Sandeep Banerjee
For generations of Calcuttans, the Blue Fox at 55, Park Street was the last word in continental fine dining. Fashioned out of blue neon lights, the restaurant’s logo — a giant fox, its snout nearly touching the tail — has, for decades, marked time over one of Calcutta’s most fashionable streets. Over the years, the Blue Fox has seen much change; it too has changed much. It had shut down for a while owing to labour union-management troubles. It revived and there were plans to turn it into a chaat shop. In March this year, came the final transformation — on the thirtieth year of uninterrupted Communist rule in West Bengal, Blue Fox became Calcutta’s first McDonald’s outlet.
The arrival of Maharaja Mac in the city is more than just another gastronomic option before the average Calcuttan — it’s perhaps the most telling signal that Bengal’s Communists have made peace with American capitalism.
Key to this truce is the Bengal Left’s reassessment in recent years of the role of private capital in the state’s economic development. The state government wants Bengal to industrialise rapidly, arguing that this is the only way to generate jobs and lift the population out of poverty. The West Bengal government is keen to turn the state into a manufacturing hub as that sector generates both skilled and unskilled jobs. The latter is crucial for absorbing the surplus labour the agriculture sector jettisons every year. Setting up factories, however, needs money and that’s not something the state government has in abundant supply. This leaves it with little option but to woo private investors, both domestic and foreign.
So, the Bengal chief minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, once the Left’s Cultural Commissar, has now metamorphosed into the poster boy of economic reforms. Having candidly acknowledged at various fora that his party — the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) — has erred on the issue of private capital, he is now asking industrialists to set up shop in Bengal to help him rectify those mistakes from the past.
These efforts have met with more than moderate success with a number of companies jumping on to the Bengal bandwagon. Tata Motors is in the process of setting up its small car factory; Jindal Steel has proposed a Rs100 billion investment to build a steel plant while both Videocon and Indonesia-based Salim Group are keen to set up Special Economic Zones in the state. Even Reliance has plans: taking a leaf out of the Walmart-China relationship, it wants to turn Bengal into the sourcing hub for its agri-retail business.
But the Bengal Left’s active soliciting of private capital puts it at ideological loggerheads with the Left of the Centre. In New Delhi, where their help is crucial for the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) to remain in power, the Left is usually making sure the UPA refrains from pursuing ‘neo-liberal’ and ‘anti-people’ economic reforms. While the Buddha line of wooing industrialists may well presuppose the primacy of private investment in the process of industrialisation, the CPI-M’s central leadership still remains keen to convince the UPA that the path to true economic salvation is paved with public investments.
The contradiction between the Bengal Left and its counterpart at the centre stretches well beyond just this. The central leadership has been frowning on the state government’s eagerness to acquire land for the companies that were keen to invest in the state. For them, this meant a decisive shift away from the ideology that inspired the CPI-M’s land reforms programme in the state in the late seventies. Those reforms, which consolidated the CPI-M’s grip on rural Bengal, were two-fold: it provided security to sharecropping tenants through a process of registration popularly known as Operation Barga while ceiling-surplus and other vested lands were acquired and distributed among the landless labourers and farmers. The state government, however, contends it’s crucial for them to step in and acquire land as neighbouring states like Orissa were dangling the land acquisition carrot to lure away potential investors.
Of course, the land question across India has now reached a stalemate since the tragic events at Nandigram, much to the relief of key members of the party’s politburo.
Bengal is also trying to woo Information Technology (IT) majors such as Infosys and Wipro to set up Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) centres in Calcutta. At the same time, the CPI-M’s trade union wing has been harping on — much to the horror of the chief minister and the IT industry — the fundamental right of these BPO workers to form unions and strike work.
In New Delhi, it’s this stark contrast between the Bengal line and the one taken by the CPI-M at the centre that is cited by the UPA to silence its Left critics. In fact, speaking to McKinsey a couple of years ago, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh took an uncharacteristic dig at his Left allies. On being asked about the progress of economic reforms in India, the man behind India’s economic reforms quipped, “Our role is to convince their national leadership that what is good for West Bengal can also be good for the rest of the country. I haven’t given up hope.”
