Left isn't right

IIPM Prof Arindam Chaudhuri on Our Parliament and Parliamentarians' Work

Its 'secular tactics' may not save LDF from an imminent electoral rout. The 'tactical policies' it adopted in the last elections will return to haunt the front, writes K. Sunilkumar

Left parties, especially Communist Party of India (Marxist), always flaunt their 'secular' credentials. In every election in Kerala, the main leftist propaganda is that they never dilute their anti-communal stance.

But the people of Kerala cannot forget the image of Abdul Nasar Madani, chairman of People's Democratic Party (PDP), sharing the Left Democratic Front (LDF) campaign platform in Ponnani with CPI(M) state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan. It was a joint 'secular' campaign for Dr. Hussain Randathani, the Independent candidate of the LDF in the last Lok Sabha election. Madani was imprisoned for eight years in connection with the Coimbatore blast that occurred on February 14, 1998. He is now listed as the 31st accused in the Bangalore blast case. Madani's party whole-heartedly supported LDF in the election and campaigned for the victory of Left candidates. But Madani was not alone in his support for the comrades. Indian National League (INL), which broke away from Indian Union Muslim League, has had an informal alliance with LDF for 14 years. Jamaat-e-Islami, the Muslim 'fundamentalist' organisation (as portrayed by the CPM leaders) also supported the left 'secularists'.

Moreover, the Sunni Muslim organisation led by Kanthapuram A.P. Aboobacker Musliar, an orthodox leader who publicly opposes the entry of women into politics and even education for Muslim girls, clandestinely helped the leftists in Kerala. This 'secular circus' was played out with an eye on a possible victory in some Lok Sabha seats in Malabar area.

Kerala Congress (J), led by P. J. Joseph, infamous in a case of molestation on board an aircraft, represented the Christian sections in the state. Unfortunately, voters sabotaged these calculations. LDF could win only three of the 20 Lok Sabha seats. Within the next six months, in byelections to three Assembly seats, voters rejected LDF's 'secular agenda' yet again. These electoral setbacks and pressures from in and outside the CPM forced the party to alter its election tactics and strategies. Factional fights in the party and the departure of allies from the Front have severely trimmed the LDF. The Janata Dal (S) led by M.P. Veerendra Kumar, a theoretician of anti-globalisation politics, broke away from the alliance thanks to differences with the CPM leadership during the Lok Sabha elections. The party has now joined the United Democratic Front (UDF), which favours globalisation.

A few days ago, Kerala Congress (Joseph) walked out of LDF and merged with Kerala Congress (Mani), led by K. M. Mani, a senior political leader in Kerala. KC (M) is a UDF constituent. INL has also snapped its ties with LDF and is now in negotiations for return to the mother organisation, IUML, the second largest party in UDF. Following the Central leadership's inference that the alliance with Madani had damaged the party's image in the LS polls, CPM has been showing disenchantment with it.

After police action during an agitation against mass eviction for a four-lane road to Kinaloor (Kozhikode) organised by Solidarity (youth organisation of Jamaat-e-Islami) and political parleys with Muslim League leaders, the Jamaat has turned into a 'class enemy' for the Marxists. Now CPM and LDF are trying to make new allies to cover the losses and improve their prospects in the coming elections. Two crucial polls are ahead for the Kerala CPM and LDF in the next 11 months.

As Muslim and Christian minority parties shun the comrades, the latter have begun to move in the opposite direction and are wooing Hindu votes. CPM has already started its new strategic shift to woo some major communities in the Hindu fold. The party leadership has started a blame game against minority organisations and are molly-coddling Hindu outfits like NSS and SNDP.

An indication of this shift is evident from statements and writings of top leaders of the party. The first shot was fired by from Pinarayi Vijayan through his categorical allegation that Christian bishops were responsible for scuttling the merger of Kerala Congress factions. And V. S. Achuthanandan, chief minister of Kerala, jumped to the conclusion that 'Muslim and Christian communalism is on the rise in the state.' He accused the Congress of backing such communal elements.

