tons. At that time,
#
if the difference in price was 1 rupee 50 paise, today it is 30 rupees. Market price of rice,
#
everybody knows between 30 and 40 rupees depending on the quality. People are getting it 1 rupee.
#
The burden today is 20,000 crores. By your own admission, you have not reduced poverty,
#
though I know some of the numbers inflated many people are getting. But
#
in what way has it really benefited? I'm not saying you should not give rice at a low cost.
#
I'm saying if that's the only strategy. You have seen a classic instance is doomed to failure.
#
We are going to condemn generation after generation to poverty pretending we are doing
#
something good to them. That means we want the poor to remain poor for our political gain
#
or if I'm a charitable person to feel good about myself. I don't want them to rise to my level,
#
compete with my children, get good education, good health care, get a decent job and go to
#
middle class and have assets. What kind of a life are you looking at? If this is our vision as a
#
political party, I think it's extremely sad. If there is one issue that depresses me or makes me
#
respondent today, it is this, that we are treating people as cattle. We're not giving them the
#
dignity they deserve. We're not looking at the children getting an opportunity that allows them
#
to flourish to the extent that their talent and their hard work will allow them to do.
#
And anybody who thinks of people as merely voting machines, you're no longer treating politics as a
#
human endeavor. You're using it as a quest for power on this ladder. One of my friends Kumar
#
Anand uses acronym PPP for what you just described, perpetually planned poverty.
#
I think that is absolutely very much on the conscious side. It's a wonderful expression.
#
I didn't know about it. I think I'll use it. Yeah, and all credit to Kumar. And you know,
#
one of the things that gets my goat is how terms often, you know, mean the opposite of what they
#
are for. Like a lot of progressive politics doesn't lead to progress. A lot of people who
#
call themselves liberals aren't liberal. Dietary fat has no connection with bodily fat. Sugar is
#
poison. And, welfarism doesn't necessarily lead to welfare. You said it. You said it, you know.
#
In any country's title, if the word democracy or democratic or people, they occur. There are
#
always dictatorships. Have you noticed it? There's not a single democratic country that
#
calls itself peoples or democratic. Every country that calls itself democratic or peoples is a
#
dictatorship. Like the People's Republic of China. People's Republic of China. You name it.
#
Like that. We're confused by the titles. Just because I call myself progressive,
#
there's no progress there at all. It's just a word we appropriate. I felt I wanted to dwell on this
#
a bit because someone who doesn't really, hasn't thought about economics much might be listening
#
to this and saying, hey, what is wrong with welfare? And the point is that what is really
#
meant by welfare here is redistribution, which makes a mistake of thinking of the economy as a
#
zero-sum game. How do you get rid of poverty? You take money from the rich and you give it to the
#
poor and you know, you're making the poor better off. But actually it doesn't work that way. The
#
world, you know, works in positive sum or negative sum ways. You know, every trade, like when you and
#
I have a voluntary interaction, it is what John Strossel calls a double thank you moment. I buy
#
a cup of coffee from Starbucks. When I'm giving the money, I say thank you. When they're giving
#
the coffee, they say thank you or vice versa. You know, both people benefit as a positive sum game.
#
So it is growth. When the whole country grows as a whole, then the poorer get richer and the rich
#
also get richer, perhaps at a greater degree. But what matters is that people are coming out
#
of poverty. My friend Nitin Pai once estimated that for every 1% growth in GDP since 91, 2 million
#
people came out of poverty. And I think he recently named that figure as 3 million people
#
came out of poverty for every 1% growth in GDP. And I mean, none of us is arguing that the state
#
has no role. Exactly. State's role is doing its job well. Education of quality at least at school
#
level. There are so many bright minds whose gene pool is wasted. They're stunted for no fault of
#
this because you have third rate education after spending trillions of rupees in this country.
#
Improve educational outcomes. That's the state's responsibility. No, we simply privatized it.
#
And the private sector is not delivering education in most cases. I know any number of poor people
#
who spend 30-40,000 rupees per year for their children's education, they get nothing out of it.
#
I mean, I've had episodes in this pointing out they haven't even privatized it in the sense that
#
even the market isn't allowed to function properly. That's another part. But you know,
#
fundamental failures on the part of the government. Let's go back to talking about the respective
#
leaderships. Like you worked as part of the National Advisory Council in between.
#
For a couple of years. But you interacted closely with Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh and got a
#
lot of respect from them for the work that you did. Tell me a little bit more about that period
#
and how they would respond to dissenting opinions. And to me, when you talk about that period like
#
you were doing during lunch, it seems such a stark contrast from today.
#
You know, one good thing about the idea of NIC, there were some things wrong in practice, but
#
the unhurried deliberation required in government from people of great credibility and who have no
#
personal acts to grind, I think it's a good thing, which ought to be the government in power.
#
Because people in government are very, very busy all the time. Because in a large country,
#
to manage this country or even a large state, there are so many political administrative
#
complexities, there's no time for really unhurried deliberation. There's no point blaming them.
#
That space NIC provided. What is wrong with that was instead of, when you call it a National
#
Advisory Council, you should have a group of experts from a range of opinions and backgrounds
#
and ideas so that you get the distilled wisdom and synthesis. And you thrash out the differences,
#
you come up with a synthesis. Instead, most of the members had identical views. It's no longer
#
national then. If you have a genuine and healthy disagreement in terms of ideas and philosophy,
#
you can come to an agreement. Whereas it's all fellow travelers of a similar background. All
#
well-meaning people sacrificed a great deal, men and women of unimpeachable integrity and
#
personal credibility and compassion. But that's not enough when you want to govern a nation.
#
I happen to be almost a lone dissenter, at least a lone vocal dissenter. Maybe one or two others,
#
they had their views, but very wisely they maintained silence. In our country,
#
silence is always better than vocal dissent. But the beautiful thing was, the chairperson,
#
Mrs. Sunia Gandhi, she was extremely attentive to dissent, very patient, always gave me the
#
space to express views. And I dare say most often,
#
allowed me to prevail as long as what I say is reasonable, backed by evidence, and it's not
#
politically unparalleled. Obviously, political democracy is a political decision-making.
#
Right Information Act. I am deeply committed. You are deeply committed. Arnora is fiercely
#
committed. She devoted her whole life to Transparency and Right Information Act.
#
But some of the ideologues deeply committed to democracy, they don't understand the complexities
#
of running a democracy. Ours is a cabinet system of government. While cabinet is composed of
#
separate individuals, there is supposed to be collective responsibility, speaking with one voice.
#
As somebody said, somewhere is actually a collection of warring tribes.
#
In a true democracy, cabinet is a collection of warring tribes. But you have to somehow figure
#
out a way of reconciling all that and having one decision-making, and finally collectively responsible.
#
The moment that fails, the system collapses. Now, with good intentions, some of my very worthy
#
friends, they insisted that every discussion made in the cabinet must be made transparent,
#
instant to the public. I stoutly opposed. Then you collapse in the government of this country,
#
state and national level. It just does not operate. And I prevailed. So much so,
#
when the final law was drafted, in general, the Nazi chairperson and the government said,
#
if I agree, that would go through. Because they believed that there is a measure of balance,
#
even as there is fierce commitment to transparency, a measure of balance required to
#
practical necessities of running a democratic government that we brought forth. So to me,
#
it was an amazing thing. Similarly, in the Employment Guarantee Act, I fiercely opposed the
#
approach. I argued that a universal employment guarantee across the length and breadth of India,
#
irrespective of three crop areas, like Kona Sema and Andhra Pradesh, and desert areas and drought
#
areas, and throughout this season, irrespective of agricultural operations, is going to completely
#
distort the agricultural markets and rural economy and do more harm than good.
#
Seven months, because of this single opposition, it was held up. Finally, Mrs Gandhi expressed
#
her concern that politically she made a commitment in writing, therefore she has to enact some law.
