Lockdown pains and dreams

One month and I am done

I want my freedom and some fun

The deadly virus and deadlier lockdown

I simply can’t face it down

O God give me the strength

To keep everyone at an arm’s length

Social distancing is tough

Sure enough, enough is enough

I want to go and hug my friends

Go for films and some other odds and ends

Kiss a lost puppy

And drag along hubby

Catch up on some healthy snacks

Golgappas, tikkis, and chaats

I dream of a meal in a fancy restaurant

Spared of the pain of the migrant

I yearn for freedom from this confinement

For freedom Sen said is development

We need a Corona Devi

We desperately need a Corona Devi. In this age of specialisation and division of labour (courtesy Salman Rushdie), it is unfair that we burden our existing Gods and Goddesses who have too many projects at hand, with the task of getting rid of corona virus. Seetla Mai helped us get rid of small pox. Similarly, we need a Corona Devi. Without a separate devi, there is a lot of confusion amongst existing devi-devtas as to who should take responsibility over the corona pandemic. Currently Gods are simply passing the buck to each other. Our diyas, crackers, utensil beating is useless as of now.

Corona Devi ki Jai!

Who is an Urban Sanghi?

We all know who the ‘urban naxals are’. They are the ‘sickular’ ‘libtard’ ‘commies’ who are ‘anti-national’ enough to be concerned about the rights of women, muslims, dalits, homosexuals etc. Most of them have wasted precious time studying social sciences in educational institutions like the Jawaharlal Nehru University instead of joining the prestigious whatsapp university. Many of us have made vain attempts to counter the barrage of insults by trying to remind our brothers and sisters of something called the constitution of India which guarantees justice, liberty and equality to all its citizens. Some of us, believers at heart, (though regarded as godless ‘commies’ out to destroy hindus) have requested them to spare a thought for the God which created us all and whether he/she would approve of such violence (both verbal and physical) against fellow beings. But there comes a time when ‘the monster’ overpowers Dr Frankenstein.

Enough of ranting. This post is about returning the favour. Some theorising about the urban sanghis who have made me shiver at the news of a family dinner and have left no stone unturned in trying re-educate me through whatsapp and facebook. If only they didn’t keep in touch! My life would be so much more peaceful. But ‘revenge is sweet’ I have learnt from them. So, time for a bio-sketch of a perfect ‘urban sanghi’. Who qualifies as an Urban Sanghi? These are not the countless poor people deprived of a good education and living in poverty and hardship. An ‘urban sanghi’ is typically an engineer or an MBA working ‘very hard’ to pay for branded clothes and EMIs of a big house and car. The ‘urban sanghi’ often laments about the sorry state of affairs in India. He/she also has a plan through which India can become just like the United States in only five years (Oh no. five year plans again…these leftists deserve the hatred they get… They have made in roads even in the sanghi minds). While dining in expensive restaurants, they argue that if only everyone in India could work as hard as they do, India would become a developed country like the US in just five years. The maid who is serving food and has cooked the sumptuous dinner painfully looks on as they yell at her for being too stupid and not knowing how to serve properly.

MOST IMPORTANT. The ‘urban sanghi’ has done their parents proud by becoming an ENGINEER and doing an MBA after that. Beware of such proud parents. They are simply dangerous. Avoid them. Run when you see them approaching. No small talk. No ‘hello aunty’ or ‘hello uncle’ or basic courtesies for them. They simply don’t deserve it. They exist only to humiliate others and especially other parents whose children are not engineers or not settled abroad or don’t possess a car or have not booked a flat already. They had children only to be able to insult other people whose children aren’t as rich. No other reason behind the deed. The Bengali ‘urban sanghi’ (decades of communist party’s rule had to give some space to dissent of another kind) also won a prize in a solo singing competition in school as a child. Generally, Bengalis are more dangerous than others and no you can’t do anything about them or their prodigious children. So just ‘bhag Milkha bhag’ when you see them approaching.

As a I said, the ‘urban sanghi’ works very hard and rarely has the time to read serious analysis on either national security, poverty, unemployment, GDP growth statistics, Indian politics, Hinduism, Islam or the caste system. Years of hard work to improve ‘quant skills’ (‘quant skills’ not math) have also seriously impaired the ability to comprehend anything beyond two lines written in poor English. Whatsapp university and thunderous TV anchors come in handy. A not so dear aunt, a hardened ‘urban sanghi’, whose dear uncle was a notorious nobody in the communist party of Bengal and had distinguished himself as a local goon, once gave me a lesson on nationalism. Now in Delhi, as an engineer, the lady had all the right to be an ‘urban sanghi’ and forget the inglorious path of revolution her beloved uncle had never trodden. It was a lesson I never forgot (just as she had intended!). My parents have never understood my love for them. They never will. So, I should have beaten her up. But desire to be appreciated by one’s parents is so strong that I allowed her to go on. Even the kalakand that she served did not make the lesson any sweeter. “My brain has been brainwashed in JNU by the communists”, she roared. She had seen a photo of young Kanhaiya (the seditious one not the seductive one with a flute) receiving a prize from AB Bardhan. “That’s how he picked up anti-national ideas and went on organise anti-national events in JNU”, she reasoned. Just how?? Given that she was raised by a man who was an ardent supporter of the communists how could she manage not becoming Mao Zedong 2.0? Then I understood how she must have scored full marks in the reasoning section of the engineering entrance exam. Her mother, needless to say has given her daughter A plus. She is an engineer, owns a flat in Delhi and two in Kolkata.