Congress and UDF leaders have alleged that Achuthanandan and CPM are trying to play the Hindu card for the next election. K.M. Mani, leader of Kerala Congress, has questioned the CM's statement on legal grounds because 'it is against certain communities.' Senior Congress leader and Union overseas Indian affairs minister Vayalar Ravi, too, alleged that the CM's statement blaming the Congress for the growth of Muslim and Christian communalism was "a political ploy to appease the majority community and the RSS'.

After the CPM politburo issued a clarification in this regard, the party's stand vis-a-vis this new strategy was finally out in the open.

'The politburo noted that various communal and caste forces are being mobilised against the LDF government. These forces are sought to be consolidated behind the Congress-led UDF. The increasing intervention of religious and communal bodies in politics does not augur well for the secular polity in Kerala,' said the politburo statement issued after its meeting held in Delhi on June 5 and 6.

According to some political observers, the shift in the CPM stand is a move to make new alliances or whip up Hindu sentiments against the minorities. 'In the last two decades, CPM has tried to woo minorities in the state. They succeeded to some extent. But after the last Lok Sabha elections proved that it cannot derive any gains from the minorities, the party began to woo Hindus,' says B.R.P. Bhaskar.

He also argues that the CPM in Kerala is a party that is dominated by Hindu members. 'The minority population in the state is 44 per cent, but only 20 per cent of CPM's membership is made up of people belonging to the minority communities,' Bhaskar explains.

The Sangh Parivar, especially BJP, which has been trying to make headway in Kerala politics, have also come out strongly against at the new 'duplicitous' strategy of the CPM. 'Christian and Muslim fanatics who stood with CPM for a while ditched them at a time when they were needed the most. All of a sudden, the leftist forces are now desperately trying to project themselves as the sole secular face in a bid to win back the trust of the Hindu voter,' Haindava Keralam, a pro-Hindu website, recently wrote.

However, political observers in the state believe that the new 'secular tactics' may not save LDF from an imminent electroal rout. The 'tactical policies' that it adopted in the last elections are still quite fresh in the minds of the people and these memories are likely to return to haunt the Kerala Marxists and their allies in an election that, like the recent municipal polls in West Bengal, will be a litmus test.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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Economy: Is us facing great depression

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American families are about to lose unemployment benefits, health insurance, or both

Paul Krugman Economist and NYT Columnist

What's the greatest threat to our still-fragile economic recovery? Dangers abound, of course. But what I currently find most ominous is the spread of a destructive idea: The view that now, less than a year into a weak recovery from the worst slump since World War II, is the time for policymakers to stop helping the jobless and start inflicting pain.

When the financial crisis first struck, most of the world's policymakers responded appropriately, cutting interest rates and allowing deficits to rise. And by doing the right thing, by applying the lessons learned from the 1930s, they managed to limit the damage: It was terrible, but it wasn't a second Great Depression.

Now, however, demands that governments switch from supporting their economies to punishing them have been proliferating in op-eds, speeches and reports from international organisations. Indeed, the idea that what depressed economies really need is even more suffering seems to be the new conventional wisdom, which John Kenneth Galbraith famously defined as 'the ideas which are esteemed at any time for their acceptability.'

The extent to which inflicting economic pain has become the accepted thing was driven home to me by the latest report on the economic outlook from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, an influential Paris-based think tank supported by the governments of the world's advanced economies. The OECD is a deeply cautious organisation; what it says at any given time virtually defines that moment's conventional wisdom. And what the OECD is saying right now is that policymakers should stop promoting economic recovery and instead begin raising interest rates and slashing spending.

What's particularly remarkable about this recommendation is that it seems disconnected not only from the real needs of the world economy, but from the organisation's own economic projections. Thus, the OECD declares that interest rates in the United States and other nations should rise sharply over the next year and a half, so as to head off inflation. Yet inflation is low and declining, and the OECD's own forecasts show no hint of an inflationary threat. So why raise rates? The answer, as best I can make it out, is that the organisation believes that we must worry about the chance that markets might start expecting inflation, even though they shouldn't and currently don't: We must guard against 'the possibility that longer-term inflation expectations could become unanchored in the OECD economies, contrary to what is assumed in the central projection.'

