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TheIndian EXPRESS
www.indianexpress.com

l FRIDAY l SEPTEMBER 21 l 2012

The Indian EXPRESS

BECAUSE THE TRUTH INVOLVES US ALL

The BJP cannot paralyse Parliament and demand a special session too
has a spurious basis the same logic that Mamata Banerjee has used to reject FDI and hit the eject button. Back in the time when Pranab Mukherjee was finance minister, he had assured the Opposition that FDI in retail would be adopted only after evolving a consensus. But consensus, when it is achievable, is a political courtesy, not a legal necessity. The government is at liberty to push through its agenda if it has the numbers. By all accounts, it appears that the BJP is using Parliament as a bargaining counter. In its best version, Indian politics is done by debate within Parliament. Parties take to the street only when conversation becomes impossible. But if the BJPs latest position is any indication, perhaps in the future, Parliament will be allowed to function only in special sessions to discuss agendas set by the BJP, and transact no other business. And the party remains free to take to the streets at the same time. The situation has become so absurd that Indias main opposition party can legitimately be asked to demonstrate its commitment to Parliament.

Inside, outside

NLY days after loudly stonewalling Parliament on the controversy over coal allocations and refusing to allow the House to function, the BJP has announced that it is preparing to seek a special session to discuss the issue of FDI in retail. The coal controversy is rife with issues of national importance, with implications for the ownership and allocation of natural resources in the future. These should have been debated at length inside Parliament and the principles governing future policy thrashed out. But while protesting that the Congress did not want to discuss the matter, the BJP clearly refused to talk and, what is more, relentlessly paralysed the House. Now, having wasted Parliaments time and cheated the nation of some sort of closure on coal, the BJP wants the House to reconvene and discuss FDI in retail post facto. It may be seeking a sense of the House on the issue. But is this expensive and cumbersome process necessary? The party has already organised a Bharat bandh on this pretext. Besides, the call for a special session

HEformalannouncementof a split in Team Anna is a sentimental moment for the socalled anti-corruption crusade. Eighteen months later, Anna Hazarehasoptedoutoftheroleofunifying mascot in a campaign that both contributed to, and drew heavily upon,hismakingthefit.Butbeyond the drama of personal rebuke and betrayal dont use my name and photo, says Anna; Annas name and photo are imprinted in our hearts, tweets Arvind Kejriwal this is a momentthatnotonlybringsgreater clarity for the players, but also casts different and distinct responsibilitiesonthem.Thepoliticalparty,presumably to be led by Kejriwal, and the non-political campaign that will continue to be presided over by Anna,mustreflectonwhatitmeans to go on from here. For the yet-to-be political party, the biggest realisation and lesson in the coming days will be not just the sheer hard labour of politics in a countrylikeIndia,butalsothethick skin and the wide-ranging engagement it demands from politicians. Halosdontholdwellinthepolitical cut-and-thrust, and in fact, may disintegrate quickly. Righteous beliefs and certitudes are open to question

Now the two halves of Team Anna will have to acknowledge their distinct responsibilities
from, and at the very least, are likely to be complicated by, diverse considerations and competing values. Most of all, the political opponent cannot always be seen as the enemy, as motivated, or as pro-corruption. Single-issue campaigns can afford to talk primarily to themselves and refuse to engage with critics or address the non-faithful. But political parties insulate and isolate themselves at their own peril. For all its several inadequacies and distortions, the political party in India is still the most spacious vehicle available for the peoples will, and happens to be at the receiving end of the greatest pressures of accountability. There will be learnings as well for the non-political mobilisation that will continue under Annas leadership.Thereisawidespaceforcivilsociety intervention in a country of diverseproblems.Civilsocietyactionis needed to supplement political and governmental activity, and to monitor it. Yet, there are lines of separation that are crucial. Law making, forinstance,cannotbethedomainof the civil society activist, nor the determination of policy. In the early tumult of the Anna movement, manyoftheselinesweresoughttobe crossed, at the systems peril.