Dr Singh’s persuasive skills perhaps haven’t quite worked their intended magic on India’s Left Front. Even today, this schizophrenia remains the hallmark of the relationship between the CPI-M’s central leadership and the West Bengal government the party heads.
Recently, I asked one of my acquaintances at the CPI-M headquarters in New Delhi about this abiding paradox of his party. I got a rather illuminating reply: There was no contradiction — The West Bengal chief minister was doing his job of running his government; the politburo doing its job of pushing for a greater role of the state.
The West Bengal government, I was told, could not ask its citizens to wait for the people’s democratic revolution before proceeding with industrialisation. They were hamstrung because all states had to work within the capitalist framework provided by the centre. This, of course, wasn’t the best way forward and things would change if the CPI-M came to power in Delhi.
The Left Front currently has fifty-nine MPs in the 545-member Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Indian Parliament. This is also their best electoral showing since independence. So, it will be a while before the party can paint the capital red.
_____
This is the final part of a three-part series published in Daily Times, Lahore on May 4, 2007. The original article can be found here.
Showing posts with label India. Show all posts
Showing posts with label India. Show all posts
May 4, 2007
Nov 16, 2006
GIVE TRADE A CHANCE
Sandeep Banerjee
A couple of years ago, the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline was the policy issue in India and provided a subject for endless editorials as well as relentless debate in political and diplomatic circles. Pakistan had cleared the proposal but the United States had made clear it was not too keen on this tripartite arrangement. So when Indian journalists met the visiting Pakistani commerce minister in New Delhi, they were curious to know if the US wanted Pakistan to opt out. Pat came the reply from Humayun Akhtar Khan: “Jab mian bibi razi, to kya karey ga kazi.”
This was an unusual articulation of South Asian unity. It didn’t mean India-Pakistan relations had reached a state of conjugal ecstasy but simply that the pipeline made good business sense for both Pakistan and India and they were responding to a sound business proposal. But even though they seem to agree more when they use their economic faculties, India and Pakistan seldom talk business. The political crowding out the economic, Indo-Pak talks almost always end in political rhetoric. And political rhetoric — used to negotiating the semantics of ‘boundary’ and ‘self-determination’ — is incapable of addressing issues like duty structures or non-tariff barriers. The net result is dismal trade figures: Indo-Pak direct trade stood at a little over US$600 million in 2004–05. Compare that to Sino-Indian trade of over US$17 billion in 2005–06.
But to be fair, official India-Pakistan trade data doesn’t paint the complete picture. There is a huge volume of illicit trade as well as trade in goods which originate in either country but are imported through a third country. The most conservative of estimates puts unofficial trade at three to four times that of trade through formal channels. Supplementing official figures with this data would show that despite unfavourable conditions, there exists substantial (though unofficial) trade between India and Pakistan. Indian and Pakistani establishments acknowledge this fact; they now need to code this reality into their actions.
In the past, opportunities to uncouple economics from politics haven’t succeeded in negotiating the rough terrain of India-Pakistan relations. Take, for instance, the South Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA) that proposes a free trade area in South Asia. As Pakistan notified the agreement, it issued a positive list for trade with India, citing the old faithful — security concerns. This meant that the goods that could be traded were spelt out. The international norm is to trade on the basis of a negative list (trade is allowed in all goods except those listed). In response, the Indian Commerce Minister Kamal Nath has written to the SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) secretariat claiming Pakistan is sabotaging the SAFTA, a claim that is not without merit.
Some say it is difficult to love thy neighbour, especially if you have fought three wars with each other and have a territorial dispute that goes back six decades. But then, India-Pakistan relations would do well to follow the Sino-Indian paradigm. Like Pakistan, China too has a boundary dispute with India; China and India claim portions of each other’s territories as their own. They also fought a war in 1962.
But they still manage to trade. And even speak of Free Trade Agreements.
In fact, Indian commerce ministry projections show China could be India’s largest trading partner (surpassing USA, and a figure of US$20 billion) by 2008. The contentious issues — of boundary and territory — haven’t been forgotten. It’s just that they don’t impinge on business.
