Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

If you haven’t been paying attention to whatever sad excuse for news that we have in this country, then let me enlighten you with what is going on. Not only has Warren Buffet refused to endorse us on LinkedIn, steel industry giants POSCO & ArcelorMittal have stopped believing our oft-broken promise to change our ways if they gave us one last chance and are now looking for an easier, much better looking country to invest all that money in. In fact, financial analysts say that these developments will have harsh consequences for our economy.

How did this happen? Till about a few years ago, we were like the shiny new shopping mall that opens up with huge fanfare. The sort of place everyone wants to go to all the time. The type of capitalist heaven where even small investments yield huge results. We were the centre of attention for a while! The consumers were glad to have so many options at their disposal and the businesses were glad to be able to tap a huge, underserviced market. And all the jobs were taken up by educated, pleasant sounding youngsters fresh out of college who were able to put their various talents to good use.

Nowadays, we’re like a sad, almost abandoned mall. The whole structure looks like it has lost its sheen. The paint is peeling off. The elevator has stopped working. All the investors with deep pockets have cut their losses and gone back to wherever they came from. Most shops are closing and the ones that are open are stocked with sub-standard products while most of the staff is surly and inefficient. Each set of empty lots is punctuated with an espresso bar selling cheap, undrinkable coffee. The only visitors are those who either have nowhere else to go or have no idea what they’re doing.

I, for one, am glad that all those people who get so spooked easily have decided to leave. We’re not the sort of country that does easy. No siree, Bob. Like that irritating commercial for that dry fruit infested chocolate says, you have to earn the ability to do business in this country. Who needs multi-national companies investing millions of dollars to create thousands of jobs anyway? Our political parties are already working overtime to increase the availability of jobs in this country by hiring hundreds of illiterate people to tweet on their behalf. That is all the stimulus that we need!

There was a song that Asha Bhosle sang with 90’s boyband Code Red. (This was a thing that happened. Asha Bhosle sang a song with a mildly popular, flash-in-the-pan British boyband and all of us collectively yawned and acted like it was the most normal thing to do. By giving her a pass on what should have been a serious blotch on a storied career, we made her believe that the song was something that she shouldn’t have been embarrassed about. Yes, kids, everyone was smoking some good shit in the 90’s. Even Asha Bhosle.) The song’s lyrics went something like We can make it if we try/We can make it you and I. The UPA seems to have adopted this as their theme song. They probably play it all day long at the Prime Minister’s office. Similarly, whenever we get bad news that could potentially harm the economy, they put their playlist of excuses on repeat, hoping that people will swallow their bullshit one more time.

Not that we could have a public discussion about this! Our current most popular topic of debate is a feud between two ‘leading’ economists. We’re not debating any of their theories, mind you. That would be the smart thing to do. But we didn’t drive out the British so that we could do sensible things! We drove them out so that we could f*ck up everything in our own way, because freedom. 

So, naturally, we’re discussing which of the above economists carries around a ModiBoner™ in their pants and which of them is a pinko commie socialist who wants to empty all the money in our treasury and give it to the poors. Overnight, people who wouldn’t know a demand curve if it punched them in the face were suddenly able to encapsulate a person’s body of work into a sixty word sentence. I can parse complex economic theory because I gave a stats exam that one time. The discussion is so stupid that every minute you spend thinking about it, you lose a couple of I.Q. points.

If our public discussion were a character in a movie, we would be at the scene where the actor portraying us looks in the mirror and sees the mess that he has turned himself into. Then he tries to turn his life around, seek forgiveness from all those he has inadvertently wronged, gaining the approval of the audience by the time the movie is over.

However, unlike the life of a movie protagonist, there doesn’t seem to be any hope for redemption in our collective future.

Some Things Never Change

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

A long, long time ago, back in 2007, things were very different. The BJP was promising to provide strong, decisive leadership as the alternate to a UPA government riddled with coalition blues and governance problems. The American President was being criticized for illegally wiretapping American citizens while Hillary Clinton was expected to win the next Presidential election. Kevin Rudd wrested the office of the Prime Minister from an unpopular incumbent. Britain was being led by a slimy, unpopular Murdoch crony. And the world of cricket was hit with a betting scandal and administrators swore that something like that would never happen again.

