Maps for a mortal moon

Book Review: Fiction/Maps for a Mortal Moon: Selected prose by Adil Jussawalla—Edited& introduced by Jerry Pinto, Aleph, 340pp; Rs495 (Paperback)

Maps for a Mortal Moon should be in the essential reading list.

The worst thing about being a human being is being a human being. ‘I wish I was bird’, as the railway clerk in Nissim Ezekiel’s poem says. But if I were, the worst thing about being a bird would be being a bird.

Adil Jussawalla supremely talented literary world is uniquely diverse and unwaveringly at peace with others’ writing—so you read many such good pointers while turning the pages of this beautiful book. Jussawalla, a prolific poet, columnist, critic—and all together is a person in existence, for moving with the carefully chosen letters.

And no one could have a better choice as an editor like Jerry Pinto to compile the selected prose of Adil Jussawalla—he is another gem from Mumbai, who kept distance from limelight to succeed on humane grounds—in writings and at personal front.

The book is uniquely rich through the essays and entertainments, mostly published earlier as well—but here in collection, those appear giving better sense of collectiveness. And on another count, this book seems getting good success in offering Adil Jussawala’s specific and less known works to the new genre of readers—and while doing this, the coverages go in great deal on language, poetry, ethics, aeroplanes, death, addiction, travel alienation etc.

The protagonists of Jussawall could be anyone and from locale—conventional or exceptional.The book remarkably comes on Bombay of pre 1990—hence we see a greater coverage of Jussawalla’s own perspective on the city. That part charms most, especially when Jussawalla’s appearances surface in different form—from a journalist, book critic to a writer with less noise and all sensibilities.

Earlier, Jussawalla has written four anthologies of poems: Land’s End (1962), Missing Person (1976), Trying to Say Goodbye (2012) and The Right Kind of Dog (2013)—and put together a great book, New Writing in India (1974).

Recalling these five books is meant to see, how elusive and infrequent this writer has been for his untargeted readers, who yet stayed incorrigible and waiting for his books. As Jussawalla’s writing and his own self is inseparable from the unusual urbane construction of Bombay—so a greater degree of attention on this city makes him a near-legendary chronicler of a certain timeframe, in which this city had seen transformative changes.

Unvaryingly, Jussawalla’s writings maintain intelligent poignancy, wit, melancholy—Maps for a Mortal Moon easily gets breakthrough in following his own standard, set effortlessly.

The readers would find like winning an strategy, if they would read this book for the purpose to know the cultural shifts and political changes over the past forty years—that strongly inserted ‘change’ as virtue to be not missed. That has been fairly damaging and we see eruption of unheard complications at individual and at mass level.

Both Adil and Jerry has known their city closely and in daily struggle—can same accuracy one can have on the city from living in a house cruelly priced $2billion or looking on Arabian sea from the thick glasses of Taj Hotel?

The point is not in subverting the ‘grandness’ but bringing back the issues at fore and with fair reasons. The much celebrated tag ‘maximum city’ is certainly a caricature on Bombay, which helps keeping it in a sort of euphoria, an escaping route from its ugly underbelly.

Sometime directly and on occasions with smoke signals, Jussawala puts forward the complex realities, not so obvious to the species lost in efforts of saving their fragile existence. Certainly, Jussawalla is an existentialist but a maverick at same time—that reasonably keep his writings at distance from the fashioned existential philosophy.

Not to gain or lose, Jussawall is a writer with consine—who has seen the suffering and not stopped delving with the harsh realities. This is an extraordinary accomplishment of him— and something, with which, many writers don’t go far ahead. A great gift to the serious prose readers, Maps for a Mortal Moon should be in their essential reading list.

This book is one of the major non-fiction entries in 2014— Adil, Jerry and Aleph publications deserve praise for coming out with this standard project.
-Atul K Thakur
Email: summertickets@gmail.com
(Published in The Kashmir Walla on March26,2014)

India at turning point:Interpreter of curable maladies

Book Review: Non-fiction/ India at Turning Point: The Road to Good Governance by T.S.R. Subramanian, Rainlight/Rupa, 274 pp; Rs595 (Hardback)

T S R Subramanian – with an insider’s insight and outsider’s rage – has made a frontal attack on the ills of Indian government and bureaucratic setup in his latest book India at Turning Point: The Road to Good Governance.

This is remarkable since Indian babus, in general, are not known for practicing forthright polemics and coming out with scathing criticism of issues plaguing their own bastion, the bureaucracy.

What is even more striking about the book is Subramanian chooses not to pepper the narrative with recollections of his own foregone privileges as a civil servant. Evidently, he doesn’t think much of those hallowed yet conceited ‘benefits’; hence, quite rightly, his narrative does justice to the underlying intent of writing this much-needed book.

The essays are incisive, and the compilation as an anthology – covering wide ranges of political and administrative issues – works at many levels.

