Godfathers, Fathers and Mothers: A Viewpoint

    In my view, Nobel laureate and World renowned Philosopher-economist, Prof Amartya Sen was the intellectual godfather (in the sense of “godfather to a parents children”) of the UPAs statist welfare-socialism. PM Manmohan Singh and his friends and Associates had profound respect for Prof Sen’s intellectual capabilities. One could even go to the extent of saying that the former were intellectual Chela’s of the latter. Therefore, Prof. Sen’s admonitions relating to Social Welfare, Health, Education & Poverty, were treated virtually as “Gospel” or as “Ten Commandments” by the good doctor, his friends and associates.  Based on global comparative WDI data on Human Development Indicators and government expenditures, the commandments were simple and unambiguous: “Raise expenditures” on Health, Education, Child Development, Women’s development and other welfare programs.

    My observation & analysis suggests the following process thereafter: These recommendations were gladly and unquestioningly accepted by the Left wing of the Congress party whose inspiration was the Congress President, the Mother who gave birth to the UPA's Statist Welfare-Socialism (populism?).  Once accepted by the PM these issues therefore moved immediately to the Congress President led National Advisory Council (NAC) (as all politically remunerative welfare activities had to be attributed to 'the leader'). There, such programs, projects & policies were invariably sought to be loaded with numerous related and unrelated socialist objectives, statist-interventionist approaches and expenditure increases. Not infrequently the original intention of the PM, became a small part of an elaborate scheme of social engineering and business bashing.  These NAC modified (dare I say mangled) schemes, programs and laws returned to the government for execution (which then had to work out how much it would cost, where the money would come from and how they could actually be executed). The Mrs. Sonia Gandhi led NAC can therefore rightly be called the Father/Mother of this approach and can claim full credit for the programs, projects, laws, rules and regulations ordained by it.

       Experience of administering, monitoring and analyzing the numerous existing schemes was ignored or given short shrift. Experience and analysis suggested that without an improvement in the governance of multiplicity of such programs, more money would not have the effect that welfare economists sitting in the Developed countries expected.  One was convinced that without improvement in administration and reduction in absenteeism and corruption, there would be little impact of increased expenditure on health outcomes, educational achievements, pace of poverty reduction, malnutrition etc.[i]  It was suggested that governance improvement should be given equal, if not greater weight initially. The response to such doubts and suggestions was that governance issues could perhaps be addressed at a later stage.    Underlying this hint of future action on governance issues was a conviction that these socialist, welfare schemes, programs and laws would translate into a big electoral victory for the ruling party led, in the next election, by Shri Rahul Gandhi. 

    My earlier work on economic growth and the connection between economy and votes suggested otherwise:[ii] Unless growth was maintained through further policy reforms, a slowing growth rate would nullify any marginal political gains from inefficient, corruption ridden and unproductive welfare expenditures. Thus ineffective programs and slower growth would lose votes, not win them.

 

Only the potential extent of the loss was unclear till the BJP chose Shri Modi as its PM candidate for the 2014 general election. Sadly, the lessons have still not been learned by many politicians and their advisors.[iii]

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[i]  A Virmani, “Planning for Results: Public Accountability  Information System,” Working Paper No. 1/2007-PC, Planning Commission, March 2007. http://planningcommission.nic.in/reports/wrkpapers/rpwpf.htm.

Arvind Virmani, “The Sudoku of Growth, Poverty and Malnutrition: Lessons For Lagging States,” Working Paper No. 2/2007-PC, Planning Commission, July  2007. http://planningcommission.nic.in/reports/wrkpapers/rpwpf.htm .

[ii] Series of papers on growth at,  https://sites.google.com/site/drarvindvirmani/growth & Arvind Virmani, “ Economic Growth, Governance And Voting Behaviour: An Application to Indian Elections,” Working Paper No. 138, ICRIER, July 2004.  http://www.icrier.org/page.asp?MenuID=24&SubCatId=175&SubSubCatId=233 .

[iii]  http://dravirmani.blogspot.in/2014/01/per-capita-gdp-growth-and-vote-share.html

Now For something completely different: Election Strategy

Introduction      

 In an earlier note[1] I had forecast that the 2014 election campaign would be fought between a Rahul led Congress and a Modi led BJP.  Rahul Gandhi’s speech has given us the first hint of the Rahul-Congress election platform and strategy. The election platform is basically the congress development strategy of “Inclusive growth” developed over the last 8 years, modified (tweaked?) by the need to restore growth to its 8% potential and leavened with Shri Rahul Gandhi’s personal experience of reaching out to the common people and reviving the Congress party. By leaving the issue of a future Congress PM open (Rahul-? diarchy), the strategy is also designed to keep the election from becoming a Presidential style Rahul vs. Modi election.  

     The election platform of the Modi led BJP is also reasonably clear, based as it is on governance and his experience of maintaining fast economic growth and job creation in Gujarat and the provision of Public Goods and services through his administrative abilities.  At the same time he is likely to leave it to his social critics to arouse the BJP’s Hindutva base by criticizing his leadership of Gujarat during the 2002 riots, with perhaps some help from RSS affiliates.  These strategies will be designed to subtly polarize the voters and attract them towards the two National parties and away from State parties that depend heavily on cast, creed and regionalism.