Let’s not forget that it was also the year when wall street brought the global financial system to the brink of collapse. The resulting economic backlash was so bad that most countries are still feeling the after-effects of that tsunami. One would imagine that people who screwed up so royally that we were on the verge of re-establishing the barter system as the standard for exchange of goods and services would have stopped to consider the suffering their actions wrought upon the world and would try not to repeat the mistakes of the past. Seems like the perfect opportunity for people’s elected representatives and enforcement officials to make themselves useful and constitute and enforce laws that would make it impossible for the viability of every currency note in the world to depend upon the ability of recovering addict and extraordinary air guitarist Jimmy Ray Jones from Bumf**k, Idaho to fulfil his financial obligations.

“LOL.” If you believe that there is even a remote possibility of something like that happening, then you must still believe in the existence of Santa Claus, millionaire sons of deposed Nigerian princes and Clint Eastwood. Not only have the people responsible for the worst stock market crash since the great depression escaped punishment with a strongly worded gesture, but they continue to do business the same way as before.

In this fortnight’s Rolling Stone, journalist Matt Taibbi revealed how the ratings agencies who played a major part in ushering the crash by providing whatever ratings the offending banks wanted for their financial instruments – most of which they filled with junk investments - in lieu of money. Proving, yet again, that the global finance industry is one huge circle-jerk between the bankers, the people who’re supposed to regulate them, the ‘industry experts’ and the rating agencies.

In the report, many current and former employees of the rating agencies have gone on record - in depositions and/or emails obtained by the magazine - to admit that they were basically making up the numbers so as to be able to provide their clients with whatever rating they preferred for their financial instruments. That’s because they make most of their money from the companies who sell these instruments. That’s like asking students to mark their own exam sheet. Yet, these very agencies like to dictate the economic policies of governments around the world. Comply with what we say or your sovereign rating gets it. Talk about the emperor having no clothes!

These are the charlatans that the people elected to make economic decisions on our behalf seek validation from. I’m just spit-balling here, but maybe it isn’t a good idea to subjugate your country’s economic policies to the whims and fancies of an agency which gave its highest honour (an AAA rating) to a bank whose collapse one month later wiped out about five trillion dollars from the global economy?

In fact, the people running our economy keep harping about achieving eight percent growth, a claim that is as fraudulent as a report by an analyst working for a ratings agency. But they keep pretending that it’s the only solution to all our problems. A little blue pill that will stir our impotent economy back into action. Although, to be fair, if your economic growth lasts for more than four hours, you don’t need to call a doctor.

Economic theory suggests that the ‘invisible hand of the market’ always brings about a happy ending by balancing things out. That hand is now a hundred percent subsidiary of wall street.

And if you look carefully, it’s giving you the finger.

How the Grinch Stole Your Democracy

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

One of the perks of modern life is the convenience of being able to order things online. For someone who hates shopping and goes to buy things two times a year, it’s a godsend. The best of both worlds! You mean I can get what I want without any human contact and with enough pretence of a bargain to satiate my ancient Indian urge to always seek the best deal? Shut up and take my money! However, this sweet, blissful utopia is interrupted by the constant emails one receives from every online retailer once you make a purchase on their website. Indian or foreign, they go after you with the zeal of a crazy person with whom you once went on a disastrous date and who hasn’t stopped trying to get in touch with you ever since. And yet, you can’t punish them for this. What are you going to do? Go shopping to an actual shopping place (plazas? bazaars? junctions? I don’t even know what people call them anymore!) and be forced to explain to a real person what you want and then pay in cash? Ugh. You will take away my online fix from my cold, bankrupt hands.

And I’m probably not the only one who is addicted to the instant gratification of the purchase button. The UPA seems to be suffering from the same ailment. Seems like everytime they have to win a vote in parliament, they ‘add’ SP and BSP MPs to their ‘shopping cart’ and click ‘purchase.’ I hope they’re at least getting a ‘frequent buyer’ discount.

Like the vote on FDI, which became a farce even before the debate was to begin. The BJP wanted a discussion which would allow both the houses to vote on the policy. The UPA dithered on holding the discussion until it could ‘convince’ enough ‘allies’ to vote in its favour. Or at least walk out before the vote giving it a majority by default. While the BJP disrupted the Lok Sabha session to get it adjourned, the Congress got its fair weather friends to interrupt proceedings in the Rajya Sabha under silly pretences. Synergy! Bipartisanship! Strategery!