Subramanian’s experiences travel well and far, not only into the power corridors of the Capital, but in fact, journey into the hinterlands and gather spectacular wisdom. While recalling different stages of his career, he, fortunately, doesn’t come across as either a white or a brown sahib.

Instead, he turns out to be someone who has learned his way up, cutting through the grinding formality of official procedures and the unnecessarily encumbered and slow-moving wheel of Indian administration. There are, of course, the occasional tributes.

But what really hooks you to these well-written pages is his pointed criticism of the system as well as the policy movers and shakers. Frankly, the unputdownable elements add a dash of fun and frolic to this weighty hardback.

Particularly, when he chooses an eminent politician like N D Tiwari to detail how high-ranked former cabinet ministers pick their itinerary, preferring to go Thailand and roving around in the city after sunset! Of course, flouting security and other protocols.

As an ‘India book,’ this one starts with gloom and reaches the opposite end with optimism. Primarily, India at Turning Point seeks to highlight the factors – Parliament, intelligence agencies and even cricket – for keeping governance in check and good health. The argument develops further: why our perfectly ‘curable maladies’ are not being treated?

Since 1947, India as a nation has made significant strides. However, those were not enough. The realisation is growing stronger, as democracy is deepened everyday. Despite having followed a ‘reluctant revivalist’ tendency for over six decades, now, in an increasingly technocratic situation, the overall ‘governance discourse’ is gaining ground to charter something as desired by the people and emerging directly out of the compelling necessities.

This book will be in circulation for strong reasons, foremost among them being its timing. India is passing through an unprecedented cusp of changes and really calling it the ‘turning point’ makes perfect sense.

But hope is not on the wane in this book or the atmosphere it tries to capture. Irrespective of tough challenges, the tribe of ‘incorrigible optimists’ still fires up the engines of its centre and periphery. As Subramanian asks if India has stopped following sustainable political and economic principles, we wonder if his question has an answer at all.
-Atul K Thakur
Mail: summertickets2gmail.com
(Published in Millennium Post on March2,2014)

In praise of new Bihar

Book Review: Non-fiction/The new Bihar: Rekindling Governance and Development by N K Singh and Nicholas Stern (edited), Harper Collins, 387 pp; Rs799 (Hardback)
Among India’s states, Bihar has long been considered something of a ‘political laboratory’, owing to how, during the anti-colonial movement of the 20th century or in the decades post-independence, it had hosted a series of political movements with overarching effects.

Most noticeable among these had been the JP Movement, which resulted in a national emergency, the imposition of which was proof of the intolerance of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi for a new kind of reactionary politics, led by arch socialist and close friend of Nehru’s, Jay Prakash Narayan.

The movement produced many other leaders over time, including Lalu Prasad Yadav, Nitish Kumar and Ram Vilas Paswan—three individuals who have been at the helm of Bihar’s politics in the post-Mandal Commission era.

In the years between 1990 and 2004, Bihar had dropped alarmingly low on the developmental indices. But change was at hand when the people brought Nitish Kumar and his allies to power. And it’s the immediate impact of that shift, and the policies that made it possible, that the book The New Bihar: Rekindling Governance and Development, edited by NK Singh and Nicholas Stern, deals with. Comprising the input of well-known developmental economists and policy experts, this anthology aims to highlight the Bihar model of development.

In the 1990s, Lalu Prasad Yadav, an early beneficiary of Lohiaite socialism, had made Bihar a ‘governance-free’ entity of sorts. The state had been set on a downhill trajectory then, which was further sped up by Yadav’s conviction in a fodder scam, following which he passed the mantle to his politically clueless wife. In those years, India was growing at an unprecedented pace, but Bihar appeared to be losing out.

Then came Nitish Kumar. Unlike his predecessors, he took major initiatives to improve governance, infrastructure, education, health, power and agriculture—the reason why, in the last six years, Bihar has achieved such accelerated development compared to other states in the country.

In the book, eminent economists like Amartya Sen, Kaushik Basu, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Meghnad Desai, Shankar Acharya and Arvind Virmani analyse the remarkable turnaround witnessed by Bihar, while policy experts Tarun Das, Deepak Parekh, Lord Billimoria, KV Kamath and Isher Judge Ahluwalia speak of the opportunities and challenges ahead. Most pieces are written in praise of Nitish Kumar, particularly the steps taken in the initial five years of his governance that ensured the functional mainstreaming of the state.

The New Bihar comprises 29 essays altogether. Among these, Sen, who also heads the Nalanda University Project in the state, looks into its distinguished past; Basu, in brief, skims over the fall and rise of Bihar in the last few decades; Acharya, Virmani and Desai discuss the state’s journey to such high economic growth; and Ahluwalia stresses on the importance of urbanisation—although her remarks don’t really seem adequately well-informed regarding Bihar’s ground realities.