Their separate ways

T IS tempting to characterise the current impasse in Indian politics as a clash between reformers and populists. On this view, the government has, belatedly, woken up to reform and is now being obstructed by a motley crew of opportunists and populists. It would be terrific if the spectrum of Indian politics could be defined in these terms; at least, it will bring the focus back to economics. Many of the governments decisions are welcome; a signal of intent was long overdue. Our economic situation is dire. A run on the rupee caused by bad fiscal management or the current account deficit may add colossally more to inflation than any diesel price increases. But it is still too premature to conclude that this is a contest between reformers and populists. It is still, at best, a contest over the marginal thresholds of economic rationality below which we will not fall. And these thresholds are determined by where you sit. This is so for a number of reasons. First, the advantage of a crisis is that you have no option but to reform. Or else, you perish. The disadvantage is that your understanding of why a particular reform took place, and its extent, is limited by the logic of overcoming the crisis. It does not, by itself, generate an irrevocable momentum for greater reform. We saw that in 1991 when reform slowed down after the first couple of years. We saw that again in the early part of the last decade when consensus on things like fiscal responsibility and regulatory clarity quickly dissipated. Even now, the crisis framing, while providing a necessary justification for action, does little to embed reforms in a larger expanse. We are still haggling over anywhere between three to seven rupees on diesel prices; LPG subsidies may end up being offloaded on the states and so forth. Admittedly, there are political constraints. But let us not pretend that we are moving to a new paradigm in economic governance. We are simply offloading some peripheral ballast to prevent the ship from sinking.

Not reform vs populism

Its easier to taint the opponent than to stake out an economic ideology
PRATAP BHANU MEHTA
Second, the fact that these reforms are coming after four years of colossal mismanagement is making the reform narrative problematic. Admittedly, there was a global financial crisis that required a different policy response. But politically it is not easy for the government, after running all fiscal responsibility into the ground for four years, and after stoking structural inflation, to turn back and accuse opponents of being populist. The crisis narrative is a double-edged sword: it makes the case for reform compelling. But it also exposes the complicity and opportunism of government. And opposition and state parties in turn are themselves quite capable of a modsend out sound signals to other investors. But it reinforces the idea that you have to be big and organised to get a hearing. Despite two decades of reform rhetoric, small and medium business in India still feels trapped in the clutches of the state. It also feels, as the recent stories over credit have shown, that big business gets preferential treatment. Madhu Kishwars trenchant observation, that the lower down the economic ladder you go, the more likely you are to be saddled with regulation, is largely true. Reform for the big boys is important and it brings benefits. But it does not, by itself, enable participation in the larger reform narrative.

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The Congress will have to show that it is a genuine reformer rather than a party that administers bitter medicine after it has induced the disease. The BJPs game seems to be to exacerbate the crisis in the hope that the blame sticks on the Congress. The sober regional parties are not looking beyond their noses.
icum of economic rationality, including raising prices. On the other hand, there is a danger that these reforms will be accompanied yet again by expenditure commitments that will haunt us in future years. So the aam aadmi versus economic reform story is a form of shadow boxing; more about tainting the opponent than staking out an economic ideology. Third, one reason reform does not have as large a social base is that reform has come to be associated with reform for the big boys. We can debate the merits of FDI in retail. Even if its net benefits are uncertain, the fears it ignites are highly exaggerated. Making that a priority over other reforms may Fourth, the corruption story has also become part of the reform story. Open loot at the top lends credence to the idea that anyone should grab anything from the state thattheycan.Butmoreimportantly, the real intent behind reform will become more apparent if the state can go towards a rules-based workinginitsinnercore.Butasstateinstitutions are being decimated one after the other, it is hard to inspire confidence that we are moving to a transparent rules-based system. This is still a system where, on everything from CBI investigations to company law cases, deals seem possible. When the government says things like environmental clearances will speed up, it is not clear

what exactly that means. Is it a harbinger of a new transparent and effective regime or simply more deals? The idea that the state is fundamentally about negotiated quickfixes has not disappeared. Finally, there is the sheer instrumentalism of it all. Parliamentary democracy, in the proper sense of the term, has been all but dead the last few months. State legislatures are even more moribund. All political parties are complicit in this. Our economic desperation should goad the executive into taking as much action as it can, within its powers. But it is deeply distressing that our talk of reform is premised on bypassing Parliament. The precedent that is being set for all parties holding each other hostage outside of a framework of parliamentary deliberation will come back to haunt us. This is still a moment of opportunity. But the threshold of what it will require to convert it into a real turnaround moment is very high. If it manages to survive, Congress will have to show that it is a genuine reformer rather than a party that administers bitter medicine after it has induced the disease in the first place. It would have to change drastically to do this. The BJPs game seems to be to exacerbate both the economic and governance crisis in the hope that the blame sticks on the Congress. But pure negativism misreads the peoples yearning for something positive. The sober regional parties are not looking beyond their noses; the more dangerous ones like SP, will run with the hare and hunt with the hound, and if need be, pull out the communal card. All are afraid of going to the people immediately. At the moment, we dont have reformers or populists. We have a game in which most actors are being too clever by half growth or democracy be damned. The writer, president of the Centre for Policy Research, is contributing editor, The Indian Express
express@expressindia.com