#
And I agreed. After all, it's a political commitment. Political leadership is elected
#
by the people, and therefore you must prevail. And I appealed that please do not make it universal
#
and round the year. And that's how the bill was drafted. It will be in areas notified by the
#
government from time to time, depending on the economic conditions, and in seasons when there's
#
no employment. In parliament, actually, Mr Kalyan Singh, when he headed the Committee on Rural
#
Development, when it went to the committee, Kalyan Singh, a BJP leader, along with Communists,
#
they made sure that it's universal, et cetera. But the point is, in the NAC, the chairperson
#
listened. And many, many issues like that, there was patience, there was willingness to accommodate
#
dissent, there was willingness to accept a point of view as long as backed by rationality and there's
#
no political motive, et cetera. It was a very interesting experience. Similar thing with the
#
Bajpai government. You could engage, you could discuss, and you could actually bring parties
#
together. The political funding reform, I brought the parties together. I discussed with all the
#
parties, including the former prime minister at the time, Narsimha Rao, the future president,
#
and the future finance minister, as you said, we did immense damage later, and the former finance
#
minister Mukherjee, and of course Dr Manmohan Singh, and Mrs Sonia Gandhi, and Arun Jaitley,
#
and others, and Ravishankar Prasad, and Arun Shauryi, and of course L.K. Advani. So there was
#
this willingness to listen, and accommodate, and also build bridges across parties. That continued
#
in both the governments of Bajpai and Manmohan Singh to some extent. Manmohan Singh a little less
#
so by that time. But still, if you're not entirely absent, I think now on both sides there's no
#
willingness to listen to each other. It's not a very good sign in a democracy. It certainly is not
#
a very good sign in a democracy. When you look at the political landscape now, you know, with
#
elections coming out 2024, and so on and so forth, what is your sense? Like, what is the direction
#
that's going in? We've already spoken about this sort of, on the one hand, the negative direction
#
that the parties aren't talking to each other. It's very polarized, it's very tribal, and so on
#
and so forth, and that makes progress difficult. On the other hand, you pointed out that the
#
government is doing some things right, you're saying, and I'll, you know, take a word for it.
#
But what is your sense of the political landscape as it is evolving? You know, Karl Schmidt,
#
famously used to say that politics needs an other. You have to make someone an other and only then
#
can politics thrive. And there has been speculation about how, partly because of the first pass support
#
system, the BJP essentially demolished others and therefore this sense of the other could emerge
#
from within the party, where there are extremist factions within the party who will refer to Modi
#
as Molana Modi, because he hasn't done enough for Hindus, apparently. I mean, there are even
#
criticisms from the extreme right wing. That's the price you have to pay with power. With power
#
comes moderation, with power comes the need to reconcile conflicting interests, with power comes
#
the need to enhance your legitimacy globally and domestically and therefore accommodating the other
#
point of view. But your constituency wants an extreme point of view. So it's always fascinating,
#
actually, how people change in power. And oftentimes for the better, it's not always for the worse.
#
Particularly in a diverse country like ours, you have to accommodate, otherwise you cannot govern.
#
Sometimes there's a price to pay if you polarize society too much or your party too much.
#
But coming to the next election, I think it's still not fully written this story. It's an evolving
#
story. It could be a repeat of 2004. No, many people believe that Mr. Narendra Modi's or his
#
party's election to power is an assured thing. Even globally, I keep hearing that. I don't think it
#
is that assured. Yes, they obviously have some advantages. But as I said before, if it's converted
#
into a class election, there are some elements, there are some early indications that it might
#
emerge as a class election. In Karnataka, it became a class election. Apart from the fact that BJP
#
government in Karnataka was ubiquitously seen to be corrupt and didn't have any credible leadership,
#
certainly that was a factor. It's also a factor that is seen as a class election.
#
Then I think 2004 in some form could be repeated. Remember, BJP did not exceed the 40% vote,
#
37% or so they got. Others are not united. But if others really unite, partly because of Mr.
#
Modi's, in my judgment, political mistakes, apart from the moral other things. If you drive the cat
#
to a corner and beat it up, it will bounce back. Mr. Modi himself publicly stated,
#
I am uniting the opposition by unleashing the ED and them. It's not a very good strategy. In a system
#
where cash economy is endemic, I'm saying it very, very deliberately, if you are even half sincere,
#
you would admit that in India, you cannot survive without cash. In real estate and business
#
transactions and corruption, and of course in politics, no party can claim major party,
#
I'm talking about traditional parties. No party can claim they did not distribute cash or they
#
did not utilize unaccounted money. When that is the case, taking the letter of the law to extreme
#
lengths selectively is wrong. That is a moral point of view. It's simply not pragmatic,
#
because that's only going to unify opposition. What happened in 1977?
#
Disparate groups from communist and CPM, at least CPI, though it was with Indira Gandhi,
#
to socialists, to old congress, to Janasang, they all were forced to come together because they
#
really felt a sense of threat to survival, both politically and personally. And we've seen what
#
happened. So after having seen all that, people as smart as these people, I don't understand why
#
they're actually going out of their way to unite the opposition politically. And if you do that,
#
ultimately you'll end up being in difficulty. So for both these reasons, class election and
#
the inadvertent unity of opposition created by Mr. Modi's own approach and the desperation
#
of the opposition, it means that it's still open. Now, will they actually win? I don't know. But
#
I'm saying it's not a given. And if indeed they win, will they last long? Probably not, I don't
#
know. Will they be cohesive? Almost certainly not. But I don't think it's an assured thing.
#
Many people, they are believing, including those in opposition, that this election is over, the
#
fight is in 2029. But more important than that for us is from citizens, we should not care who gets
#
into power. But if there is a broad agreement, at least on economic growth, the good part of it
#
continuing. And if you redefine welfare increasingly as quality education and quality
#
healthcare, health is hopelessly underfunded. There's enormous distress in the country. Six
#
crore people are becoming poor every year on account of inaccessible healthcare or unaffordable
#
healthcare. It is not only immoral to make so many people suffer, it's also detrimental to the economy
#
because productivity is suffering. Ultimately, working population is simply not able to work
#
because of low productivity because of bad health. And at a very low cost, India can dramatically
#
improve healthcare. We are spending only 1% of GDP on health, 1.1, 1.2, most of it by states,
#
some amount by the union. In the budget, I think last year or so, the finance minister did
#
arithmetic juggler. I was very disappointed. When she was reading the budget speech and
#
suddenly said this allocation for healthcare improved dramatically, I jumped with joy.
#
That lasted only about 20 minutes until I went into the detail. They simply added expenditure on
#
many other heads, including nutrition, water supply, sanitation, which is separately shown earlier,
#
put it together and pretended as if it was increased. That kind of jugglery will not do.
#
You have to allocate more, but more importantly, you have to do it right. And luckily in India,
#
with a small expenditure, just about a trillion rupees, almost half, less than half a percentage
#
of GDP, additional spent, but properly spent, will radically improve the healthcare outcomes.
#
And probably no other country on earth will be able to do at such a low cost.
#
Even then, even at 1.5, 2% GDP on healthcare, India will be spending one of the lowest amounts
#
in the world. We have a win-win situation here. So unless you focus on welfare as quality education
#
and quality healthcare with a sensible approach, not right education act, which is a bogus one,
#
not one word about outcomes, but a genuine focus on outcomes. Poverty is eliminated when
#
the poor get quality education, not pretend education. It's eliminated when poor get genuine
#
healthcare, not pretend healthcare. So the way you design it and deliver it is critical.
#
And I hope the opposition has the wisdom and the imagination to see that real welfare is in education
#
and healthcare. Real welfare is in job creation and economic growth and not merely short-term
#
amelioration of temporary needs. Or maybe when, you know, as the Shashi Kapoor and Amitav formulation,
#
when the government stopped participating in PISA, maybe poverty is ended when you stop
#
measuring it. You can just pretend it's not there. So you spoke about how as a people,
#
we should not care so much about who is elected next. I truly don't care. I'm totally agnostic
#
about it. And I sort of, and I get where you're coming from. And I want to share a formulation of
#
mine with you and get your opinion on that, where I often say that to me there are, to me,
#
India has three major problems as I see it. One is approximate problem. And that is of the party
#
in power. And that's just my opinion. Others can disagree. And honestly, I must agree with you that
#
I am as devoid of hope as about the opposition. So really whichever the party in power is, one
#
will have to oppose them. But one is a party in power. But the other two problems are deeper
#
problems that seem almost intractable. And the second problem is Indian society itself,
#
which seems fractured in so many different ways. You know, the anti-Muslimness of this
#
political regime does seem to have a larger resonance. And that worries me a great deal.