Also included is a piece by Swaminathan Anklesaria Aiyar, among the earliest endorsers of Nitish Kumar’s work, who identifies the critical role of leadership in shaping the developmental agenda against the many odds.

We also have Rukmini Banerjee, who follows the grassroots efforts in uplifting education around the country, and her essay incorporates a lively first-hand account of Bihar’s exceptionally well-functioning primary and girl education policies.

All the accomplishments enumerated in this book paint a picture of a state that was in shambles only a few decades ago, not just in terms of infrastructure, but also how firmly it was in the grips of identity politics back then. But Nitish Kumar and his friend Sushil Modi were able to take an almost bankrupt Bihar and turn it into a state of surplus revenue.

Maintaining this momentum, and reaching the next level of inclusive development, however, is a different story, and the book also touches upon what is to come. The Bharatiya Janata Party is no longer with Kumar’s Janata Dal (United), and it appears unlikely that he will be able to return alone after the assembly poll that has been scheduled in 2015.

However, it is certain that he will remain a key political figure in the state, and the legacy he leaves—particularly the notion that good work earns the good will and trust of the masses—will hopefully keep successive governments from straying too far from the development agenda.

Indeed, whatever Kumar and his ilk have done in the first five years of taking over Bihar have been extraordinary to say the least. He is an acclaimed leader, whose celebrity has stretched beyond India’s boundaries as well. Time and again, for instance, he has tried forging an understanding with Nepal on issues concerning the state and adjoining areas beyond the borders.

However, in a federal polity like India, the head of a state has limited say, more so when the centre is ruled by a different political entity. But there is much Nepal could take away from Bihar’s story—for a country that has been grappling with political deadlock for so long, and which has resulted in a sagging developmental track record, the Bihar model offers up a great many suggestions on how to bounce back with an eye on progress.

The book essentially recognises the passion and effectiveness of a doer, who did not take the luxury pass to power. But it’s also careful not to over-glorify, and stresses time and again on the hurdles ahead for the state and others like it.

The majority of the pieces in The New Bihar are engaging and thought provoking, and will no doubt take the Bihar story, and the story of Nitish Kumar—a ‘thinking politician’, as historian Ramachandra Guha was inclined to call him—to wider audiences than ever before.
-Atul K Thakur
Email: summertickets@gmail.com
(Published in The Kathmandu Post on April12,2014)

India’s tryst with democracy

Book Review: Non-fiction/Battles Half Won: India’s Improbable Democracy by Ashutosh Varshney, Penguin, 415 pp; Rs599 (Hardback)

Ashutosh Varshney has long been considered a formidable scholar of South Asian politics and his latest book is a significant addition to his repertoire, particularly at a point in time when Indian politics is undergoing transformations of an unprecedented nature. Battles Half Won: India’s Improbable

Democracy is a compilation of several pieces that seek to trace India’s political trajectory, from the time of its birth to the modern day. What is at the heart of the book is the idea that India is struggling to establish a deeper, more definitive democracy. Varshney has well-captured the centrist tendency in Indian politics, particularly at the national level.

In the states, he says, identities of various sorts still rule the course of political action and outcome. Great use is made of facts and figures to prop up his ideas, testifying to the author’s skill as a truly effective political scientist.
India is presently at a stage wherein the expectations of the electorate are quite diverse, apropos of how the system and its representatives respond to them.

But still we see a Narendra Modi seeking to make his party, his government in Gujarat, and in imagination, the country, an overt extension of his personality. It was the same mistake, in fact, that Indira Gandhi had committed almost four decades ago, making the Congress party her territory.

For a party that had been shaped by a standard democrat like Nehru post-independence, and still carrying some notional attributes of the anti-colonial movement, this had proved a major setback. Varshney emphasises that without the freedom movement, India’s nationhood would have been inconceivable, which means democracy
too would’ve been inconceivable.

He focuses especially on the consolidation of national democracy after 1947, calling it the next remarkable event after India’s independence—where the decisive leadership of Nehru played a major role. It is appreciable that while doling out these analyses, the author is able to keep his personal biases on hold, one of the many strengths of his writing.

The book touches upon, at one point, Mahatma Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj, a radical piece of work. While stressing on Gandhi’s political preferences, Varshney adds, “It is noteworthy that Gandhi himself was not very fond of representative government, his ideal polity was one that had local village republics, more in line with direct, non-representative democracy.” Does this mean then that the Aam Aadmi Party of today is following Gandhian principle?

I suppose that is unlikely, as the AAP, in core, doesn’t oppose representative politics, nor is it its express objective to make representatives accountable. Rather, what the AAP is pursuing is the ‘trivialisation of representation’, visible in the way it has vested the Mohalla Sabha (meetings among residents of a ‘mohalla’, a smaller partition of a ward) with such supreme power.