The discussion in the Lok Sabha was held under the watchful eyes of the speaker, Meira Kumar, who reflected the calm demeanour of a serial killer. Even a government school substitute teacher monitoring a class in which half the students get serious injuries and the other half jump from a ledge has more control over her class than Ms. Kumar has over her MPs. Once her term as the speaker ends, she will go back to her original job - being the voice of a much maligned cellular network who, for some reason, seems quite delighted to inform you that the number you’re trying to call is not available at the moment. The speeches in the house were filled with so much jargon that our MPs were instantly invited to be the featured speakers at the next TED conference. Our sanctimonious parliamentarians even managed to sully the good reputation of the Indian potato. Allegedly, they make for small fries. The last we heard, the Indian potato was being cheered up by his girlfriend, who told him that it’s not the size that matters, it’s how you eat the fries.

The discussion in the Rajya Sabha was even worse. Which is expected because most of these ‘elders’ are rejects from the Lok Sabha. They are so unelectable, even their families voted for the other candidate. But since both sides needed all the votes they could gather, it was all hands on deck. Everyone, except Sachin Tendulkar showed up. He wasn’t able to because he was busy protecting India from another foreign entity. And unlike his large fleet of planes, Vijay Mallya decided to make himself useful and was also present to cast his vote. I think he’s not yet familiar with how Parliament works because he was overheard ordering a drink to whoever looked like a waiter to him. The proceedings of the Rajya Sabha were being handled by the most nondescript man in India, Vice-President Hamid Ansari. The only reason he shows up for work everyday is because no one has told him yet that he’s in a coma.

In the end, the government’s investment paid off and the opposition’s motion was defeated in both the houses of Parliament, making the CEO of Wal-Mart India’s Governor-General for life. Seems like certain former chief ministers of UP will get a lot of ‘clean chits’ in their Christmas stocking this year. That’s probably what the framers of our constitution intended. Letting the fate of the country’s major policy decisions rest on the whims and fancies of two of the most opportunistic, vile, corrupt and self-serving politicians this country has ever seen.

If only politicians also came with a money-back guarantee.

We don’t need no stinkin’ FDI

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

It was déjà vu all over again. Manmohan Singh staked the future of his government on a policy measure. A regional party with a government in Bengal threatened to withdraw support unless the decisions was rolled back and then went ahead and withdrew it when the government refused. And the government was bailed out by the Samajwadi Party. It felt like we had seen the same sequence of events take place before. Now I know how people who watch a Madhur Bhandarkar movie feel.

There was also a lot of fake tension in the air and the oft-repeated drum of ‘mid-term elections’ was being beaten again. Everybody knew there was no chance of that happening, but it didn’t stop them from pretending that it can. There was a smörgåsbord of disingenuity to choose from. Teevee channels cut into their heated discussions about who would form the new government to show various groups of politicians exiting from each other’s houses while the b-roll displayed animated graphics about how many seats each party had in the Lok Sabha. Well placed newspaper articles seemed more interested in the third-front than the political parties who would actually constitute it. The only person who they were able to convince was ‘tragedy king’ LK Advani, who thought that all his efforts of sending positive vibes into the universe so that it may one day grant him his one wish were finally coming to fruition.

After flailing about for the past few years, taking one hilariously stupid decision after another and throwing everything they could think of at the wall in the hope that something sticks, the Congress was finally able to deliver a genuine one-two political punch to its opponents. The BJP, as always, was more clueless about what to do than a blind, legless kangaroo trying to manoeuvre a four-wheel drive. They were so disoriented, they even asked for a special session of Parliament so that they could disrupt it again. After that didn’t work, they brought out another useless political weapon from their arsenal, the ‘Bharat bandh.’ Apparently, the BJP wanted to send a message that it cares so much for the common man that it is going to make life difficult for him to protest against the government making life difficult for him. Blocking the roads, making people late for work, getting passengers stuck in trains and at the station, bullying people into not earning their daily wages, breaking shop windows; being an asshole towards people for no logical reason is great political strategy. Even the BJP’s current Indira Gandhi & future LK Advani, Narendra Modi, got into the mix. He made jokes about how the government’s decision about FDI in retail had been taken to benefit Italian businessmen. This ‘joke’ would have been hilarious if not for the fact that there are currently no Italian ‘retail chains’ clamouring to get into India. In fact, Italy is not exactly known for its ‘retail giants.’ And really, the central government is getting heat about foreign investment from the guy who has logged more frequent flier miles than Amelia Earhart touting his state as an attractive destination for foreign investment? Maybe he should talk more about how much he hates foreigners and their dirty neo-colonial money at the next ‘Vibrant Gujarat’ summit.