#
Even if these guys are out of power, we will continue to be a fractured society with these
#
fault lines. And as you pointed out in our last conversation, in many ways, the opposite also
#
holds true. We are liberal, we are assimilative, we are tolerant. But right now, I see these nasty
#
or more toxic strains within us find expression. So that fractured society being problem two and
#
problem three being something we've been really speaking about throughout today's episode,
#
which is our dysfunctional state. You know, our dysfunctional state which is oppressive,
#
which is too powerful, which is predatory, which rules the people instead of serving them.
#
And to me, not enough attention is paid to these two problems. Like the dysfunctional
#
Indian state is something I've been writing about for 20 years. And it's like,
#
everybody just wants to focus on who is in power, who do you want to demonize,
#
who do you want to support, rather than look at these deeper structural issues.
#
And I'm thinking of these deeper structural issues. Politics is constantly in flux. You know,
#
we can agree and disagree and change our minds on which party is good, which party is bad.
#
We can all perhaps agree that there are plenty of decent people in the political landscape,
#
incentives are a bit messed up, but people who are trying for different reasons to do things.
#
What do we do about society? What do we do about the state? Do you share my pessimism and concern?
#
About the society, I do not share the pessimism. Ours is a very complex society. Therefore,
#
almost anything you say can be true and untrue at the same time, as you said.
#
But I think in a substantial measure, not so much because we are wise and wonderful or we're very
#
moral or great, but because the centuries of need to coexist moderated us. It doesn't mean that we
#
always act in a moderate manner. The way I look at it is, while there is a median, we stray from the
#
median a bit, but there is an inherent compass which tells us, you're not staying too far.
#
Whether it is Godhra riots in Gujarat or something else somewhere else,
#
we are used to many jealousies and pettiness and tragedies, etc. And the Telugu people call
#
Tamilians Arawah, Tamilian language. Arawah means basically cacophony.
#
We call habitually Muslims Turaka. Basically, it came from the word Turk, which is an honorable
#
word, but somehow over time it became a pejorative word. So these are all very common. North Indians
#
call South Indians something, South Indians, all these happen. But while they happen,
#
fundamentally, we don't stray beyond a certain band. That is, I think, a societal defense
#
mechanism over centuries because we realized intuitively that there is no substitute to this.
#
We simply are too diverse apart from the fact that culturally we are capable of absorbing
#
many faiths at the same time, sometimes contradictory beliefs at the same time.
#
Otherwise, why would Charvaka be a Hindu saint, an atheist? Why would Kanada be a Hindu saint?
#
Why would Buddha be elevated to a status of God who fought against Hinduism's
#
excesses and all that? I think it's inherent in our society. That's actually our greatest
#
strength of the society. It doesn't mean that we are more moral. It doesn't mean we are
#
Bhishma Gurus. It doesn't mean we are more noble. It means we are more pragmatic, historically and
#
culturally. We are underestimating its importance. We are taking a few excesses in a very complex
#
society, one sixth of humanity, with the world's greatest diversity and with the most tortuous
#
history. We are forgetting these three factors. You take Europe, a 10 million country, a 5 million
#
country, you say so many things happen, but in India, so many more things. We're a whole
#
system of humanity with so much of diversity and tortuous history. So if you don't give
#
relevance to that, if you overreact, I'm not saying you should not be sensitive to what's
#
happening. Overreaction is as bad as being insensitive because then it becomes pessimistic
#
and you become fatalistic and all that. I don't see that. I actually see a lot of positives in
#
our society. Maybe I come from a part of the country where this sense is not so depressing
#
also, because again, India is continental after all. But if indeed everybody is becoming religious,
#
Karnataka, the thumping verdict. Why? Maharashtra, BJP is uncertain about that despite getting
#
economic change. I don't know what's happening in the state, but certainly a fight is on.
#
Bihar, we don't know what's going to happen. So I think saying that all Indians are Hindu-wised
#
and their political instincts are based on their religious affiliation or something, I think it's
#
too sweeping a generalisation. What I think is happening is apart from the normal right-wing
#
problem, one is a right-wing problem. World over right-wing has two elements. One is the cultural,
#
traditional or religious combination of that. The other, they are the core support base initially,
#
Christian Democrats in Germany, Republicans in the US right now are related to the right-wing party,
#
now it became a right-wing party, or others elsewhere. The other is the economic liberalism
#
and conservative economic policies, etc. Only when a party system matures are they able to
#
reconcile. Even in the US, you can see the schism now between the two. Trump is increasingly seen
#
to be representing the cultural, religious right-wing as opposed to economic right-wing,
#
though he actually comes from an economic right-wing class. In India, we haven't still mastered it.
#
The second element is, if a ruling combine wants to do what they believe is relatively unpopular
#
but long-term economic growth, when there is a propensity to go for the short-term benefit,
#
if they raise what they think is a bigger line and therefore unite the country on religion,
#
and easily if you show a bogeyman, the Muslim has the enemy or somebody has enemy, it's an easy way
#
to unify. It's a wrong strategy and wrong thinking in every which way, but if they think that way,
#
I think it's more political positioning in order to achieve what they believe they should do for
#
the country. So there's that element also. I'm not saying everybody in BJP is thinking that way,
#
but there are quite a few who are thinking that way. Without going into nuances, we are simply
#
polarizing and saying, no, this party is for this, that party is for that. I have seen at
#
grassroots level, as a public official, and even early on in my training, I was shocked
#
when the so-called secular politicians and secular leaders and parties, how they completely
#
polarized people and communal alliance at the grassroots level. As I said before, in a different
#
context, the belief that BJP is for Hindutva and Congress of Circulation market segmentation
#
in actual operational terms in practice, in political behavior, trust me, there's not that
#
much distinction. And the people can be trusted to protect the broad, I don't want to use the
#
word secular in a big way, but the broad plural fabric of the society. Even a state like Jammu
#
and Kashmir, believed to be largely religious state, et cetera. I believe, I remember 1983,
#
when I went there and that was the time when Farooq Abdullah, after his father's demise,
#
was leading the party and he contested the elections and he won. Somebody gave me feedback
#
that Mrs. Indira Gandhi polarized the society to the point that all the Hindus and Shia Muslims
#
were voting for Congress. Polarization and religion did not come today. It's not invented
#
by one party or the other. And all Sunni Muslims were voting for national conference.
#
I wanted to trust that hypothesis. So I asked them their preferences. After that I asked them
#
if they are Hindu, I knew they would know the name. I was in Srinagar and surrounding areas,
#
mostly Muslims only. Then I asked, are you a Shia or Sunni? You know, two responses struck me.
#
Every one of them, without exception, said, I'm secular, I saw.
#
Though their voting preferences were actually based on Shia versus Sunni.
#
And yet they all claim, the word secular, I never heard from ordinary people's mouths
#
before or after. The second one, once they asked them about their own antecedents,
#
they asked me about where I am from. I said, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh,
#
Hathmi Law Sahib, they said, why? NTR, center se lad rahe hain, hum center se lad rahe hain.
#
See, even Kashmir, it was not about religion at that time. It was our bad politics. Because
#
we treated Kashmir like any other political theater in the country. We messed up in a variety of ways,
#
tactically and strategically. And eventually it became Hindu, Muslim, Pakistan, etc. So I
#
don't believe anywhere across the country, religion is as profoundly important politically
#
as it is made out to be. We made it that way. Largely, it's a political bankruptcy and a
#
consistent political failure, irrespective of BJP. When BJP was not a significant factor,
#
also these things happened. We are forgetting that. I remember vividly in 2011, in Kashmir,
#
78% people voted in the local elections. 78%. It was a ringing endorsement at Raman, 5-10%
#
per voting in general elections. I remember pleading with the government, the highest
#
functionaries in the government, please, this is an opportunity. It's a great endorsement of
#
Indian democracy and unity of India. Give them money. Give them power. Once they are busy with
#
their school, their local road, water supply, drainage, etc., they'll forget India and Pakistan
#
are Hindu and Muslim. We failed to do that. Now we say Hindu-Muslim. We draw a bigger line. Make
#
the people see the benefits of what they actually do locally in a manner that's tangible, not in a
#
centralized system. I know it's my hobby horse. I always go back to decentralization because it
#
is the heart of the issue. China is more decentralized than India. I feel ashamed about it.