Given its heavy-handed political maneuverings so far, the party’s plan to contest the general elections in a big way will be much messier, of course. But its strong emergence in the scene has certainly brought democracy under close scrutiny. Varshney offers substantial space in his book for present-day politics, new bases of coalitions, governance and economic reforms—all elaborated upon in his signature style, now become quite popular through the means of his widely read column in the Indian Express.

Like he tends to do in many his opinionated writings in newspapers and academic journals, his book too draws out the differences between the “quality of democracy and existence of democracy.” He envisions India as a mature democracy that has a deeply unstable core, thanks to the socio-economic inequalities and challenges it has encountered with regards to its territorial integrity, making the battle for “deeper democracy” the need of the hour. And the AAP, for Varshney, is an example of the forces within this battle.

For the most part, Battles Half Won analyses the factors behind the deepening of Indian democracy since 1947 and the challenges these have created. The book broadly traces the forging and consolidation of India s “improbable democracy”. The essays delve into themes ranging from caste politics and ethnic conflict, and Hindu nationalism to the north-south economic divide and the politics of economic reform since 1991—issues that have consistently tested the calibre of Indian democracy.

The book also highlights the adverseness of not relying on “intelligent economics”; AAP ideologue Yogendra Yadav, for instance, has made his party’s intentions clear on that by shifting the political and economic agenda away from the “shackle of isms”.

Of course, this is merely in principle so far, and it remains to be seen what the execution will actually be like. But the potential impact of new politics, championed by the AAP—the way it has encroached on the traditional turf of left or right-leaning forces, by injecting flexibility into economic policies and matters of governance—is something that greatly interests our author.

Given the Anna Hazare campaign, which proved so popular a while back, and now with AAP’s swift rise in the power circle, Varshney feels that the bulk of citizens in India are now eager to participate in the overall political process.

While examining all these changes, the book also indicates the next course of development as far as democracy in India is concerned. In Varshney’s view, Indian democracy is the sort that becomes more progressive the more unsettling changes it comes across. After all, time and again, all kinds of political hiccups in India have been solemnised—although with varying degrees of success.

Then again, the stakes are much higher at the moment, and forward-looking Indians can no longer trust a government that offers less than a two-percent job growth rate, for example. Now is the time for political parties to be as prompt in terms of their actions as their electorates are with their expectations. Overlooking that would be detrimental for success in the political fray as other countries in South Asia have evidenced.

Articulate and authoritative, Varshney’s book offers fresh insights into several crucial areas, elements that have shaped India into what it is today, whether that be the complex set of relations under the country’s federal system, the challenges of territorial/cultural diversities, and the contradictory outcomes of economic reforms, among others. Battles Half Won looks back very diligently on successes and failures of India’s tryst with democracy—which despite having many flaws, is charting its course with no full stop.
-Atul K Thakur
Email: summertickets2gmail.com
(Published in The Kathmandu Post on February22,2014)

UPA plays the numbers game

P Chidambaram may have shown his articulate command over pure economics and political economy, time and again. But his understanding hasn't led to the enhancement of the country’s macro-economic health
The recently presented interim Union Budget is skewed. The Vote on Account gives no space to overhaul the revenue or expenditure sides, and its provisions will haunt the successive Government as the latter seeks to review or implement policy. The last Union Budget of UPA2 lacks serious intents of fiscal consolidation.

The Union Minister for Finance spent his precious time personifying the achievements of his Government as well as his personal wisdom. Unrelated to Indian economy’s woes, the statements irritated the sufferers of the UPA’s macro-economic mismanagement.

The Indian economy has been passing through trying times, with the GDP growth sliding below five per cent and inflation hovering around 7.5 per cent. Consumer price inflation, which affects the common man the most, has been around 10 per cent or more. And food inflation rarely climbs down from the double-digits. Industrial and services growth has dropped and jobs have withered away from the scene. Naturally, the slowdown created by different factors constituted in a big way to the anti-Government mood among the masses.

An election is around the corner and the legions of the UPA have no proper ideas to curb bad governance. They could have moved to the better path when Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi admitted the policy blunders of his Government, but sadly the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister observed that history will be kinder to them than their contemporary critics. Will this be true?

It is unlikely that any proper history-writing will let off the UPA2, characterised by scams and indecision which have lowered the morale of the economy and the people. Recent years have witnessed an erosion of confidence in economic activities at the mass level. The sagging sentiment has taken a high toll on the growth momentum.

UPA2 couldn’t live up to the benchmark set by UPA1. The excuse of the Finance Minister that it still performed better than the six years of NDA rule is an eyewash through data. In the NDA Government, average GDP growth rate and inflation stood simultaneously at six per cent and around 4.5 per cent. Under UPA1, average GDP growth shot higher at 8.4 per cent but inflation too rose to 6.6 per cent, and UPA2 ends with an average GDP growth of 6.7 per cent and inflation surging over eight per cent.