The Congress & the TMC proved that they were no Ross & Rachel. Their ‘will they/won’t they’ tension was getting on everybody’s nerves. If Mamta Banerjee thought that the Congress would run to the airport singing “Please Don’t Go” to stop her from leaving like the last dozen times, she was mistaken. The Congress was sitting in its apartment, looking at photo albums of happier times, telling itself that it had to finally put an end to all the abuse. It could not spend its life with someone who treated it like a doormat.

Unfortunately, the Congress repeated past patterns by aligning itself with another high-maintenance regional ally, the Samajwadi Party. Its leader, Mulayam Singh Yadav told the press that even though he hates the Congress and thinks that it’s a blot on the face of humanity itself, he is still going to align with it because he wanted to keep ‘communal forces’ away from government. That familiar trope is always used by mortal enemies in Indian politics when they want to form governments together. Yeah, let’s get the old secular band back together again, for one more terrible performance. And who is more secular than the guy who claims to be an honorary 'Maulana’ so that everytime elections roll around he can patronisingly pander to the most fringe elements of a minority community?

Being made to witness the same things again and again. Now I know how people who watch a Madhur Bhandarkar movie feel.

Manmohan Singh’s Last Stand

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the past couple of years haven’t really been the ‘best years’ of Manmohan Singh’s life. He has been humiliated by both friend and foe. Insulted both in public and in private. Called names to his face and behind his back. Each new day brought with it more pain, more heartbreak and more damage to his prostrate. He couldn’t look at a newspaper without having an ulcer. Now, he could tolerate being pissed on by the Indian press; those wankers have always had it out for him. He wasn’t also bothered by what the people of the country were saying about him; it’s not like he needed their vote or anything. What he couldn’t digest was when his friends in the foreign press started to shit on him. The very people he had nurtured like a constituency. He had given them scoops, actual exclusive interviews, not laughed and thrown them out of the room when they offered suggestions on how to fix the economy. Was his back hurting their knife?

Thus, he decided he had to do something. He wasn’t going to be remembered as the man who couldn’t get things done. If he couldn’t make the government work, he was going to douse the whole thing with petrol, take a match to it and burn it to the ground. If he couldn’t convince his asshole allies, he was going to try to convince the people. He knew the country was angry at him. So he tried to bring the romance back. He came home early from work one day, cooked us our favourite meal, cleaned all the dishes and wrote us a card promising to be nice to our parents when they came for a visit. He even made an iTunes playlist of all the songs we used to listen to when we first started dating. Songs like “Fiscal Fever” and “Don’t auction my gold!” and “Reform! Reform!” And then he put on his happy face and held a press conference to make the announcement for new economic reforms, pretending that he believed that people had a right to know what their government was upto. He also sent his least smug minister to give an ‘exclusive’ interview to all the news channels and argue in favour of these policies.

And lo and behold, the narrative changed.  No more was he the Manmohan Singh who presided over one of the most corrupt governments in the history of the country. No more was he the Manmohan Singh who wanted to spend a large amount of taxpayer money to give freebies to people who could not afford them. No more was he a leader of a government which had garnered the reputation of being so lethargic that they couldn’t even pass a stone. He was back to being the champion of fiscal prudence. The only one who could jump-start the economy. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Mr. Foreign Correspondent.  

The analysts were clear: this was a game-changer! Old economists who had spent the past few years yearning for the Manmohan Singh of yore were quietly jizzing on television about how Singh had finally taken the bull by its horns. They believe that between FDI in multi-brand retail stores and the new season of KBC, we are going to eradicate poverty for once and for all. Even Lord Meghnad Desai and his hair – which, full disclosure, will be a huge beneficiary because it is large enough to house at least two Wal-Mart stores – were batting for the new economic reforms.

However, not everyone was impressed with the economic reforms announced by the Prime Minister. Most of the government’s allies and the opposition were dead set against his attempt at resituating the economy. Overnight, all of them seemed to have turned into card carrying members of the proletariat; they appeared to be very worried about the plight of the common man. What about families living below the poverty line? What about the friendly, neighbourhood ‘kirana’ store? What about the people in the unregulated sector who supply the fertilizer to those who sell synthetic milk?

Nobody made an actual economic argument. Everyone was battling on emotions and rhetoric. One side thought that just the announcement would bring in so much money that every person in the country would be swimming in it like a regular Uncle Scrooge whereas the other side proclaimed this as a bigger sell-out to ‘foreign powers’ than when in 1757 the Nawab of Bengal had appointed the East India company as its official tax collector.

If only there were some tools available to measure the impact of economic policies.