Then there is the younger lot. The younger lot also works very hard in investment banks, KPOs or consultancies. The pride that this lot takes in working for places which have slightly better conditions that the 20^th century workhouses of England is praiseworthy. If only everyone could work as hard as they did, India would be a better place. “But most of the people in India (barring researchers like me) actually work very hard. They are still poor guys. The problem is more complex”, I tried to explain. And the pack of loyal ‘urban sanghis’ attacked me like a pack of lions, “you experts are too bothered about data and research. Your data is bullshit (but the world bank data on ease of doing business is perfect). You have spoilt the country. Your research is of no value”, yelled all of them together. One of them had a five-year plan (again..) for poverty eradication. All subsidies and government schemes should be eliminated. But the subsidy on petrol to run their cars off course must go on so that they can pollute comfortably. Freebies spoil work culture. All schemes like NREGS should be stopped. People should be made to work for a living. Wait a minute. Doesn’t NREGS try to ensure employment for 100 days? But an ‘urban sanghi’ never engages with any issue. He/she operates with an extreme hatred towards the poor and marginalised. Their dream of India as a developed country is basically exclusionary. There is absolutely no concern about the rights of the poor and the marginalised. Most of them are naïve techno-solutionists. And off course, they boil with rage at the mention of the ‘M’ word. Muslims are their main enemy who are responsible for most of the ills of the country. They are the ones who are behind all rapes and murders in this country. The Muslim rulers brought in all the social ills in India. Wait a minute, did the Muslim rulers create caste system? Or sati? Or Dowry? Shut up you urban naxal. You must be sent to Pakistan!

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G20’s compact with Africa: How beneficial for Africa is it really?

The emphasis on Africa, a hitherto marginalised region in G20 summits, was one of the most prominent features of Germany's G20 Presidency. Germany launched the Compact with Africa (CwA) initiative under the G20’s finance track in 2017. The main objective of the CwA initiative was to encourage private investment in Africa, particularly in the infrastructure sector, for high growth and job creation within Africa. Domestic pressures to stem migration from Africa also played an important role in the formulation of the CwA initiative. It was felt that creation of adequate economic opportunities for Africa’s youth within Africa would deter young Africans from seeking a better life in Europe.

Under CwA, African countries willing to join the initiative commit to an investment compact and engage with international organisations (World Bank, IMF, and AfDB) to discuss the initiative’s objectives and national priorities. Thereafter, the compact countries focus on reform measures and implementation. The three main reform areas under the CwA are as follows:

1. Macro-economic environment for investment which covers economic policies in African countries to main macro-economic stability and ensure adequate infrastructure provision.
2. Business environment which includes the general environment in which firms operate, regulatory practices and predictability, state capacity for management of public-private partnerships, project preparation etc.
3. Financing environment for investors which includes development of local capital markets and support from long-term institutional investors in major financial systems.

So far only a handful of African countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Morocco, Rwanda, Senegal, Togo, and Tunisia have joined the initiative. According to a recent report by Rob Floyd, Kapil Kapoor and Laura Sennett, 101 commitments have already been made by nine participating African economies out of which 43%, 37%, and 21% were related to macro-economic stability, business and financial environment respectively.^[i] While 33% and 22% of the commitments under the macro-economic and business environment pillars were achieved only 5% of the commitments under financial environment has been achieved so far. Thus, one can say that there is some progress in reform process in the Compact countries but given the long-term nature of the reform process it is not clear to what extent the African countries will succeed in attracting private capital from these reforms. The following paras discuss some of the main issues with regard to the CwA and what the initiative holds for the African continent.

One of the first questions that emerges with respect to this initiative is how invested are other G20 members in this initiative or is it just a German initiative? So far not many G20 countries have involved themselves deeply in the CwA initiative. Only Germany, France, United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, Spain, Netherlands, and the United States have participated in this initiative.^[ii]In fact Katherine Keil argues that the CwA is more like a G7 initiative because apart from Spain and Netherlands, all other countries are a part of the G7.^[iii] Many of the G20 members have their own programmes with Africa and may not be very keen to get closely involved in the CwA process. In fact, Chinese funding for African infrastructure exceeds the contributions of other countries and international organisations and comes without any additional conditionalities or reform requirements.

Secondly, although the initiative claims to be demand-driven, one of the major problems with the initiative is that it continues to look at Africa as a problem and adopts the age-old prescriptive approach to address development challenges in the continent. Currently, South Africa is the only African country which is a G20 member. Although the African Union and New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) attend G20 summits, the continent as a whole has little say in global development issues discussed at the G20. Under such circumstances, an initiative like CwA which essentially tries to facilitate reforms in African countries to boost private investment for higher growth and more jobs for Africans perpetuates the historical relationship that the continent always had with the West.