Astonishingly, the UPA2 has no patience to recall the good work of its own preceding Government. Instead it is comparing its performance with the NDA Government even though the fundamentals for it were different compared to the previous decade which was known for the rise of emerging economies like India.

It is undeniable that the global economic crisis of 2007-2008 messed-up the external environment. The economic slowdown has severely damaged the rising momentum in emerging economies but India has suffered more through the sustained high inflation, supported by impractical policy planning.

The UPA’s much celebrated commitment to inclusive growth made on modest gains on the ground. In 2003-2004, Gross Tax Revenues stood at 8.8 per cent of GDP — this figure witnessed a vertical growth under UPA1 to 12 per cent of GDP in 2008-2009 but came down dramatically to near 10 per cent of GDP under UPA2. Capital outlay and subsidies have modestly risen under the UPA rule but whether the funds were delivered for intended purposes remains a concern.

On the public expenditure front, the NDA Government spent around 2.6 per cent and one per cent of the GDP, respectively on education and health. Under the UPA rule, total public expenditure on education and health, respectively stood at 3.3 per cent and 1.3 per cent of the GDP. This clearly marked the violation of Common Minimum Programme of the UPA1 Government, which had promised spending six per cent of GDP on education and three per cent of the GDP on health facilities.

Mr P Chidambaram, who has presented many Budgets, failed to clean up the indirect taxation regime since 1991. Only Messrs Manmohan Singh and Yashwant Sinha, as Finance Ministers, tried to reform import duties and excise. So, Mr Chidamabaram’s claim to be a progressive mover of the public finances seems unbelievable. This last one was an interim Budget and he may have bound by electoral compulsions but the same was not true in previous years.

The interim Budget estimates fiscal deficit for 2013-14 at 4.6 per cent of the GDP, over-performing the target of 4.8 per cent of the GDP and projects next year’s deficit at 4.1 per cent, again better than the projected 4.2 per cent. But these do not including the pain of carrying revenue deficit at 3.3 per cent.

Time and again, Mr Chidambaram has shown his articulate command over pure economics and political economy. However, his understanding hasn’t translated in macro-economic health of the nation.
-Atul K Thakur
Email: summertickets2gmail.com
(Published in The Pioneer on February25,2014)

Under-estimating the potential

Monarchy has given way to democracy in Nepal. But the executive head of the world's largest democracy has chosen not to be an enthusiastic enough part of the great political transition taking place right next door

Last month, at a reception at the Embassy of Nepal in New Delhi, I asked Nepal’s visiting interim Minister of Home Affairs and Foreign Affairs, Mr Madhav P Ghimire, if he, on behalf of Mr Khil Raj Regmi, the Chairman of Nepal’s Council of Ministers, had extended an invitation to the Indian Prime Minister to visit Kathmandu. Mr Ghimire said he did, and that he was also visibly impressed with the warmth he received in New Delhi for his handling of the second Constituent Assembly election in Nepal.

Right after his visit, Press reports suggested that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was willing to visit Kathmandu after the new Government there had been formed. This would be a path-breaking step. It would certainly do some long-overdue damage control for India-Nepal relations. India has maintained a long-standing apathy towards its northern neighbour, especially in terms of high-level diplomatic and political engagement.

On occasions, the leadership and citizens of Nepal have wondered when the Indian Prime Minister will make an official visit to their country, otherwise considered to be a most strategic neighbour. For decades, Nepal has awaited a visit by an Indian Prime Minister, but India’s Ministry of External Affairs and the Prime Minister’s Office have been slow to respond.

It is also bizarre that ceremonial trips by the Indian President too have been on hold. Yet such visits would have helped give bilateral ties a much-needed level playing field. That Nepal’s own political establishment has been on a roller-coaster ride itself, not to mention is still fragile, has only made the whole scenario more precarious.

In New Delhi, the South Block routes its resources and infrastructure in a manner that overlooks the genuine expectations from its immediate neighbours. This is particularly shocking when one takes into account the fact that Nepal’s front rank leadership has always preferred its southern neighbour as its most trusted destination. It is true that there was an increased favour for China when a radical Government was at the helm in Nepal. This had also evoked some strong reactions in New Delhi. But with the extremist regime now a spent force, the ice has melted in no time.

The visit of Maoist Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, popularly known as Prachanda, to Beijing before he travelled New Delhi, in 2008, offended India and supposedly resulted in his premature ouster from office. He was replaced by his deputy Baburam Bhattarai. An alumnus of an Indian university, Mr Bhattarai did not repeat the follies of his predecessor and brought back the bonhomie back between the two countries.

Sans that one hiccup with Prachanda, Nepal’s Prime Ministers have always naturally leaned towards India. This should have been acknowledged and reciprocated from the Indian side. Inder Kumar Gujral was the last Indian Prime Minister to make an official visit to Nepal in June 1997. In the 17 years since then, no such gesture has been made by his successors. As Prime Minister, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee also came to Kathmandu in January 2002, but that was to attend the 11th summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation.

