Sunday, September 20, 2009

OF CATTLE CLASS & HOLY COWS

For all those Congresswallahs who are seething with rage at Shashi Tharoor’s uncharitable comments about the High Command, a reading of his book From Midnight to Millennium is highly recommended. He has criticized, the Holiest of Holy cows in the Congress. The Godmother herself, Indira Gandhi. This is Tharoor on the original Mrs. G.

"Had Indira’s Parsi husband been a Toddywalla (liquor trader) rather than so conveniently a Gandhi, I sometime wonder, might India’s political history have been different?" Heresy, anyone?

This post is not an attempt to justify or decry Tharoor for what he did. Just an attempt to find humour where it scarcely exists. In our politics.

In the whole debate on cattle class and holy cows, everyone seems to have missed out on the obvious. In the end, it’s not Shashi Tharoor who’s emerged a loser. But it’s the Great Indian Chattering Class. They’ve been shown for what they are. Uptight, humourless twits who can’t take a bit of self-depreciation.

In this country we tend to take everything seriously. And you don’t need a Shashi Tharoor to point out the holy cows in our life. From academics to cricket to even our politics. Irreverence is not something that comes naturally to us. We’d much rather worship than question. In our politics, finding an irreverent politician with a sense of humour is like finding a needle in a haystack. Any Parliament reporter will tell you that. Why do you think Lalu is such a media favourite, despite his million failings?

Maybe Tharoor should drive down to 14, Akbar Road to meet his fellow Stephanian Mani Shankar Aiyar. Now, there are a lot of people who hate Mani’s cocky arrogance, but you can’t grudge the man’s wit. Sample this. “Since Sitaram Kesri is all of 31 years younger than the Congress party itself, he has everything it takes to rejuvenate the party.”

But it’s his pet-hate, the BJP, which brings out the secular fundamentalist in Mani. This one’s about Enron and the BJP. “The mystique of unctuous self-righteousness that the BJP assiduously cultivated has been ripped open. They said they would throw Enron into the Arabian Sea. Now they are, metaphorically, in bed with Rebecca Mark.”

But, here’s a disclaimer for Mr. Tharoor. For all his Aiyarisms, Mani will also tell you how utterly boring it is to be an out of work politician in Delhi. Lesson one in politics: never upset the high command.

Each political party has its own set of Holy cows. For the Congress it’s the Gandhi parivar. For the BJP, it’s the Sangh parivar. For the Commies it’s Marx and his parivar. Anyone who dares to question these is cast out as a traitor. It’s a testimony to just how rigid our politics and especially our political parties have become. Did someone say internal democracy?

Our netas need a class in political humour from the Brits and the Americans. Obama can call Sarah Palin a pig who wears lipstick and yet the world doesn’t come crashing down. David Cameron calls Gordon Brown a complete phoney, and there’s still as much water flowing in the Thames. Only in India are politicians revered to the point of puking.

It’s only fitting to sign off with the most irrepressible of British politicians, Winston Churchill. This is a conversation that happened between him and Lady Astor in the British Parliament. After a bout of intense arguments over the war and his government’s handling of it, Lady Astor signed off by saying “Frankly Winston, if you were my husband, I’d mix poison in your morning tea.” To which the razor-sharp Churchill replies “Frankly, Nancy, if you were my wife, I’d drink it.” Imagine Jairam Ramesh saying that to Sushma Swaraj? Can it ever happen in uptight, puritanical India? Your guess is as good as mine.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

A YEAR AFTER LEHMAN

The more things change, the more they remain the same. A year after Lehman Brothers collapsed, what’s surprising on Wall Street is not how much has changed, but how little has.

To be fair with the Ben Bernankes and Henry Paulsons of the world, they did the right thing by bailing out the financial industry. If not, we would’ve not been referring to the events of the past year as just a recession. It would’ve simply been the Great Depression Act 2 Scene 1.

But having said that, what Bernanke & Co didn’t do was reform the system. They just rescued it, that’s all. The fundamental flaw of big banks cutting nine figure paychecks for executives who take irrational risks for short-term profits still exists. Banks are still rewarding bad actors. Only worse, these are the same guys who were bailed out by taxpayer largesse.

Now I don’t belong to the Investment Bankers hate club. I think it’s an honourable profession just like anything else. But my problem with this business is there are too many incentives for irrational risk-taking and too few punishments, if those risks don’t pay off.