Letters to the

EDITOR

Exit Mamata

THE UPA must have

heaved a sigh of relief after Mamata Banerjee announced her decision to leave the coalition (UPA 3, IE, September 19). Banerjee is an unpredictable politician who does not support a reformist agenda meant for the betterment of the masses. She expects everyone to fall in with her plans. Now the Congress must take direct charge of the railway ministry, which needs an overhaul in terms of safety and comfort. With the support of other parties like the SP and the BSP, there appears to be no threat to the government. R.K. Kapoor Chandigarh

The right thing

TMC chief Mamata

S. GIRIDHAR
O UNDERSTAND why Indian universities do not feature in the worlds top 200, with no Indian institute figuring in the latest edition of the QS World University rankings, I asked the following questions: a) Why are we not in the top 200? b) What will it take to be there? c) is it necessary or relevant to be in that list? In answering these complex questions, one is left with the problem of where and how we cut the Gordian knot of higher education in India today. Academic culture is the soul of universities. Academic ethos will be reflected in the way universities articulate their vision, organise governance, make appointments and create an institution where serious scholarship is encouraged and respected. How many of our universities have such a culture? Absence of high quality faculty is the nemesis of current higher education institutions. The globalisation of academics in the last 20 years has exacerbated problems. Log kahaan hain? (Where are the qualified instructors) is the dominant theme as we desperately search for good faculty even for our best universities. A handful are spread across our leading universities but most are abroad, doing good work, no doubt, but researching problems and interests that are relevant in the West. Some would come back if they found academic freedom and integrity where regu-

Improve the academic ethos to spur research and critical thinking

lations enable and do not stifle. The need for quality research is noted by all, but this stems not from the publish or perish paranoia of universities in the West or from the furious encouragement seen in China, where one hears that professors are paid an incentive for every paper published. Rather, this notion of research as the backbone of academic excellence derives from the idea that research is one of the best ways to further and realise the vision and purpose of a university. In the Indian context, the overarching social purpose ought to drive research. Research that informs that making mistakes is also a form of learning? We manipulate instruments to get the right answer because understanding the experiment is less valuable than getting the maximum score. No wonder the commerce graduate is inadequately trained to do balance sheets and the engineer struggles to fix the simple iron box. Our school teachers also emerge from the same mediocre higher education system. Where debate was the nature of the student-teacher relationship, it has now decayed to a state where fear remains while respect has evaporated. To be in the top 200 universities pared for jobs, the frustrations are likely to grow. A strong system for basic disciplines is what defines the health of higher education. Perhaps the answers lie in a drastic overhaul of our university programmes, organisation and regulation. We need deep governance reforms that question the purpose, functioning and utility of existing governing and statutory bodies. That will address rent seeking, archaic notions of education and power equations with the students. Regulatory systems need surgery, because only then can can the structural organisation changes in our colleges and universities be possible. Academic programmes need to be free from departmental silos, be vibrant and relevant, driven by the larger social purpose. They need to move away from exam-focused rote learning and instead build conceptual strengths and the ability for critical reflection and enquiry. The best professionals have to be a part of our education system. Pedagogy should be such that the students are made to think. Reading, referencing and using the library becomes integral to a students life. That is the only way we will be able to answer the aspirational demands of young India. The writer is registrar and chief operating officer of Azim Premji University, Bangalore
express@expressindia.com

Putting scholarship first

Banerjee has taken a courageous step by protesting the actions of UPA 2 and withdrawing support. Other Congress allies must emulate her if they are with the people who voted them to power. The Congress will try its best to woo her back, but we hope she does not give in. She is right when she says that the policies of this government have been anti-people, that the aam aadmis lot has seen no improvement and that fuel price hikes and FDI are purely diversionary tactics employed by the Congress to distract people from the recent scams. S.P. Sharma Mumbai

Power play

HREE months and Rs 4.7 lakh at IIM-Bangalore are enough, apparently, to turn any woman into a professional politician. Or so it seems, to the 26odd women enrolled in the course. They include a software engineer, a daughterofapolitician,acorporator who wants a faster career track. It is heartening that the middle class, after decades of treating politics with disdain, now wants to shake up a tired patronage-driven system. But it is also true that many of them come with an ideologically vacant vocabulary of efficiency and cleanliness, without engaging with grassroots politics or governance. How can a crash course in public administration or a pep talk about leadership at a B-school prepare you to compete with rooted party workers who spend years doing constituency spadework? While there has been a tidal wave of women in local politics, thanks to reservations in panchayats and municipalities, their representation thins out at higher levels of party politics. How does the IIM course