Today, as we speak of globalisation, the global economy and the global village, we say capital has no nationality or race. This world-view is constantly undermining the older ethic of nation and of political boundaries. That is the nature of the world we live in and political establishments the world over are only gradually grasping this new radicalism. China and India — by de-linking politics from economics — perhaps show they have not just imbibed the message of globalisation, but have also internalised it.
Chinese and Indian embrace of globalisation isn’t a matter of simple ideological predilection. These countries are home to a huge chunk of the world’s poor. The performance of these two economies — dubbed the Asian powerhouses — are gradually lifting their populations out of poverty and giving them a better life. This is not just a function of welfare. There is a deeper political import. Economic prosperity essentially leads to durable regimes and consequently, stable countries. And in that, there is perhaps a message for Pakistan.
With the dialogue process once again chugging, there is need to reassess the old salients. Progress on Kashmir need not be linked to movement on commerce; cross-border terrorism cannot be the reason for a lull in cross-border trade. Pakistan needs to bring enlightened moderation to the table. India, with the balance of trade hopelessly in its favour, simply needs to be more gracious about trade concessions.
Pakistan and India are home to over 1.4 billion people. The governments of these countries owe it to their citizens to help them lead better lives. And there really is no substitute for economic activity to generate more jobs and fight poverty. India and Pakistan have been trying, for long, to give peace a chance. It is time to change tack and give trade a chance. The rest will follow.
_____
This article was published in Daily Times, Lahore on November 16, 2006. The original article can be found here.
A couple of years ago, the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline was the policy issue in India and provided a subject for endless editorials as well as relentless debate in political and diplomatic circles. Pakistan had cleared the proposal but the United States had made clear it was not too keen on this tripartite arrangement. So when Indian journalists met the visiting Pakistani commerce minister in New Delhi, they were curious to know if the US wanted Pakistan to opt out. Pat came the reply from Humayun Akhtar Khan: “Jab mian bibi razi, to kya karey ga kazi.”
This was an unusual articulation of South Asian unity. It didn’t mean India-Pakistan relations had reached a state of conjugal ecstasy but simply that the pipeline made good business sense for both Pakistan and India and they were responding to a sound business proposal. But even though they seem to agree more when they use their economic faculties, India and Pakistan seldom talk business. The political crowding out the economic, Indo-Pak talks almost always end in political rhetoric. And political rhetoric — used to negotiating the semantics of ‘boundary’ and ‘self-determination’ — is incapable of addressing issues like duty structures or non-tariff barriers. The net result is dismal trade figures: Indo-Pak direct trade stood at a little over US$600 million in 2004–05. Compare that to Sino-Indian trade of over US$17 billion in 2005–06.
But to be fair, official India-Pakistan trade data doesn’t paint the complete picture. There is a huge volume of illicit trade as well as trade in goods which originate in either country but are imported through a third country. The most conservative of estimates puts unofficial trade at three to four times that of trade through formal channels. Supplementing official figures with this data would show that despite unfavourable conditions, there exists substantial (though unofficial) trade between India and Pakistan. Indian and Pakistani establishments acknowledge this fact; they now need to code this reality into their actions.
In the past, opportunities to uncouple economics from politics haven’t succeeded in negotiating the rough terrain of India-Pakistan relations. Take, for instance, the South Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA) that proposes a free trade area in South Asia. As Pakistan notified the agreement, it issued a positive list for trade with India, citing the old faithful — security concerns. This meant that the goods that could be traded were spelt out. The international norm is to trade on the basis of a negative list (trade is allowed in all goods except those listed). In response, the Indian Commerce Minister Kamal Nath has written to the SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) secretariat claiming Pakistan is sabotaging the SAFTA, a claim that is not without merit.
Some say it is difficult to love thy neighbour, especially if you have fought three wars with each other and have a territorial dispute that goes back six decades. But then, India-Pakistan relations would do well to follow the Sino-Indian paradigm. Like Pakistan, China too has a boundary dispute with India; China and India claim portions of each other’s territories as their own. They also fought a war in 1962.
But they still manage to trade. And even speak of Free Trade Agreements.
In fact, Indian commerce ministry projections show China could be India’s largest trading partner (surpassing USA, and a figure of US$20 billion) by 2008. The contentious issues — of boundary and territory — haven’t been forgotten. It’s just that they don’t impinge on business.