#
And I'm saying it openly. China is more decentralized than India. Pakistan is more
#
decentralized. Bangladesh is more decentralized. Brazil, Argentina, name it. For a country as
#
liberal, as freedom-loving, as individualistic as India, it's absurd that we centralize so much and
#
we think it's normal, it's natural. So it's much more complicated than religiosity, religious
#
fundamentalism, and secularism. This is very easy caricaturing and lazy caricaturing.
#
I completely agree with what you say about the parties being so alike in the sense I don't even
#
think the right-left spectrum really applies to India at all because that economic right is just
#
simply absent in India in any case. I think all parties are fundamentally alike in the sense that
#
they are statist in their economics or left of center and they are conservative or right of
#
center when it comes to society and both of those are exactly the other way around because
#
you know both of those sort of are enemies of individual freedom which is what I really care
#
about. However, I'll kind of go back to that point you made about it being possible that
#
this party or at least a section of it is using this Hindu-Muslim thing as posturing to do the
#
good work they're doing. Firstly, I'm not exactly sure of how I would qualify it at good work. I
#
mean I'll defer to your judgment but when I look back at the year so far, I see the incredible
#
humanitarian disaster of demonetization, I see the botched implementation of GST,
#
I see a lot of other things gone wrong but even leaving that aside, even if they had the best
#
intentions, the means of polarizing society on the Hindu-Muslim issue seems to me to
#
have one danger and one implication and the implication is that they believe that there
#
is some constituency for it otherwise they would not do it and empowering that constituency and
#
making it vocal can have the effect of sort of awakening a tiger that you then cannot ride,
#
you know a danger that was expressed. You cannot legitimize it. I'm only trying to understand it
#
and address it. There is no way you can ever legitimize it. The moment you divide people
#
on caste or region or religion or language, the moment you arouse primordial loyalty,
#
it's a hungry beast. I mean we saw this with what Indira did with the Bhindranwale
#
or with what Zia did with Islamism in Pakistan. Absolutely. People said in those days, I believe
#
that then prominent later-later President of India, Zia Ganesh Ailsing, he brought Bhindranwale to
#
Mrs. Gandhi and said, here is your answer to Akalital. It ultimately devoured her and the
#
nation in many ways and you're absolutely right. So it is a deadly thing. What I'm saying is let
#
us understand therefore what exactly are the impulses and how to address it rather than
#
demonizing it and pretending that by sloganeering we're going to change it. You cannot legitimize
#
it ever. There's no way any of us could use the caste or region or religion. But equally,
#
why are we using caste in such a pronounced and open and vulgar manner and why are we legitimizing
#
it? How is it any worse than this? In large parts of India, actually the caste divide is even more
#
dangerous and more deadly than the religious divide. So let us expand the principle to
#
primordial loyalties, language, region. I have seen in Andhra Pradesh, as to well Andhra Pradesh,
#
how for some time the regional disparity, it's not disparity really, it's more a sense of insult or
#
injury, was used to divide people in a very crude manner. Luckily, wisdom prevailed. Luckily,
#
the very people who did it understood the long-term implications. They acted as statesmen.
#
Luckily, Telangana people did not reward division of a state against the consent of the state
#
by parliamentary fiat. Supposing the people of Telangana rewarded such autocratic behavior by
#
the federal government, by now in every state of India, the major political parties would have
#
played the game and I think federalism in India would have been dead by now. So why is that
#
acceptable? Why is caste divide acceptable? Why is linguistic divide acceptable?
#
So you know, somehow we have blinkers. There is a larger issue of diversity management of India.
#
It applies to religion, it applies to caste, it applies to language, it applies to everything else.
#
And the way I look at it, most Muslims, most Hindus are living happily without any serious
#
thing and they understand they have a different God and different way of praying, but otherwise
#
it doesn't make any difference. All of us are living quite happily. By political posturing
#
on both sides, not me and one side, we are accentuating a divide which did not exist
#
or creating a divide that did not exist in most cases. Probably in a part of India which was
#
directly impacted by partition and mass migration and the horrendous bloodshed at that time,
#
they had these scars in their hearts. But 90% of India is not affected by that.
#
And on both sides you are creating this. One side Islam, which is nonsensical. To say that Islam is
#
in danger in India is absurd. It's absurd nonsense. Whoever says it, wherever they say it. There is not
#
an iota of realistic evidence. Retarded does not make reality. And to say that Islam is the cause
#
of India's problems is absolute nonsense, bunkum. So both sides are equally guilty.
#
In the late 1960s, Ehsan Jafri was caught in this religious riot and he had to go somewhere else.
#
And he insisted on going back home to where he lived, which was a relatively cosmopolitan
#
neighborhood. And he was advised by his friends, why don't you shift to this Muslim neighborhood,
#
you'll be safer there. And he said, no, that on principle, I believe that I can live anywhere
#
in India. I will not live in a Muslim ghetto, right? And props to him for saying that on
#
principle, you know. And yet in 2002, he died. So my question is, was he right or was he wrong?
#
He was right. He was right. But it doesn't mean just because you do the right thing,
#
you're always rewarded. Because society, the random things happen, stuff happens. Sometimes
#
we pay the price. But my only point is, let us put it in perspective. Let us put it in perspective.
#
Again, 1.4 billion people, more than one sixth of humanity with the world's greatest diversity
#
possible. And then see what's happening in the rest of the world. Who said human beings are utterly
#
rational and balanced and sensible and moral and practical and nothing of the kind? We are human.
#
In the large part, we are okay. But while we grieve the losses, while we acknowledge the
#
difficulties and try to address them, let us not magnify and let us not pretend that these isolated
#
incidents are global. You know, I remember in a different context, you remember the Nirbhaya rape
#
incident and some other things. Because in India, we are very emotional on these issues because we
#
cannot imagine the situation of a woman's chastity being violated. It's more that rather than the
#
individual right. I don't know if you get the meaning. So we were making quite understandably,
#
we were very angry and upset and all that. What shocked me was BBC and CNN, BBC, which I love,
#
they ran stories, full length stories saying India is the rape capital of the world. Absolute
#
nonsense. We go into statistics. There is X number of rapes per unit population country-wise.
#
Any rape, one rape is unacceptable. But tragically, human beings are human beings.
#
UK which has roughly 4.5% of India's population has 16,000 rapes in a year. United States which
#
has one fourth of the population of India has 96,000 one lakh rapes in a year. India has 32,000
#
rapes registered. Let's assume that four times that number are there. I'd assume many more times,
#
but I get your point. BBC, a channel which is credibility is very high. I don't think
#
they have any malice, but we go by images and rhetoric rather than substance. Evidence, logic,
#
look at the big picture. Millions upon millions are living in harmony in this country. We're
#
pretending as if Hindus and Muslims are on a war path. The person who cooks food for me every day
#
is a Muslim. She's a member of my family practically. There's not a moment when we
#
fail. Whenever my air conditioner fails, I call Yusuf Bhai. He's like a brother to me.
#
So the notion that my God, India is now breaking up and somebody somewhere writing an article,
#
somebody somewhere reacting fraudily and giving all these statements, ignoring the fundamental
#
realities of India, that there is mass poverty, that there is third-rate health care, third-rate
#
education, people are suffering, Hindu or Muslim, instead of addressing them, we are now trying to
#
do virtue signaling. Too much of that. I want to show how wonderful I am, how secular I am,
#
or how agnostic I am, or how something else I am, how pious I am. That's not very productive.