A similar argument is used to justify fiscal austerity. Both textbook economics and experience say that slashing spending when you're still suffering from high unemployment is a really bad idea ' not only does it deepen the slump, but it does little to improve the budget outlook, because much of what governments save by spending less they lose as a weaker economy depresses tax receipts. And the OECD predicts that high unemployment will persist for years. Nonetheless, the organisation demands both that governments cancel any further plans for economic stimulus and that they begin 'fiscal consolidation' next year.

Why do this? Again, to give markets something they shouldn't want and currently don't. Right now, investors don't seem at all worried about the solvency of the U.S. government; the interest rates on federal bonds are near historic lows. And even if markets were worried about U.S. fiscal prospects, spending cuts in the face of a depressed economy would do little to improve those prospects. But cut we must, says the OECD, because inadequate consolidation efforts 'would risk adverse reactions in financial markets.'

The best summary I've seen of all this comes from Martin Wolf of The Financial Times, who describes the new conventional wisdom as being that 'giving the markets what we think they may want in future ' even though they show little sign of insisting on it now ' should be the ruling idea in policy.' Put that way, it sounds crazy. Yet it's a view that's spreading. And it's already having ugly consequences. Last week conservative members of the House, invoking the new deficit fears, scaled back a bill extending aid to the long-term unemployed ' and the Senate left town without acting on even the inadequate measures that remained. As a result, many American families are about to lose unemployment benefits, health insurance, or both ' and as these families are forced to slash spending, they will endanger the jobs of many more. And that's just the beginning. Even conventional wisdom says that the responsible thing is to make the unemployed suffer. And while the benefits from inflicting pain are an illusion, the pain itself will be too real.


An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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THE LOST STATE: HOW AND WHY JHARKHAND IS IN A HOPELESS MESS

IIPM BBA MBA Institute: Student Notice Board

At the mercy of Guruji

As politicians fiddle while Jharkhand hurtles out of control, hopes of a long-term turnaround for the beleaguered state have all but vanished into thin air

When, on November 15, 2000, the state of Jharkhand was carved out of nearly half of Bihar’s geographical territory, about a quarter of its population and all of its mineral wealth, the new entity had much going for it. Of the annual revenues of Rs 10,000 crore that Bihar generated at that point, Jharkhand got 65 per cent.

Having had a clear headstart in terms of industrial development thanks to initiatives in Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Bokaro and Dhanbad and being enviably rich in mineral and natural resources, Jharkhand had economic indices that were all positive. Observers predicted that the new state would prosper and Bihar would sink further into impoverishment.

Since then much water has flown down the Subarnarekha – the river got its name because legend has it that gold was once mined at its origin in a small village near Ranchi, the capital of Jharkhand. But a goldmine is the last thing the state can hope to strike given the ham-handed way it has been run all these years.

The hope and excitement have abated. Today, Jharkhand, as it begins its second bout of President’s rule in six months, is in danger of being written off as a failed experiment, a stinging riposte to those who argue in favour of smaller states.

Jharkhand has been in existence for a few months shy of a decade. Its progress report is abysmal. Stagnation has stalked it at every step, and the purpose for which the state was set up – improving the lot of the tribal communities that inhabit its forested areas – has not been served. Jharkhand is lost in the woods.

While Bihar, driven by a new-found political will, is in the process of scripting a remarkable turnaround story, Jharkhand languishes at the very bottom of the development index heap, unable to tide over the severe distortions of a political system controlled by those that are blinded by the thirst for power.

Is the repeated fractured electoral mandate that the people hand out the real bane of Jharkhand? “Don’t blame the voters,” says Shivanand Tiwari, JD (U) national spokesman and Rajya Sabha MP from Bihar. “It is a crisis of leadership in Jharkhand. The state does not have a credible political force that the people can trust and whole-heartedly support. It simply hasn’t emerged.”