If only a B-school classroom could teach you how to be a politician

plan to address the reasons for this deficit? The reason politics is not an easier ladder, for men or women, is because most parties lack internal democracy and open primaries where the best candidate is given a chance, or where routes of advancement are made clear. Money and power influence party decisions. The system is further stacked against women, in terms of managingperceptions,networkingandnegotiating. How can the art of politics, the wrangle of interest groups, electoral calculations, the messy division of resources, the provision of public services, the incremental improvementsindistrictsbelearntany other way but by doing? The B-school conceit is that intangibles like leadership and decision-making can be transmitted in a classroom, rather than arising from contact and friction with reality. Whatever IIM teaches these women about leveraging best practices or shifting paradigms or exploring core competencies to come up with win-win solutions, politics is elsewhere.

Politics is elsewhere

To be in the top 200 universities is a lesser problem. That can be achieved by identifying a handful of our institutions, such as the IITs, and then gunning for it.
policy and can contribute towards social benefit, even if not published in international journals, should be valued. Such research by teachers serves to bring their students into the world of inquiry, discovery and to appreciate that knowledge is not something to be merely consumed but to be continuously generated. That brings us to the dismal quality of our school education. Our children grow up in a system where rote learning and its rewards in examinations seem to be the only path. Where is the spirit of inquiry and critical thinking, the freedom to think that a question can have more than one answer or is, in my view, a lesser problem. That can be achieved by identifying a handful of our institutions, such as the Indian Institute of Science and the IITs, and then gunning for it. The point is that our system of higher education is in absolutely dire straits. We have a burgeoning number of universities, over 550 of them with 16000 colleges, but most have completely inadequate resources, teaching talent or infrastructure and lack a focus on robust and accepted measures of quality. When young people acquire degrees without worth and the anticipated jobs do not materialise or when employers find them unpre-

reform (IE, September 19). The inefficiency of the state governments and their electricity boards is one of the major causes of the power crisis. Here is a system where the boards supply electricity to users at uneconomical prices, incur huge losses, look away from electricity theft to win elections, take massive short-term loans from banks which they do not repay, and then end up being rescued by banks that defer or restructure loans. Yet the states refuse to learn and the vicious cycle repeats itself, as is happening now. There must be a limit after which states cannot draw power without clearing the outstanding, financial support from the Centre or banks is within a prescribed maximum and strict measures are taken to reduce transmission losses including thefts. Y.G. Chouksey Pune

THIS refers to Dont reset,

Food for thought

WORDLY WISE
Walter Bagehot

When great questions end, little parties begin.

N WHAT has been a steadily escalating campaign to shore up his power after a bumpy return to Russias democracy, Vladimir Putin hasdeliveredanaudaciousdoubleblow.Byendingcooperationwiththe USAgencyforInternationalDevelopment(USAID),hehasdeprived a host of Russian pro-democracy organisations of critical funding and administered a sharp rebuff to the United States, which he portrays as an adversary. This coup, delivered inadiplomaticnoteonSeptember11,was,asSen.JohnMcCain aptly put it, a finger in the eye of the Obama administration. You wouldnt have known that, however, from listening Tuesday to the State Department. In announcing the Russian decision, State carefully avoided criticising USAIDs eviction from Moscow. Asked whether the administration was disappointed, spokeswoman Victoria Nulanddescribedthecutoffof$29millioninfundingfordemocracyandcivilso-

Putin has ended links with USAID and hurt pro-democracy NGOs
ciety programmes as a sovereign decision. Its disheartening to hear officials describe support for democracy as marginal to US relations with Russia, at the very moment when pressure for political change there is greater than it has been in more than a decade. Since announcing his return to the presidency last year, Mr Putin has faced a swelling opposition movement. In its attempt to squelch it, the Kremlin has concocted legal charges againstleaders,rampeduppenaltiesforparticipationinillegal protests and rammed through a law requiring non-governmentalorganisationsthatreceiveforeignfundstoregisterasforeign agents... This is a time for the US to redouble its support for Russian democracy, rather than quietly accepting the shutdown of its programmes. From a leader in The Washington Post

Rebuffed by Russia

THE Delhi High Court

PRINTLINE

decision to prohibit the beef and pork festival in Jawaharalal Nehru University is not fair and goes against the individual freedom to decide what to eat. Religious sentiment is a very ambiguous term. The Constitution proclaims us a secular state. By that logic, whats the difference between slaughtering a goat or a hen and a cow or a pig? Banning certain food items merely because they hurt certain religious sentiments is ridiculous. Dheeraj Pandey New Delhi