#
So here's a question. Let's say, and I agree with you on virtue signaling is one of the great
#
torments of our age. And let's say we want to get past that. Let's say I want to avoid that even
#
in myself. Now there's one point of view which you're stating is that we are a country with
#
mad multitudes, the absolute numbers are huge, and by and large we are peaceful and we've learned to
#
coexist. And to those who say that no, that there is more polarization and Hindu-Muslim violence has
#
gone up, especially anti-Muslim violence has gone up, which does seem to me from my armchair to be
#
the case, but perhaps you would argue that you're wrong because you're taking these isolated
#
incidents out of proportion. There have always been isolated incidents. There are no more so
#
now than in the past, and it's a danger to amplify these all the time. And then, of course, the
#
problem seems bigger than it is. So my question to you therefore would be that if I want to
#
understand intellectually that is this religious problem greater or lesser, is there an objective
#
measure for it? Is there a metric? For example, I did an episode on gender called Metrics of
#
Empowerment where I asked these three wonderful women researchers on what are the
#
non-standard metrics of empowerment we can talk about for women. And to me, one non-standard
#
metric was divorce rates. I thought if divorce rates have gone up, that's a great sign because
#
it means more women are empowered to take their life into their own hands. So similarly, what kind
#
of possible metrics would there be to talk about Hindu-Muslim harmony? And it's a question as much
#
for you as for my listeners. No, I can't give a definitive answer. Obviously. But for instance,
#
are Islamic people getting more quote unquote secularized or Hindu people getting more
#
secularized? Population control, one of the great stories of our time. In every segment of our
#
population, Hindu, Muslim, upper caste, lower caste, north, south, east, west, the birth rates
#
are plummeting. Yes, they're not equal because historically we are behind the curve. Some states
#
have some sort of behind. Also, poor people have more kids and Muslims tend to be more poor.
#
But even there, Muslim's birth rate is falling. Exactly. Hindu birth rate is falling. Upper caste
#
birth rate is falling. Scheduled caste birth rate is falling. That means there is a certain
#
modernization going on in the country. We're ignoring that. Second, I remember when I took
#
the IAS examination, the civil service examination, I went to the curfew pass. Every year, clockwork
#
in Hyderabad city, there were communal riots and curfew every year. Who was in power? Congress
#
party. Other parties were not even known at the time. A non-Congress party came to power.
#
Instantly, all rights came to a stop. So to pretend that there is somebody who is polarizing
#
and we are secular because people have short memories, it's easy to pretend. My worry is not
#
so much about a party. The more important positive thing is, if indeed people are so
#
communalized in Hyderabad, let us say, how could one new government instantly stop it forever?
#
That means fundamentally, it's a political issue, not the people's issue. As an administrator,
#
I know, I was absolutely clear and many of my colleagues across the country are clear.
#
You restrain your hands when it comes to many other forms of law and order breakdown. But when
#
it comes to communal rights, use extreme force and as quickly as possible. So this country has
#
the ability to handle that. If indeed there is a people's psyche, no government, particularly a
#
weak government, ineffective government, you mentioned dysfunctional government. Where is
#
governance in India except in abuse of power? Do you have rule of law in India? Does the government
#
have really the power, the ability to actually deliver anything? We cannot. If the people do not
#
allow us, we can't do anything. So the fact that we can easily control communal rights in the country
#
shows that it is not a people's thing. It's a political thing. It's a political failure,
#
broadly speaking. And it also means that when we cannot control a communal right in the country,
#
that's also a political failure because the police is in the hands of us. Yes. Whether it is
#
post Indira Gandhi's assassination in Delhi or it is in Gujarat, Mr. Modi has his own version,
#
I'm sure. Mr. Modi believes that in the first 72 hours, within 24 hours, the army was brought.
#
In the first 72 hours, 70 people died, most of them Hindu in firings.
#
Whereas what happened in post-1994 Indira Gandhi's assassination rights is his version.
#
Another version is something, I don't know the full truth. Therefore, without knowing a full
#
version and I have no patience or time to go into that, there's so much in India that we have to do.
#
But the point I'm making is if the political will is there, in India,
#
communal rights can be instantly controlled. I am supremely confident about that. Therefore,
#
we are manufacturing a political problem and converting it into a social problem.
#
You mentioned population before. Let's talk about another potential conflagration that lies ahead
#
of us, which is delimitation, right? So just for my listeners, delimitation, basically,
#
the principle in a democracy should be that everyone's vote counts for exactly equal. So
#
X number of people elect one MP and therefore their vote is equal. But what happens is that
#
if population in some states goes up and in other states goes up less, then the votes of the people
#
in the most popular state end up counting for less because they are electing a smaller fraction of
#
their MP, if that makes any sense. And delimitation is supposed to be this exercise which has been
#
postponed endlessly but is due upon us soon, whereas you actually increase or decrease a
#
number of MPs from a state so that every vote counts for equal. But the danger in that,
#
in modern times, is that the population in the north has gone up much more than in the south
#
and in the south has gone up less because the south has done better in economic terms,
#
the richer you get, the less children you have. So there's more population control that's happened
#
there. And their point is just because we are successful, why should we be penalized with less
#
of a political voice by having MPs taken away from us or more MPs allotted to the north states?
#
And obviously, for the current regime, which is so powerful in the north, it would make a lot of
#
sense for delimitation to happen because they control many more MPs in parliament. And by the
#
way, in the new parliament, the number of the seating of the Lok Sabha has been increased
#
to 900 and whatever to accommodate the projected new numbers. And for the south, this is a complete
#
disaster because in a central government sense, they lose a lot of power, you know, in that larger
#
sense. What is your sense of what is going to happen? How does it change the incentives of the
#
south states? We already know the incentives of the party in power will be to go ahead with it.
#
What are the best and worst case scenario of delimitation?
#
You know, the constitutional mandate is clear. And as is the democratic practice world over,
#
that one person, one vote and therefore the number of seats should be in proportion to
#
the population. And it's a reasonable one. Mrs. Gandhi, she had done many things wrong,
#
but this was not done with malafity. Perhaps in hindsight, not a good judgment, but it was done
#
with good intentions. She decided to freeze as part of the amendment at that time in 1976.
#
So for 25 years, irrespective of the population, the number of seats in each state will be
#
remaining the same, which was based on 1971 population because census was 1971.
#
The mistake they committed, I'll come to that minor, this is a minor one, but still important
#
one is even if you wanted to freeze the constituencies number in a state, there's no reason to stop
#
delimitation of the boundaries because urban rural within a state, huge urbanization is taking place.
#
If you believe in modernization, if you believe urban people are more likely to look at economic
#
issues and more secular issues and not conditioned by their money, power or caste,
#
etc. It's not entirely true, but to a large extent, it's true. More enlightened electorate,
#
hopefully. Not only is it democratically right that more urban population get more urban seats,
#
it's also politically the right thing to do because then politics will get better. Foolishly,
#
our bureaucrats simultaneously will freeze the number of constituencies also froze delimitation
#
within the state. Come 2001, actually 2003, two of us, K.C. Sivaramakrishnan, the former civil
#
servant, retired civil servant and I, who took up this case, we held a ground table in Delhi,
#
we called all the state election commissions, the election commission of India, all the three,
#
then Arun Jaitley as the law minister and we went into great detail, three issues.
#
One is, we pleaded with them, if you remember 1998, Pokhran, American sanctions, India's economic
#
growth project, all kinds of, they said, look, do you want to open another front? We're not talking
#
about right or wrong. You can argue both ways. You can argue that one person, one vote is sacrosanct,
#
that's the constitutional thing. It was a perversion, you must undo it. It's a very genuine
#
argument. You could also argue that a federal democracy requires complex arrangements. It's
#
not always one person, one vote. You have to get everybody together. Both are reasonable arguments
#
because these are not something which is mathematical. So that's not important. What's
#
important is should the government open up another front when there are so many crises?
#
I think that appealed to them and therefore the freeze continued over the number.
#
The second thing we argued, just as the states are building, the assembly constituencies are building
#
blocks for Lok Sabha constituencies. Now that constitutionally mandated local governments are
#
available, let the local governments as far as practically be building blocks for assembly
#
constituencies. It was also accepted. That's how we brought in the state election commissioners.