Today, as we speak of globalisation, the global economy and the global village, we say capital has no nationality or race. This world-view is constantly undermining the older ethic of nation and of political boundaries. That is the nature of the world we live in and political establishments the world over are only gradually grasping this new radicalism. China and India — by de-linking politics from economics — perhaps show they have not just imbibed the message of globalisation, but have also internalised it.
Chinese and Indian embrace of globalisation isn’t a matter of simple ideological predilection. These countries are home to a huge chunk of the world’s poor. The performance of these two economies — dubbed the Asian powerhouses — are gradually lifting their populations out of poverty and giving them a better life. This is not just a function of welfare. There is a deeper political import. Economic prosperity essentially leads to durable regimes and consequently, stable countries. And in that, there is perhaps a message for Pakistan.
With the dialogue process once again chugging, there is need to reassess the old salients. Progress on Kashmir need not be linked to movement on commerce; cross-border terrorism cannot be the reason for a lull in cross-border trade. Pakistan needs to bring enlightened moderation to the table. India, with the balance of trade hopelessly in its favour, simply needs to be more gracious about trade concessions.
Pakistan and India are home to over 1.4 billion people. The governments of these countries owe it to their citizens to help them lead better lives. And there really is no substitute for economic activity to generate more jobs and fight poverty. India and Pakistan have been trying, for long, to give peace a chance. It is time to change tack and give trade a chance. The rest will follow.
_____
This article was published in Daily Times, Lahore on November 16, 2006. The original article can be found here.
Aug 7, 2001
OXFORD, ROUGHCUT
Sandeep Banerjee
Oxford, one of my friends once suggested, was a town that had pretensions of being a picture postcard. I never argued with his evocative turn of phrase. After all, it is an exceedingly pretty university town.
The buildings showing off their gothic splendour in the afternoon sun, the chimes from the university chapel, the blossoming cherry trees, the swans on the Thames (or the Isis, as it is called in this part of this island) all affirm the picture postcard nature of the town. And then there are the gargoyles too, smirking at the tutorial ravaged Oxford student and the Big Mac chomping American tourist alike. One could then sum it all up in one word - idyllic (minus the tourist, of course).
While idyllic it is for most of the week, come Friday night and Oxford strives to transcend itself: to put its more exotic facets on display. What is possibly most striking about Oxford on a Friday evening is the panache with which its male residents, Townies and Gownies alike, set about relieving themselves - post beer binging at the pubs - in public.
On one solemn occasion, as I was entering the hallowed precincts of University College, I managed to get my shoes wet, courtesy some enthusiastic Englishman who had taken the steps of the college to be his personal flower-bed. This, I confess, was not a novel experience for me. I have had similar experiences with cows in the narrow gallis of Varanasi. But then they, quite understandably, never wished me 'good evening' like my Oxford benefactor.
And then there are the public phone booths. On weekends, they are a strict no-no as they usually bear the full brunt of the Friday excesses. The exceedingly brave-hearted often have to navigate a sea of beer-induced urine within the booth to then find the much sought after handset covered in - ummm … let's phrase this delicately - puke, de profundis some fellow Oxonian.
You might want to call these reality checks that are coded within the grand Oxford experience which unflinchingly champions the establishment of the mens sana in corpore sano. And indeed, while it remains perpetually etched in popular collective memory as the 'sweet city with her dreaming spires,' there is an Oxford that is far removed from the rarefied atmosphere of the university. It exists only in an oblique relationship to the gowned students and the manicured lawns of the colleges.
This urban reality - rendered more shockingly real owing to the contrast to its 'fairytale-ish' counterpart, the universally acclaimed brand name - is the one inhabited by the tramp, relentlessly chanting his beer-drenched and marijuana-inspired: cud'ya spair sum chainge mait; and the young Bosnian mother who asks the passer-by for money to feed her child on a pram.
I think back to my pre-departure orientation that was organised by the British Council before I left Calcutta. It was an extremely helpful exercise that ensured, among others, that we did not get lost in the dazzling maze of Heathrow. We were also warned against this peculiar entity called 'culture shock' and I was on the lookout for it the moment my feet touched Her Majesty's realm.