Indeed, it is Jharkhand’s political leaders and administrators who have let the state down – very badly and repeatedly. The frequent body blows have left Jharkhand in a complete mess. There are no signs that might indicate that things are about to get better. More than half of Jharkhand’s population – around 27 per cent of which is tribal – live below the poverty line. Corruption is a norm, opportunism the guiding mantra. Shibu Soren, the man who led the movement for a separate Jharkhand for several decades, could have made the difference. But he found himself embroiled in a series of political scandals, including one that stemmed from a murder charge and another that was related to a bribes-for-votes deal in which Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) MPs were paid hefty sums to support the P.V. Narsimha Rao government at the Centre in a no-confidence motion in 1993.

Guruji, as Soren is known to his supporters, has lost ground owing to his unpredictable ways, both in the state and at the national level. He is but a pale shadow of the tribal rights crusader that he once was. As his son, Hemant Soren, jockeys for a position of strength in the state, the image of Jharkhand’s first family, pretty much like that of the state itself, is in dire need of refurbishment.

The result is that a state that was formed essentially to serve the interests of its indigenous communities is today in the grip of intense tribal disaffection. The political process has been hijacked by vested interests. The threat of Maoist violence hangs heavy over the state as the government barters away forest land to big industrial players that are looking to exploit Jharkhand’s huge reserves of iron, coal, bauxite, copper, mica and limestone, among other minerals.


Everything that could have gone wrong has gone wrong in Jharkhand. Large-scale industrialisation has led to extensive environmental degradation and rapid depletion of the state’s forest cover and water resources. Moreover, the growing avarice of the people in power has unleashed corrupt commercial and political practices, unbridled exploitation of the tribal communities and a process of slapdash urbanisation.

The anomalies have multiplied. The indigenous people of the state are now in a majority in only a handful of the 22 districts of Jharkhand. Dwindling water resources and botched-up irrigation projects have placed the tribals at the mercy of the elements. Even if the state does receive a good monsoon, no more than a single harvest a year is currently possible. For the rest of the year, the Adivasis, including women and children, are forced to work on daily wages in mines, quarries and civil projects in abominable circumstances.

It has been all downhill for Jharkhand because the state has never quite managed to wriggle out of its political limbo. The state is once again back to square one. After 11 months of President’s Rule last year, it went to the polls in the hope a getting a new government by Christmas. It did. On December 30, 2009, Soren took over as chief minister for the third time with support from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and JD(U).

A crisis was triggered when the Jharkhand chief minister voted in favour of the Congress in a cut motion in the Lok Sabha in April. The BJP withdrew support. But sensing an opportunity of heading the Jharkhand government on a rotational basis, the party decided to get into negotiations with the JMM. A deal was struck. The two parties agreed to form a government, with BJP taking first strike and then vacating the CM’s post 28 months on for the JMM. But when push came to shove, Soren refused to step aside. The deal fell through. With no party in a position to form an alternative government, Jharkhand is under central rule once again. Plagued by greedy self-serving politicians, corporate entities out to dip into the state’s mineral reserves and make a killing and mounting tribal unrest, the state is fast hurtling out of control. “It is really shameful that Jharkhand can't a government that lasts,” says social activist and student leader Uday Shankar Ojha. “This is a complete travesty of democracy.”

Jharkhand has seen seven governments rise and fall in less than ten years and now an eighth attempt to cobble together a new dispensation has also come unstuck. Says veteran journalist Hari Narayan Singh: “The greed for power among politicians has become so overwhelming that expecting real development to happen would be asking for too much. The men who lead Jharkhand are terribly myopic – all that they are interested in is the reins of power so that they can siphon off public money for themselves and their parties.”

It is free-for-all season in Jharkhand. Where else could an Independent MLA turned chief minister, the son of a Ho Adivasi mine worker and himself a one-time welder, have spirited away Rs 4,000 crore and buy mines for himself and his cronies in Liberia and Thailand?

Former Jharkhand chief minister Madhu Koda may now be cooling his heels in a jail along with four of his one-time Cabinet colleagues, but the grab-whatever-you-can-while-you-can spirit that he represented continues to make its presence felt in the corridors of power in Jharkhand. Over 100 MoUs have been signed for industrial and mining projects in Jharkhand and there is no way of knowing with any degree of certitude whose pockets are being lined in the bargain although the needle of suspicion does point to the men who call the shots – the ruling establishment and the bureaucracy.