Yet, as far back as February 1991, during then Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar’s visit to Nepal, both sides had agreed to form a high-level task force to preparing a programme of cooperation under the Nepal-India Joint Commission. But on the unofficial side, this long friend of Nepal also faced the wrath of the masses in the Himalayan nation for his anti-monarchy stand. Still, it must be admitted that Chandra Shekhar had shown enthusiasm on issues concerning Nepal, and this had produced some results. In 1990, though, he was an unpopular person for the average Nepali for whom the king was dear.

Things have drastically changed in the last two decades. The monarchy has given way to a democracy. But the executive head of the world’s largest democracy has chosen not be part of a great political transition taking place right next door. On the contrary, in the past 14 years, all Nepali Prime Ministers except Mr Jhalanath Khanal have visited New Delhi. The former Indian Ambassador to Nepal, Mr Jayant Prasad, termed the long gap in visit by an Indian Prime Minister as unnatural. However, he stressed that the delay could be due to the turmoil and political transition in Kathmandu since 1996.

It is equally surprising that like India, China too hasn’t shown interest in a Kathmandu visit by its Premier. The last Chinese Prime Minister to visit Nepal was Zhu Rongji in May 2001. On this count, China has matched India. When Mr Manmohan Singh received an ailing Girija Prasad Koirala at the airport in 2006, he accorded respect to this towering democrat of South Asia. Mr Singh should come to Kathmandu again, as Nepal is unlikely to have a high calibre leader like Koirala for whom the Indian Prime Minister can softly break protocol.
-Atul K Thakur
Email: summertickets@gmail.com
(Published in The Pioneer on February10,2014)

Skill Development in India: Big Promises, Tall Failures

The globalised world demands skilled manpower to convert growth opportunities into jobs and stable incomes. With millions of new job-seekers entering the job market every year, skill development has become one of India’s urgent priorities.

The 12th Five Year Plan (FYP) has highlighted skill-building as an imperative need to reap India’s so-called demographic dividend. Indian universities and professional institutions churn out hordes of degree and diploma holders, most of them are unemployable because they lack the skills manufacturing and services industries look for.

The bulk of employment is still being created through agriculture, which is subject to seasonal fluctuations. Even skill-based manufacturing sector is sensitive to these seasonal changes as the processing of agricultural products majorly determines its overall production cycle.

It’s true that India has comparative advantage in terms of having a younger workforce than China and all OECD countries, but the drive to scale-up high on these is missing. The world will witness unprecedented shortage of skilled workforce in coming years, but it’s unlikely that with the existing policy framework on skill development, India will be able to tap this chance.

The 11th FYP’s recommendations on the matter led to a three-tier structure: the PM’s National Council, National Skill Development Coordination Board (NSDCB) and the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC).

The NSDCB has spelt out policy advice, and direction in the form of “core principles” and has given a vision to create 500 million skilled people by 2022 through skill systems (which must have high degree of inclusiveness); it has taken upon itself the task of coordinating the skill development efforts of a large number of central ministries/departments and states.

The NSDC has geared itself for preparing comprehensive action plans and activities which would promote public private partnership (PPP) models of financing skill development. In policy outlook, these changes have made the issue of skill development a vital agenda for the governments. The state governments have clearly given more space to channelize the skill development initiatives and reap its benefits as well.

But the challenges on skill development in the 12th FYP are numerous and those are blocking the developmental spirit: the government’s monopoly over the skill training is foremost of them. Therefore, a greater emphasis on PPP model could have best way forward in achieving the real goal of skill development. Through proactive regulation or leverages, individual employers and various industry associations should be given more space for meeting the mammoth challenges of skill creation.

Besides, the need is for better institutional mechanism to carry out impact evaluation and surveys of actual job aspirants. Even today, only about 8 percent of the total workforce in India is employed in the organized sector. The rest are employed in the informal sector, without social safety nets.

Obviously, the quality of employment is better in organized sector but it has limited capacity to absorb a large number of workforces. So the role of services either in organised tertiary sector or through self-employment is important. In given circumstance, it’s essential to promote a balance between labour and capital intensive sectors. Agriculture, tourism and SMEs would be the areas, where suitable action will bring better results.

The amendments to Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, and Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970, and workable social security schemes for both organized (like Rajiv Gandhi Shramik Kalyan Yojna-under ESIC, EPFO etc) and unorganized (like Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojna etc) could make livelihood attainable for all citizens.

So far, the flagship government programmes for sustainable livelihoods (such as Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojna and Swarna Jayanti Shahri Rozgar Yojna ) have not only failed to alleviate the poverty but these all have made corruption firmly established at the lower tier of bureaucracy and on the panchayat level.