And when I did finally encounter it, I have to admit that I was taken aback just a little bit. I had not been told that the young Bangladeshi mother begging for her child at the traffic light on Calcutta's Park Street would re-invent herself for me in Oxford. The garish saree had given way to a pair of jeans and T-shirt, the bangal accented Bengali had become English with a distinctly Eastern European twang and stutter. And yes, she was much more self-assured than the familiar face from back home.
No, I am not being perverse. Nor am I pushing the soft nationalist line of the mera Bharat mahaan variety. Oxford can be brutally real at times, something that adds a refreshing dimension to this medieval English university town. And being the humanities student that I am - hopelessly so, I would argue - I just like seeing parallels even where none apparently exist.
_____
A revised version of this article appeared in The Statesman, Calcutta in 2001.
Oxford, one of my friends once suggested, was a town that had pretensions of being a picture postcard. I never argued with his evocative turn of phrase. After all, it is an exceedingly pretty university town.
The buildings showing off their gothic splendour in the afternoon sun, the chimes from the university chapel, the blossoming cherry trees, the swans on the Thames (or the Isis, as it is called in this part of this island) all affirm the picture postcard nature of the town. And then there are the gargoyles too, smirking at the tutorial ravaged Oxford student and the Big Mac chomping American tourist alike. One could then sum it all up in one word - idyllic (minus the tourist, of course).
While idyllic it is for most of the week, come Friday night and Oxford strives to transcend itself: to put its more exotic facets on display. What is possibly most striking about Oxford on a Friday evening is the panache with which its male residents, Townies and Gownies alike, set about relieving themselves - post beer binging at the pubs - in public.
On one solemn occasion, as I was entering the hallowed precincts of University College, I managed to get my shoes wet, courtesy some enthusiastic Englishman who had taken the steps of the college to be his personal flower-bed. This, I confess, was not a novel experience for me. I have had similar experiences with cows in the narrow gallis of Varanasi. But then they, quite understandably, never wished me 'good evening' like my Oxford benefactor.
And then there are the public phone booths. On weekends, they are a strict no-no as they usually bear the full brunt of the Friday excesses. The exceedingly brave-hearted often have to navigate a sea of beer-induced urine within the booth to then find the much sought after handset covered in - ummm … let's phrase this delicately - puke, de profundis some fellow Oxonian.
You might want to call these reality checks that are coded within the grand Oxford experience which unflinchingly champions the establishment of the mens sana in corpore sano. And indeed, while it remains perpetually etched in popular collective memory as the 'sweet city with her dreaming spires,' there is an Oxford that is far removed from the rarefied atmosphere of the university. It exists only in an oblique relationship to the gowned students and the manicured lawns of the colleges.
This urban reality - rendered more shockingly real owing to the contrast to its 'fairytale-ish' counterpart, the universally acclaimed brand name - is the one inhabited by the tramp, relentlessly chanting his beer-drenched and marijuana-inspired: cud'ya spair sum chainge mait; and the young Bosnian mother who asks the passer-by for money to feed her child on a pram.
I think back to my pre-departure orientation that was organised by the British Council before I left Calcutta. It was an extremely helpful exercise that ensured, among others, that we did not get lost in the dazzling maze of Heathrow. We were also warned against this peculiar entity called 'culture shock' and I was on the lookout for it the moment my feet touched Her Majesty's realm.
And when I did finally encounter it, I have to admit that I was taken aback just a little bit. I had not been told that the young Bangladeshi mother begging for her child at the traffic light on Calcutta's Park Street would re-invent herself for me in Oxford. The garish saree had given way to a pair of jeans and T-shirt, the bangal accented Bengali had become English with a distinctly Eastern European twang and stutter. And yes, she was much more self-assured than the familiar face from back home.
No, I am not being perverse. Nor am I pushing the soft nationalist line of the mera Bharat mahaan variety. Oxford can be brutally real at times, something that adds a refreshing dimension to this medieval English university town. And being the humanities student that I am - hopelessly so, I would argue - I just like seeing parallels even where none apparently exist.
_____
A revised version of this article appeared in The Statesman, Calcutta in 2001.
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