#
Third thing we appealed to them, within the state, allow redistricting delimitation so that the urban
#
rural things are there and also reservation of constituencies for 30, 40 years as a result of
#
resentment. If you also rotate them, there'll be less resentment and there'll be more democratic
#
representation. See, if you say only a male or a female or only this caste can be representing you,
#
after a point it doesn't become democratic. You're limiting choices. So while reservation
#
is necessary, do it better. That was not accepted by all MPs across the aisle because they don't
#
want to change their boundaries because they're afraid ultimately I'll get something I don't know
#
and they get something else. They have a perpetual interest and government yielded to them because
#
government didn't have a strong majority. Therefore, they felt they yielded to them.
#
Now, we thought 25 years, we kicked the can down the road. No problem. But 25 years came. As I said
#
earlier, time passes. And I didn't realize that so fast 25 years will come. It has come now.
#
Even at that time, if you remember Madanlal Khurana, who was earlier Delhi chief executive
#
councillor and at that time, minister of parliamentary affairs, he twice thrice publicly
#
stated it must be according to population. So a section of BJP's mind was that. But Vajpayee
#
decided you should not open another front, north, south, everything, etc. Now the situation has
#
changed. A, you cannot in perpetuity have this kind of a freeze. B, just as the southern states say,
#
why should we or western states say or even Orissa. Orissa has done a remarkable job in
#
family planning. Orissa is a great success story. How a poor state with sound fiscal management,
#
political popularity, reformist influences, population control. Orissa is a remarkable story.
#
I think it's not told by many people. We should talk about Orissa. So Orissa will lose too. Many
#
states will lose. West Bengal, Maharashtra, many states now are coming down in terms of population.
#
Therefore, A, there will be pressure on the BJP to get the political advantage. No party wants to
#
do something that is hurtful to its own politics, whichever way the party. In principles apart,
#
I have not known any ruler anywhere in the world who has deliberately hurt himself.
#
Rarely some people did, but they came to grief. Sadat of Egypt, when he made peace with Israel,
#
it was a heroic thing. Ultimately, he paid the price with his life.
#
So rarely do people do against their own direct political interest when it's very manifestly
#
clear. It's not a conjecture when it's reality. To expect that to happen in respect of Congress
#
or TDP or BJP or some other party is nonsensical. In fact, I operate on that basis so far. All my
#
life, whatever little success I achieved, I always try to find political benefit for those
#
who are making decisions and the national benefit. You try and combine both and come up with a
#
formula. Ideally, speaking about nation's good, but you lose and you commit suicide,
#
it doesn't really work in real life. So probably BJP today will be quite
#
tempted and they will not be wrong at all in doing it. If they want to do it that way,
#
probably they can arrive at a formula which is not exactly proportionate to population,
#
but something else. The other thing they seem to be looking at is we'll increase the numbers
#
anyway overall. And therefore, while the proportion of certain states will decrease,
#
the actual numbers will increase. Ultimately, the prospective candidates want more seats.
#
They're not bothered about representation. That is for you and me. Most politicians don't care
#
about that. As long as my aspiration is satisfied, my ambition is fulfilled, I'm okay. I think that's
#
another thing that being played out. I don't know how it's going to shape up, but either way,
#
if you don't build a consensus, if you make it a civil war issue for the country,
#
it's going to be very dangerous. I deeply believe that the unity of India is paramount.
#
Not because I have any Bharat Mata notions. I have none of those. I genuinely believe that India,
#
given its unique nature of history and the complexity, does not have the societal strength,
#
let me choose my words very carefully, to be able to deal with a division. Even a division of a
#
state within the union of India, when nothing changes for the people, you have all the
#
constitutional rights, you can travel, reside, do business, do work, whatever. I have seen in
#
Andhra and Telangana for some years how much of a psychological and emotional stress there was.
#
That's what we are. That's probably what we'll be for the next 30, 40, 50 years.
#
We have seen the untold damage done during the time of partition in 1947.
#
Given that I believe, unity of India is what ensures in our society order
#
and relative peace and harmony. And unity of India is what ensures freedom. It's not the
#
other way around. In Scotland, they can say, all right, we can have a referendum, we can have
#
peaceful division or something, but in India, it's not possible. Even in a country like Spain,
#
could not allow it. Catalonia, the moment they all said in the Catalonia assembly or whatever,
#
that local Basque assembly, they all put them in jail. I don't think you can put anything above
#
unity of India, not for unity's sake, but for the sake of freedom and for the sake of peace in this
#
country. And therefore, anything that the government of India does or the parliament does,
#
unless they embrace all these states and sit with them and figure out an acceptable thing,
#
if they do it parametrically like they did division of Andhra Pradesh, that could be
#
counterproductive. Apart from that, BJP now has some aspirations to also expand in the south.
#
So it will be politically prudent on their part to also take them into continents and figure out
#
a formula which is reasonably satisfactory. But having said that, you cannot permanently postpone
#
this issue of division on the basis of population, electoral districting on the
#
basis of population. We have to address that. But probably you can do it gradually. Just as
#
they kick the can down, now you do it maybe in three cycles and three decades, you do every time
#
one third increase. So the pain probably will not be that much. So there are ways of doing it if you
#
really have the goodwill. I mean, on the one hand, I'd say that given what you earlier said, and I
#
kind of agreed with you about the resilience of Indian society and the ability to handle divisions
#
like the Hindu-Muslim division, for example, I would imagine that the same could apply here.
#
Two, I would also be wary of taking lines on a map for granted that this is exactly how
#
a nation state has to be, has to look how that a nation state is necessary in the first place,
#
given that we've had a sample size of this particular nation state existing for 70 something years.
#
And C, as far as freedom is concerned, I would say that most Indians in a real sense of the term
#
don't have freedom anyway. You cannot have freedom really without the rule of law, and we don't have
#
the rule of law. So in that sense, it's a different sense from the one you meant it in,
#
but I'm just making that aside. I hear you. But the point I'm making is,
#
if we can be a European community, each nation being sovereign, but there's a common market
#
and people can migrate anywhere. I have no quarrel. I don't think that's going to happen
#
in the next 50 to 100 years in India until that happens. If you lose the advantage of common
#
market, if you're going to have soldiers across the border of each of the constituent, whatever
#
becomes later on, I think that's going to be a disaster. And therefore, I'm implacably in favor
#
of unity of India, because we don't have the capability as a society to be able to manage
#
multiple nations with peace and harmony and common market. The strength of common market
#
we are forgetting. I agree about the strength of the common market. But for me, anything that
#
lies beyond a united India as it is today is in the nature of unknown unknown. So I can't even
#
imagine it. It's not necessarily that there'll be soldiers across borders, but I can't imagine
#
how it could come about. But is there an optimal solution to delimitation? Because what it appears
#
to me is that the incentives are so diametrically opposite each other, you know, in terms of like
#
anything that is good for the BJP will obviously be opposed by the BJP's opposition, because it's
#
obviously by the same- BJP also wants economic growth of India, therefore a peaceful, harmonious
#
environment for that. If BJP also wants to expand its electoral base to other parts of India,
#
therefore they want to sort of harmonize it and do it in a slow manner. There's also an incentive
#
to do it differently. So it depends on your long-term objection. BJP is a party with a
#
long-term ambition. One thing remarkable about BJP is unlike any other party, they look at the next
#
30-40 years. Yeah, but at the same time, like we were discussing Rajesh's quote about how they think
#
more like day traders and like Warren Buffet, which is in certain contexts. But in terms of politics,
#
I mean, if you look at state after state, because whatever be their weaknesses, there is a long-term
#
perspective that a significant number of traditional BJP cadres share about politics and about India,
#
and therefore that also is a factor to be taken into consideration. I mean, otherwise why will
#
a man like Mr. Rajagopalan fight for 50 years in RSS in Kerala without any hope, and ultimately
#
after 50 years he got one assembly seat. And yet there are people who are fighting. BJP is the only
#
party which can mobilize a million people seeking no money, not mercenaries, simply doing what the
#
party tells them to do. That's because there are many, many people, while they are becoming
#
increasingly like other parties, many carpetbaggers are coming in. But the core of BJP still is very
#
long-term, and they're not seeking anything personal. Their vision, maybe right, maybe wrong,
#
but they truly are carder-based in that sense. What is the worst that could happen?