Election Strategy

      Consider a grading based on the each parties program (Cong/BJP) and the ability of the potential leader (Rahul/Modi) to achieve results (positive & negative).  Three dimensions are likely to figure in the election discourse: Social inclusion, Economic Growth & Development and Domestic & National security (plus a net/overall grade).  Putting oneself into the hypothetical persona of neutral analyst with a nationalist, liberal perspective, the tentative scores for the two national parties are, (i) Rahul led Congress: A, B+ and B on the three dimensions with a net score of  B+ and (ii) Modi led BJP: C+, A and A- with a net of B+.  Any ranking can be disputed by committed supporters, particularly as it relates to likely future performance. Our purpose is however the very limited one of analyzing potential election strategies.  Two points emerge from this exercise: One that on basis of net score it may be difficult for voters to choose between the two National parties, so traditional supporters of each are likely to vote for their historically favored party, even if they had drifted away in the last two elections. Two that new, independent, undecided voters are likely to vote for the party whose score is higher on the dimension that is more important to them.  Those who care very strongly about social liberalism are likely to gravitate to the Rahul Congress, while those who care strongly about liberal economic policy outcomes are likely to drift to the BJP.  Those who care more about caste and region, will likely vote for the State parties.  On balance the urban vote is likely to shift back from Congress to BJP, while the rural vote share of the Congress could increase to partially offset this.  The challenge for both parties will be to win back the younger, more mobile voters from among those whose families switched to the State parties during the last 10-15 years.

Post-Poll BJP

        The National party which gets significantly higher number of seats along with its limited pre-election partners will have a better chance of forming the government.  Analysts have said that an ambiguous result will favor the Congress, given the reluctance of parties like JD(U), BJD and TDP to join a government with Modi as PM.  My analysis suggests that the BJP-NDA may solve this conundrum by making L K Advani PM, Narendra Modi as Deputy PM in charge of the economy and perhaps Nitish Kumar as DPM for social policy.  This may have the collateral benefit of allaying fears within the BJP and the RSS of Modi’s “dictatorial” tendencies.

Pre-Poll Congress

     Does this new post-election scenario, require new thinking on the part of the Rahul Congress?  For one it requires a complete extirpation of any residual complacency in the Congress with respect to economic reforms and economic growth.  The government, fully and whole heartedly supported by the party, must get down in the trenches to carry out every possible governance and economic reform that can revive economic growth within the next twelve months.  Two, they must move to the center on social laws, expenditures and programs.  There is an impression among the Urban middle class that social policy has been driven to an extreme by philosophers, poets and dreamers, without regard to scientific analysis and much understanding of the severe limitations imposed by the overburdened, broken and corrupt bureaucratic system that has to implement this policy.  The emerging middle class is unlikely to vote on the basis of promises and programs that transfer 70% to 85% of money to administrators and politicians.

Conclusion

       The economic growth achievements of Narendra Modi can only be countered by the growth achievements of the Congress-UPA government.  The Congress cannot assume that even if it wins fewer seats than the BJP, most potential post-pol allies of the BJP can be persuaded to abandon the Modi led BJP.  They may flock to an Advani-Modi led NDA government.

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[1] http://dravirmani.blogspot.in/2013/03/let-party-begin-election-2014.html

Dynasty: Too Little or Too Much

    Rahul Gandhi's unanimous election as Vice President of the Congress Party has set off a flurry of discussion on the issue of Dynasty and dynastic succession in political parties. Whether it is Karunanidhi in Tamil Nadu, Mulayam Singh in UP, Jaganmohan Reddy in Andhra or Chauthala in Haryana, there is no dearth of political "dynasties" in India. Indeed political dynasties are common across South Asia, whether in Bangladesh (the two begums), Sri Lanka (Bandarnayaka) to Pakistan (Bhuttos).  Is there something in our culture that brings this about? 

       Historically the hold of the Varna system solidified in the form of occupational categories that are passed on from father to son, was quite pronounced and visible in daily life.  These appeared to be quite stable as long as the economic system was quite static and stable. with the arrival of modern education and industry new professions arose, that did not exist previously. These were open to those who were in a position to exploit the opportunity, partly because of their privileged position but partly because they were the first to see a new lucrative opportunity. 

But new opportunities and new professions do not affect old traditional occupations that continue to have their old linkages such as various forms of trade and business. Though business has evolved tremendously since independence, sons and increasingly daughters tend to enter their fathers business whatever it may. Similarly, though politics has evolved tremendously since independence, with the entry of new caste groups into the political space, the natural tendency seems to be for progeny to enter the family occupation whether it is industry, services or politics.  Thus politics is much more like a family business than a family profession or occupation whether it is a modern one like education or a traditional one like carpenter or mason.  

  Thus to find out whether the is " too much dynasty" in politics, we need to compare the proportion of second or third generation MPs and MLAs in Parliament and legislatures with the proportion of second- third generation members holding executive positions (MDs, Presidents etc) in Public Ltd companies.  The public impression is that the degree of dynastic succession is greater in politics than in business.  We need a proper study to find out  whenter this is really true (and statistically significantly). [bit.ly/10sejuk]