Ministries such as Labour& Employment, Human Resource Development, Rural Development and the Urban Development& Poverty Alleviation have launched their skill upgrading programmes, but they are not producing desired results.

Creation of National Skill Development Mission in PPP mode was a good move, but its performance is far from satisfactory. The chances of the NSDC setting up 1,500 new ITIs and 5,000 skill development centers in targeted time are bleak, too.

The Modular Employable Skills (MES) and Skills Development Initiative Scheme (SDIS) adopted by the Ministry of Labour and Employment provide the framework for skill development for school leavers and workers, especially in the unorganised sectors, but again, the results are sub-optimal.

The reason why well-meaning government plans on skill development come to grief is that the existing strategic and implementation models of skills development don’t correspond well with the competitive global requirements of skilling. Of course, India’s IT sector is a beacon of hope but lack of skill development explains why manufacturing has not taken off as a major growth component of India’s economy.

Today, the slow employment generation and its inflationary impact haunt badly. The Phillips Curve reveals it: “lower the employment, higher the rate of inflation”.

A report of Boston Consulting Group and the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) tells that India’s workforce in 2006-07 numbered 484 million: out of this, 273 million were working in rural areas, primarily in agriculture, while 61million were working in manufacturing and about 150 million in services.

The study exposes that 40 percent of the current workforce is illiterate and another 40 percent is represented from school dropouts. Those who have completed formal schooling comprise 10 per cent, meaning that only 10 percent of the overall workforce could be counted as trained.

On the technical front, NASSCOM says that of the 400,000-odd engineering graduates who pass out every year, only 20 percent would meet the industry requirements. The rest would have to go through rigorous training before businesses could find them useful.

However Rita Soni, CEO, NASSCOM Foundation, sees the context in diverse shades: "The role that technology has played in empowering the most marginalized sections in India, be it people from remote areas or persons with disabilities, cannot be completely overlooked. While there are no true silver bullets that the industry can list down as it continues to face challenges, it is encouraging to know that it is already treading the path of inclusive development."

According to the Economic Survey 2011-12, 63.5 million new entrants would be added to the working age group during the period 2011–16. Consultancy majors IMaCS and Aeon Hewitt have added a caveat in this respect: “An incremental shortfall of nearly 350 million people will be surfaced by 2022 in 20 high-growth sectors of the Indian economy, including the infrastructure sector and the unorganized segment.”

Lack of universal access to institutional credit and other financial services is a critical factor that hobbles entrepreneurship in India. The suppressed entrepreneurial impulse adversely impacts skill development.

The problem inherently rests with the financing model of Indian banks, which lays unrealistic emphasis on collaterals or guarantees--the victims of such credit policies are mostly belong to the lower strata. The RBI has to act swiftly on this. But the structural and financial initiatives for the skill enhancement and livelihood would not come into effect until the industry will follow a clearer definition on the employability.

The primary concern of the lending should be to target the prepared individual, who is capable to run a business and nurture entrepreneurship. Though SMEs comes under the priority sector lending tag, it has not obviously helped in big deal by formal lending agencies to assist weaker sections pick their way out of poverty and the aspiring entrepreneurs liberate their animal spirits.

Micro Small and Medium Enterprises Development Act, 2006 became operational with effect from October 2, 2006. The Act replaces the concept of “industry” with “enterprises”. This Act notionally facilitates the promotion, development and enhances the competitiveness of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.

But the ground reality is stark, as MSMEs have no proper advocacy/industry association (barring few obscure and ineffective organisations, like CIMSME /SME Chamber of India) to look after on their interests. The leading industrial chambers-FICCI, CII or others are mostly run for pursuing the interests of big corporations and their attention on MSMEs comes only for keeping ‘high moral ground’.

National Small Industries Corporation (NSIC) has been working since 1955, and over the decades it has proved itself a big elephant of government. With its over-sized secretarial set-up, but shabbily planned programme structures, NSIC mimics the entrepreneurial aspiration of Indian youths. Its website too appears short on informations and high in offering ‘self help tips’ – it drops the dream liner with no tenability-how to become successful entrepreneur?

FICCI Survey on Labour / Skill Shortage for Industry sings a different escapist tune: “Despite having a favorable demographic profile, labor and skill shortage continues to be one of the key concerns for the Indian industry. This problem has been compounded by the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). It seems that MGNREGA has made a perceptible difference to the ‘choice of work’ of the casual labor in rural and semi urban areas.”

Though another study done in 2010 by FICCI -IMACS comes with clearer insight: “There is a need for an independent system to assess quality, comprising all elements of the skill development value chain, right from need assessment and student mobilisation up to training and placement. Current systems are primarily oriented towards quality checks (through trade tests) during the phase of assessment and certification.”