#
Let's say the BJP gets the political calculations all wrong. Let's say that there is an argument
#
there that, yes, we are trying to expand our reach in the South, but only because we want a firmer
#
hold on power, which this would give us anyway, and blah, blah, blah. The worst that could happen
#
is you reallocate the constituencies based on population without taking the South into
#
confidence, without sitting with them and negotiating and figuring out a way and
#
assuaging some concerns and fears, et cetera. However, misplaced those fears are, as long as
#
the person who expresses the fears is genuine about them in a democracy, you'll take them into
#
consideration. Just like form laws, most of the fears and criticism is unwarranted, legitimate.
#
But as long as the legitimate fears are there in the minds of the people, even if they're irrational
#
fears, a democracy must address them. And that's the worst case scenario as far as
#
process is concerned, as far as outcome is concerned. And if that happens in that way,
#
once the seeds of anger and alienation are there, there'll be always some people to exploit it.
#
And when you have a coastline, when the global forces operate, eventually, they have their own
#
interests. They may feel that they'll handle this part of geography better if they separate
#
national entity or something. All kinds of things happen. I'm not saying one day, two days,
#
but over decades, you are needlessly sowing the seeds of a potential crisis, if not a conflict.
#
It's not wise. So we've spoken enough about the state of India. Let's get back to talking about
#
you as we kind of get closer to winding up this episode. In our last conversation, you used the
#
word Alpa Santosh, satisfied with very little. Our people are in the large part. That is my
#
complaint. They are not expecting too much from the governments and the political process. And
#
that's allowing the governments and the parties to get away with a lot. I don't know if I mentioned
#
last time, many of us are eulogized for doing very little. While it gives us some legitimacy,
#
some validates our work and all that, gives us some credibility. But I'm very deeply dissatisfied
#
with this easy contentment. Unless we demand what we deserve and what we need from the governing
#
institutions, why will they perform any better? So yes, and far too many people are taking
#
advantage of this because I do a little bit, because it's better than others. I'm now put
#
on a pedestal, and I put myself on a pedestal, and I think no end of myself. That's not the way
#
great societies have built. We must have humility as human beings, and societies must be demanding
#
of their representatives. Not unreasonable, but I'm paying taxes, and I have a expectation that
#
these things would happen. In which other country will the poorest families pay 30, 40,000 rupees
#
an year for schooling and get no schooling of inequality? In which other country do
#
poor people have no access to healthcare and become paupers, and their descent into poverty
#
is monumental? And we don't complain. Just not right. I'm not saying you should go
#
and indulge in violence, but our voice must be heard. In which other country will employees
#
get away with this? In any other country, any other sensible democracy, if 3% people get the
#
lion's share of the tax money, and the taxpayers get very little out of it, in any other country
#
the government will fall next day. In which other country can demonetization happen the way it
#
happened, causing enormous strife to millions of ordinary people, even dictatorship to the fallen?
#
That's why I always say, if you blame Indian people as obstacles to bring about the changes
#
that are required, then it's absolutely a lie. If they believe that the leader or leaders are
#
doing something genuine, their heart is pure, even if they commit mistakes and even the people
#
suffer, Indian people are willing to withstand that hardship. Demonetization is a conclusive
#
example. You don't require further illustration. You cannot blame the people of India for the
#
failings of the governing classes of India. I'm absolutely certain. But I thought the conclusion
#
you were coming towards is you can blame the people of India because they're satisfied with
#
too little and they should be more demanding. No, no. I'm talking about enduring certain
#
pain if necessary for the long-term good. Right, right. But that they're not demanding is a fact.
#
These are two different aspects. But you're right. Both coexist. If the leader, if the garment of the
#
day they perceive is attempting to do something that's necessary and desirable, they're willing
#
to go to any length. But they're not demanding enough of the garments. And it's a problem.
#
As an administrator, I have no taste. I was in North Coast Landhra, I was in Karimnagar,
#
in Telangana and I was in South Coast Landhra. People, of course, are wonderful everywhere.
#
I don't know why bureaucracy is so venerated and why they're so kind to us. I don't understand. But
#
anyway, I'm their beneficiary so I can't complain too much. But I have seen North Coast Landhra,
#
people are wonderful. But they're not demanding. There is no fire. So even if you really encourage
#
them to make something of their life, they're not willing to. Very passive. South Coast Landhra,
#
where I worked, people are unforgiving. Sometimes, you know, there are cases where
#
some predecessors had to run away for fear of their lives. That's angry. But they respond so
#
magnificently to incentives. Any day, I would prefer that. I don't want a passive, docile
#
people who make and control. I want people who, if necessary, are aggressive and sometimes threaten
#
me. But ultimately, they want to take charge of their lives and make something of it if an
#
opportunity is given. I think we have to develop that hunger. We have to make something of our
#
lives. We have to do more demanding. We were having lunch with a third friend of ours who,
#
you know, referred to Animal Farm by George Orwell and spoke about the Indian people as sheep. So,
#
you know, maybe there's something there. Not always. There are many, many dynamic
#
considerations. Each area, because again, whether you're a princely state or a state,
#
British India, Rayathwari or Jamindari, all these things shaped at least the near history,
#
not long-term trajectory, but 50, 100 years, it made a lot of difference.
#
The reason I like the phrase, Alpa Santosh, the word Alpa Santosh was actually, I think,
#
at a personal level, that's something I'd like to inculcate in myself, where I'm satisfied with
#
less, at least in terms of outcomes, but obviously demanding as much as I can of myself, but
#
satisfied with less in terms of outcomes. So just from a point of view of personal contentment,
#
you know, I'd like to, you know, take you away from the arena of India and our great democracy
#
and all of that. And, you know, what gives you contentment today? Like when you think of
#
contentment as opposed to 20 years ago, 25 years ago, you know, what is contentment for you
#
today at this stage in your life? One is a belief that
#
history generally moves in the right direction. There are some distortions from time to time,
#
there are some glitches, but in the long term, not very long term, but even generationally speaking,
#
some significant things happen. The second is politics and governance important, though they
#
are, they are not the center of the universe. Thank God for that. I mean, 30 years ago, if we
#
were sitting here, I don't think that we'd have had power continuously anywhere in the country.
#
Of course, there was no telephone. A hundred other things were not possible.
#
Irrespective of how bad the governments are, technology and the human quest for progress
#
is taking care of many things. We are forgetting that. We are making politics the center of our
#
being. At least also in a different context we discussed. If youngsters today have to do
#
something other than politics and nation, et cetera, that's perhaps even more desirable.
#
We should not even think twice about that. A third is
#
that ultimately we have increasingly great opportunities for leapfrogging.
#
We need not always commit the same mistakes as others. The fourth is our society has incredible
#
strengths. Why? We recognize the weaknesses, we forget the strengths. In which other country
#
are you reasonably safe and comfortable without fear of being molested or raped or murdered or
#
mugged? If my child is in New York City, I'm worried every day what is happening to her.
#
If you're in Bombay City or some other city, in the most part, we're not really worried because
#
the society has tremendous inherent strength which we don't always recognize or acknowledge.
#
As long as that is there, if we do a few things right and we have the genius to do things much
#
better than others at a very low cost, take our health care, your knee replacement, your heart
#
surgery, other things, we do at the lowest cost in the world to meet the best standards of the
#
world. We have immense opportunities and I feel we are blessed in many ways as a society. I think
#
my generation, while we have failed in many respects, we are lucky to be able to live
#
in this time and age to see sweeping changes globally and nationally.
#
One of the things that makes me particularly happy is, look at electricity sector or power sector,
#
energy sector. Thirty years ago, our fear was peak oil production. Today, our certainty is
#
peak oil demand. Who would have imagined thirty years ago that we will actually envisage an age
#
when oil is more or less not required? That in the face of a Ukraine war, oil price would not
#
shoot up dramatically and even if Saudi Arabia or some other country's cost on production
#
significantly doesn't make a serious impact. How much we have traveled as humanity?