And those incentives still exist. At the time of writing this post, Goldman Sachs was preparing to pay its 30,000 employees an average of $700,000. That’s pretty much what it was before the crash. So if I am a taxpayer who’s hard-earned money has bailed out these fattened chicken, then what am I to believe?

The impression that’s going around is that no matter what happens at these big banks, the government will always bail them out. So what’s happening is that investors are once again beginning to lend money to these banks and other financial majors on easy terms. That in turn will prompt the banks to take on risky loans. (After all, it’s somebody else’s money). When the going’s good, the banks keep the profits. When it turns sour, taxpayers will swallow the losses anyway. Heads I win, tails I still win.

A small case in point. Even today, even after the cataclysm of the global financial bust, in Goldman Sachs $1 in actual capital supports $14 in loans and investments. This is the same bloody over-leveraging which led to the financial bloodbath of last fall.

There’s simply no question that there has to be more regulation. That’s daft. The question is: is there the political will to do the same. Obama is a transformational politician. Can he also be a transformational President? History will judge his Presidency by what he did to correct the flaws which led to the catastrophe of September 2008. Or what he could have but didn’t do.

Friday, September 4, 2009

REMEMBERING YSR

In May of 2003, the Times of India carried a very poignant photograph. It showed a bare-chested man, by the side of a highway in Andhra Pradesh, taking a shower from a government water pipeline. The photo would’ve been nondescript, if not for its subject. The man in the picture was YS Rajasekhara Reddy. YSR was then criss-crossing the most backward districts of his state, in what’s now being called his famous padayatra. But back then, it was called a gimmick by the state’s second most powerful politician.

Hundreds of miles away, in Hyderabad, the state’s most powerful politician, the self-proclaimed CEO of Andhra, Chandrababu Naidu was rubbing shoulders with corporate czars and chairmen of global banks. The state was going through one of the worst droughts ever. But Naidu’s worldview was restricted only to the swank IT super-structures of Cyberabad. Poverty, hunger and disease were unknown aliens. Who has time for the starving millions when there are millions to count in Swiss banks?

Well ten months later, the starving millions punished Naidu in the only way they knew. With the power of their vote. Back then too, no one in the media (both national and regional) gave YSR a chance. Naidu was after all the model Chief Minister. Who could dare predict his defeat?

Now as the country comes to terms with the shocking and sudden death of the Tiger of Cudappah, my mind goes back to that one image. It, in many ways defined YSR. The man, the politician and all that he stood for. He was a people’s politician. Always there to lend a ear or a shoulder. It’s this incredible people’s connect that made YSR what he was. In his native village of Pulivendula, people will tell you that YS knew the head of every family by his first name. In contrast, Naidu appeared aloof and distant.

I’ve had the good fortune of meeting YS on a couple of occasions in Delhi during his various trips to meet the high command. The first thing that strikes you about the man is his body language. He was so supremely confident. He would always look you in the eye, even if you asked the most uncomfortable question. And not to forget, the YS smile. He had the most endearing and warm smile you’ll find in any of our netas. It immediately drew you to the man. In the cut-throat world of our politics, it’s difficult to find a politician who smiles from the inside. Chandrababu would pay a million bucks to smile like that.

Unfortunately in our politics, there are no headlines for good governance. All the headlines are reserved for bad governance. What YS managed to prove with the 2009 victory is that people will vote for you purely on the basis of good work. It was incredible, during the campaign you’d run into these extremely poor people, ordinary folk who didn’t know where their next meal would come from, but they’d still be able to name atleast one scheme that YS had started. Arogyasri was very popular. So was the Indiramma housing scheme. The point is that these poor people may not even have been direct beneficiaries of these schemes, but to them, atleast here was a man who appeared to care for them. And that’s all the starving millions in this country ask for. Some compassion. A bit of empathy.

At a time when politicians are taking management lessons to run their constituencies, YS was a misfit. Straight out of the old school. A classical, old-world politician who’s politics was all about caring for the poor and the weak. There was no great rocket science to his politics. Just basic human compassion.

Mass hysteria is not something alien in the melodramatic world of South India. We’ve seen it when MGR died. Then when NTR passed away. And most recently when Annavaru, Dr. Rajkumar bid adieu. But mass hysteria was always reserved for filmstars or for matinee idols turned politicians. Never for an out and out politician. YSR changed that. And that gives you an indication of his greatness. Johar Rajanna. Johar.