Bihar JD(U) leader Shivanand Tiwari is aghast at the plight of Jharkhand. “No state in India can claim to be as rich in resources as Jharkhand, but show me one state that is worse off than Jharkhand today. Who would have ever imagined that Jharkhand would come to such a pass? The people’s hopes have been completely dashed,” he says.

Says academician and Rajya Sabha member Ram Dayal Munda: “Ten years certainly isn’t a long time in the life of a state. Jharkhand is going through a difficult phase and this is not be the end of its woes. Worse might be up ahead. The trouble is that the political leadership here does not seem to have the will to do something about changing things for the better.”

The brief history of the state of Jharkhand is littered with broken dreams, squandered promises and shattered hopes because its politicians have never been able to rise above their petty interests. They have proven to be a bunch of opportunists who simply cannot see beyond their own noses – and coffers. The state has repeatedly been witness to the sorry spectacle of horse-trading of the most shameful kind, quick-fix coalitions forged to serve narrow political ends and brazen embezzlement of public money. The state bleeds in every which way. In the nine and a half years of its existence, Maoist violence has taken a toll of the lives of nearly 3,000 police personnel and others, including two legislators. But in the five months of Shibu Soren’s third tenure as chief minister, Jharkhand saw a marked lull in Maoist depredations.

The JMM supremo’s Maoist sympathies are well known – he gave party tickets to six Maoists in the last Assembly elections and is alleged to have won his own seat with the help of the extremist elements in the state. Now that he is out of the saddle, there are fears that Jharkhand will be hit by a renewed spurt in Maoist violence.

The people are at the end of their tether. Corruption is almost a stated official policy in Jharkhand – it gets worse by the day even as the bureaucracy – which, too, has its hands in the till – continues to be completely unresponsive to the grievances of the people. The Jharkhand populace has nobody to turn to for succour. Since the founding of Jharkhand, Maoists have forced parts of the state to observe 700 days of bandh, which adds up to a total of almost two years.

Hari Narayan Singh holds the national political parties equally responsible for the state of affairs in the state. “The national parties haven’t been able to go beyond politics in Jharkhand. As a result, things have floundered here without let,” he laments.

All the four men who have held the chief minister’s post in the state – Babulal Marandi, Shibu Soren, Arjun Munda and Madhu Koda – are from tribal communities. After the latest Assembly election, the BJP did toy with the idea of propping up a non-tribal politician – either senior party leader Yashwant Sinha or Jharkhand deputy chief minister Raghubar Das – as the leader of the state government, but was eventually compelled to stick to the tried and tested Arjun Munda. But with Soren and his overly ambitious son, Hemant, putting the spanner in the BJP’s works, the proposed coalition based on a power-sharing arrangement proved a non-starter.

“It is important for the big national parties to come forward and play a constructive role in building Jharkhand,” says Harivansh, chief editor of Prabhat Khabar. “For democracy and the process of development to take proper roots here, the rule of law has to be re-established.”

The worsening Jharkhand scenario has obviously given the state’s intelligentsia, or whatever is left of it, no cause for cheer. Ram Dayal Munda blames the situation on the fact that Jharkhand hasn’t still been able to cut its “umbilical cord” with Bihar. “I feel that Jharkhand never quite managed to break away in the real sense from the mother state,” he explains. “It is still very much under Bihar’s shadow. Bihar is beginning to move on but Jharkhand is unfortunately still trapped in a time warp.”

Intellectuals in the state point to the fact that much of the state’s woes might have stemmed from the fact that the tribal leadership has failed to carve out its own identity. They have chosen to mimic the discredited political ways of the outsiders (locally referred to as diku) who constitute nearly 70 per cent of Jharkhand’s population.

Says Harivansh: “On the parameters of administration and development, Jharkhand has been a complete disaster. No wonder the state is now looking for its eighth chief minister in a period of less than ten years.”

The search for stability is still very much on, but hope is clearly on the wane. Jharkhand came into being nearly ten years ago on Adivasi icon and freedom fighter Birsa Munda’s birth anniversary. Both the legend and his dream have all but been forgotten.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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