#
A chap called John Goodenough, when we talk about contentment and age,
#
John Goodenough, he is a Nobel laureate. He is one of the pioneers in lithium battery.
#
He is 100 years old. You know what he is doing? He is still a professor. He is still working to
#
perfect the battery. Hundred years! He may not live tomorrow. He is doing with great gusto.
#
To me, that is more inspiring than all the political work and other things. I think some
#
wonderful things are happening in the world. We are very privileged to be living in this time and
#
age and we are getting carried away by certain minor distortions in the larger context. I feel
#
good about it. But you have given me a geopolitical answer to a personal question, which is a great
#
answer and I appreciate it. But in your personal life, what gives you joy? Like what do you look
#
forward to when you wake up? I have a certain sense of contentment in one thing.
#
In the kingdom of the blind, one has to manage the king. In a country where accomplishment is so
#
rare, even minor accomplishments appear to be big. So I was one of the lucky ones to get a few minor
#
accomplishments and sometimes appear bigger than many others because I could traverse many areas.
#
One of your finest achievements is your modesty, though I feel it is kind of uncalled for.
#
No, but in the larger context of what needs to be done, what we have done and what we are able to do
#
is miniscule. I am mindful of that. At the same time, I am confident that if you set your mind to
#
it and if opportunity presents itself, if you know when to use that opportunity wisely,
#
then you can get things done. To that extent, I mentioned them. Otherwise, I recognize
#
the limits. But one satisfaction I do have is some of us, not merely one individual or two,
#
we have at least intellectually we are trying to change the trajectory, the way we look at things.
#
The traditional modes of thinking about polity, about institutions and democracy and economy
#
slowly are giving way to more rational, evidence-based, logical and best practices-based
#
approach. I take great pleasure in that. It was simply not possible 25-30 years ago.
#
Third is I certainly along with many others played some role in bringing the middle classes
#
and the youth and the urban people into looking at politics much more seriously,
#
especially holding their noses and rejecting it and thinking it's all bad.
#
Certainly, there is that degree of deeper political engagement. It's never complete or
#
adequate, but I think it's a good thing. As I said before, while there are some distortions
#
in our democracy, fundamentally, I don't believe that we will deviate from democracy in this country.
#
I am reasonably confident of that. A lot more needs to be done. There are some things which
#
I feel are urgent which cannot be postponed. They have to be done. Some other things have
#
to be done. Now it's good. If it's postponed a little bit, it's okay. Therefore, my only concern
#
now is can we help shape the minds of bright young people on sufficient scale so that the next
#
generation's strategic thinking and leadership beyond partisan politics and prejudice, rational
#
and evidence-based way of looking at it, and the smartness to seize the moment and strategically
#
bring about the changes with optimism and with patience and perseverance, because this requires
#
a lifetime's patience. That is the challenge. Well, I think we have to make the effort,
#
and I think some of us are making the effort, and I hope it'll be successful.
#
Last time we spoke, after our recording, I think I asked you if you're writing a book,
#
and I tried to convince you you must write a book.
#
Yes, I must write. That kind of discipline that you bring to the table, I'm not able to.
#
It's also a fear. I write even now, not as copiously as earlier, but I write quite a lot.
#
But to write a definitive book, there is a fear. I think I must conquer that fear,
#
and I must not have a perfection and a synthesis. I think there is something that people like me
#
need to communicate, what we learned in a lifetime, the mistakes we committed, and the synthesis of
#
learnings. And I believe there are some important things. The point you're making, the way things
#
are happening, not because individuals are bad or politicians are bad, because there are
#
certain systemic things. And if you alter incentives, things change, just like in the
#
economy, in politics and governance also. I think that's the most important lesson. But we have to
#
go into granular detail. I think there's a lot we have to say. I hope I'll find the energy and the
#
discipline quickly before time runs out. Insha'Allah, time will not run out anytime
#
soon, and you'll find the energy. And I think part of the fear, as a writing teacher, I think
#
part of the fear may be just coming from your use of a definitive. If you're going to set
#
that kind of a target for yourself, it paralyzes you right at the start.
#
Yeah, that actually is happening to me. I agree with you. It's happening to me.
#
I would urge you to take it a chapter at a time. Just share your experiences, share your thoughts,
#
and once you have a first draft, then you can think about how to whip it into shape. But
#
I think it would be a public service if you would write that book, and it would no doubt feature then
#
in the answer that future guests will give me to the next question I'm about to ask you,
#
which is I'll ask you to share for me and my listeners, you know, books, films, music,
#
which have given you joy or meant a lot to you and so on and so forth.
#
You know, I am fond of, increasingly I am fond of both history and anthropology.
#
A book like, for instance, Guns, Germs and Steel taught me a lot.
#
Horrorious books, a certain perspective, well, some of it may or may not be acceptable,
#
but a broad perspective about human trajectory is both interesting and instructive.
#
I enjoy it immensely. Increasingly, I'm drawn to a deeper understanding of economics,
#
because probably many people like me 30, 40 years ago did not give economics the
#
primacy that it deserved. Increasingly, I believe Marx was right that ultimately,
#
economic shapes your society or politics or everything.
#
That he was wrong on everything else.
#
I mean, everything else was wrong, yes. But his basic idea of historical materialism,
#
I think it was broadly right. And therefore, I enjoy immensely a lot of economic thinking
#
and writing and research.
#
Any specific books or items?
#
A couple of books recently, one is, I don't remember the title, but The Crisis of Democracy
#
in this context is coming. Another one, very recent one, I think published only last month
#
or so, Economic Governance from 1933 to 2023. Basically, making the case that US and other
#
countries, when they talk so much about free markets and global trade and Ricardo and
#
comparative advantage, it's always held hostage to domestic politics. Whatever is convenient
#
they did, it's not ideological.
#
So things of that sort. So I have one of my strengths and perhaps weaknesses is inexhaustible
#
appetite to learn and I try to absorb like a sponge. But increasingly, I realize that life
#
is finite and time is a problem and you can't even expect everything. So I'm discarding some
#
things, but I love astronomy. I love anything related to energy and solar power, other things,
#
various other modes of things, new technologies and stuff like that. I relish them. I enjoy them.
#
I feel good about what's going to happen, etc. So it's an eclectic kind of reading.
#
What's the last book or film or song that made you cry?
#
Recently, I'm not able to recall, but just a few days ago, I did cry. Not necessarily a very
#
noble book or noble film. If there is a genuinely emotional scene where I can put myself in their
#
shoes, that empathy, I can easily cry. I don't cry normally in personal life, but I do cry in films,
#
sometimes rather easily. It reminds me of what I heard about the Second World War. The British
#
were very phlegmatic, but they went to theater and they cried copiously, I believe, the cathartic
#
things. So probably I have that streak in me. So I can cry quite easily in a good film, even if the
#
film is not too good in a particular context, when the actor is okay to want all that. So it happens
#
more often than I would like to acknowledge. Why more often? I mean, there's nothing wrong
#
in acknowledging that I cry a lot in films. Cultural propensity.
#
Macho, macho man. Well, hopefully the nation will get into a better place and not make us
#
cry quite so much. Sir, thank you so much for your time and insights. I always come away feeling
#
both smarter and more optimistic when I speak to you, so thank you for that.
#
I don't know about the first one. If the second one has succeeded, I think I feel good about it.
#
I truly feel optimistic and I think there's no reason for us to be unduly pessimistic as humanity,
#
wherever we are in the world. We yield to despair far too easily because we have no sense of long
#
term history. The world is a good place. Let's make the most of it. Thank you for your wisdom, sir.
#
at Amit Verma, A-M-I-T-B-A-R-M-A. You can browse past episodes of The Scene and the Unseen at
#
sceneunseen.in. Thank you for listening. Did you enjoy this episode of The Scene and the Unseen?
#
If so, would you like to support the production of the show? You can go over
#
to sceneunseen.in slash support and contribute any amount you like to keep this podcast alive
#
and kicking. Thank you.