CII has launched its own Skills Development Initiative, which shares the goal of the National Skills Development Agenda to skill 500 million people by 2022. In this endeavour, CII, has set up its first skills centre at Chhindwara, MP, to train people in bar bending, grinding, pipe fitting, welding, etc. (although its functional dividends have yet to be visible, which stands opposite of CII’s hyper exuberance).

CII, along with HPCL, have also launched the ‘Swavalamban’ project to train 2,200 youth in multiple trades. The programmes have local concentration, relevance and in-built flexibility. So far, CII has released five sectoral studies on skills requirements in the constructions, auto, retail, healthcare and banking & financial services sectors. CII has also taken skills development initiatives beyond national boundaries (in Afghanistan, South Africa among the others). For the sake of record, these appear impressive, but still they are not changing the course for desirable outcomes.

T N Thakur, ex-CMD, PTC India and former Deputy Secretary, Ministry of Personnel (GOI), looked after training policy, plan and non-plan training programmes-he also spearheaded the major reforms in UPSC in Rajiv Gandhi government, he shares his views:

"India has very large young population, 70 percent of India's 1.2 billion populations is below 30 years of age. Such young population is a great strength if they are gainfully employed, otherwise they will turn to be a great liability. It's, therefore, imperative for India to have massive skill development programme and create employment opportunities through growth oriented schemes. We cannot distribute wealth if we don't have it. Only a balanced growth alone will bring prosperity and equity."

National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) CEO & MD, Dilip Chenoy, puts his perspectives on this with incorrigible optimism:

“For a country keen to make its way in to the league of advanced nations within the next decade by leveraging its favourable demographic profile, skill development offers the best solution to realize this aspiration. In consonance with this philosophy, the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) through its private sector training partners has been steadfastly engaged in empowering Indian youth by equipping them with the skill sets that would allow them to participate in and contribute to the process of inclusive growth and development.”

He adds: “Till March31, 2013, NSDC Partners-which range from marquee names of corporate India such as NIIT, Future Group, IL&FS, TVS, Aptech, Apollo Hospitals etc to NGOs such as Pratham, and from start-ups such as Empower Pragati and Talent Sprint to educational institutions such as the Centurion Group of Institutions in Orissa-had skilled nearly 6lakh people nationwide. By establishing a presence in 333 districts in 25 states and 2 Union Territories through2, 598 physical and mobile facilities, NSDC Partners have been imparting outcome-linked job-oriented training in a wide array of sectors.”

Many of the NSDC’s Partners such as IL&FS Skills Development (a Special Purpose Vehicle formed between NSDC and IL&FS), NIIT Yuva Jyoti (the NSDC Special Purpose Vehicle with NIIT) or Future Sharp Skills (the NSDC Special Purpose Vehicle with Future Group), for example, have embarked on large-scale training projects capable of training over a hundred thousand or more persons in 10 years either on their own or through consortiums. These could not be said practical, as the big corporations involved with NSDC hardly needs any outside support for their skill needs.

In any case, if NSDC will start thinking for the Infosys or other big corporations’ skill requirements--the rational of its existence would be naturally questioned. A specialized body like NSDC is meant to cater the skill requirements of mass people and small enterprises, which simply cannot afford the professional skill feeding from the open source on commercial rate. A big industry entity should neither seek NSDC’s services and nor NSDC should offer them-MSMEs, must be the vantage point for NSDC.

Presently, its initiatives like: Gram Tarang (Special Purpose Vehicle formed by Orissa-based education major Centurion Group of Institutions), operates in the Naxal (ultra-left wing extremist) belt of Orissa and Andhra Pradesh, and Udaan that empowering graduates and postgraduates of Jammu&Kashmir to join the mainstream and find gainful employment opportunities, hold better promises than high shot collaborations with undeserving big companies.

Dr S Ramadorai, Adviser to the Prime Minister in the National Council on Skill Development, Govt. of India in his interview given to The Times of India, on March12, 2013, pressed for a new rational rapproach from industry on skill creation: “the Industry needs to play a major role in the skilling initiative. With a highly demand-driven labour market, apprenticeship with industries is an important way forward. Currently, such ‘earn while you learn' models have been highly under-leveraged. More wages should be paid to highly skilled people, else training is disincentivised.”

To conclude, today the definition of skill development is fast changing. Under the industrial requirements, skills are supposed to be in consistent updation; so, there is a need for re-ordering the priorities and shifting from the one-dimensional model, which has wrongly viewed economic progresses only by statistical growth. Industry and governments must think seriously, why their well carved out plans are not working?

The failures to live on the promises are pathetic and unsustainable; at any cost, the outlays on the skill development initiatives and their outcomes have to be proximate. Unless this is realised, the exuberance on principled structures would not be meaningful. In simpler terms, the poor and the underprivileged have to be protected and involved under the new growth agenda. For that, the livelihood programmes have to be better democratized.
-Atul K Thakur
Email: summertickets@gmail.com
(Published in Governance Now on February17,2014)