Thirdly, the initiative assumes that promoting private investment and development of physical infrastructure through domestic reforms is the panacea for all of Africa’s development challenges. There is little evidence to support this view though. In order to address poverty, inequality and youth unemployment in Africa, it is not only important that the continent attract private investors but also that such investments lead to the creation of decent jobs for Africans. The central question is - Will Africa profit from private industries or will the private sector profit at Africa’s expense? Africa’s development history suggests the latter is more likely without adequate safeguards. While African governments are committing to domestic reforms to attract the private sector, there is no guarantee that the private sector will meet environmental or social standards. What will be the role of G20 members and international organisations like the IMF and the World Bank? They will provide technical assistance, help in project preparation and encourage their private sector to invest in Compact countries. Unfortunately, the issues of fair wages, decent working conditions, environmental standards, sustainable development goals are completely absent from the CwA narrative. African governments will be responsible for ensuring these on their own. Moreover, overemphasis on the creation of physical infrastructure through public-private partnerships (PPPs) ignores the importance of social infrastructure like health and education which are essential for poverty alleviation and development.

Another key feature of the CwA initiative is that it reinforces the activities of the IMF and the World Bank. Directing private investment to the infrastructure sector has been the focus of these institutions for a long time. However, the fiscal, legal, regulatory, and institutional challenges with regard to PPPs have been completely neglected. PPPs often cost more in the long-run and expose governments to financial risks. In case of private financing of large infrastructure projects in immature financial markets, there are high risks that the private returns come at the expense of long-term fiscal costs. The CwA framework also includes business arbitration courts and Systemic Investor Response Mechanisms (SIRM) which often prioritise investor interests over public interest. In a nutshell, although launched with a lot of fanfare, the actual benefits for African countries from the initiative is still not clear and offers nothing new to African countries. In fact, the G20 members must realise that they would contribute more to Africa’s development by focusing the issues like fair trade practices, climate change, global financial architecture etc.

(This article originally appeared in the Observer Research Foundation's website)

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^[i] https://t20japan.org/policy-brief-g20-compact-with-africa/

^[ii] https://us.boell.org/2017/12/13/g20-compact-africa-innovative-partnerships-or-business-usual

^[iii] Ibid.

Weddings bells for frogs as climate change looms over India

It is heartening to see that citizens are finally waking up to the acute water crisis that the country is facing. The most notable achievement has been that of the Udupi Citizen’s Forum which organised a grand wedding of two frogs to please the God in charge of rains. The Udupi Citizen’s Forum did not stop at just the wedding. The newly married frog couple has also been packed off for a honeymoon. Unlike my Marxist husband (yes, there are still a handful of them left in India) who hates gala weddings, I love them. Good food, sarees, dance and selfies (in a frog wedding selfie may be a bit difficult though) are the true essence of my life. Not just God and me, but I have a feeling the Citizen’s Forum has managed to please Rabindranath Tagore as well.

The young Tagore, as the manager of the family’s zamindari, was moved by the poverty and helplessness of the villagers and resolved to provide an example of rural reconstruction in his own zamindari. In his estate, the river was faraway and water scarcity was the main concern of the villagers. Young Tagore, keen to help the villagers, proposed that the villagers get together and dig a well while he would bear the costs of cementing it. Rationality, as any micro economics textbook would have us believe, would make the suffering villagers jump at such a proposal. But the villagers reasoned that such a collective action to address the water problem would help Tagore get an easy ticket to heaven. They firmly believed that by helping the villagers access water, Tagore would go to heaven, something that they felt they needed to prevent at all costs, even at the cost of their own inconvenience. So, the well never got made and they continued living in hell.  

Many such experiences with villagers deeply disappointed Tagore and subsequently led him to question the politics of the day around home rule and self-reliance. But had Tagore been alive today, he would surely have been very happy to see that people in India are at least bothered about their own welfare now and are also uniting to solve their own problems. Finally, self-reliance is here. Now that we have collectively managed to marry off two innocent frogs, off course without their consent, let us spend the next hundred years on working out rules of frog weddings. Firstly, we need to classify frogs according to castes and gotras. Marriage between a brahmin frog and low caste frog will surely annoy our Gods and worsen the water crisis. Secondly, dowry needs to be worked out and all the wedding expenses must be borne by the bride frog’s village or city. If two frogs dare to fall in love and decide to have a good time on their own then such frogs should be killed honourably and anti-Romeo squads must be formed immediately to make sure inter-religious and inter-caste frog unions don’t happen. We must do all this at once to please the Gods who will then address our water woes.

It will take another century for us to be able to collectively decide that in addition to lavish frog weddings, we need to better manage our water resources by recycling water, increasing the water-use efficiency in irrigation, water harvesting etc. What? We don’t have another century? The worst impacts of climate change will be felt in the next few decades itself? Majority of India’s river basins are vulnerable to droughts because of shifting rainfall patterns? Climate change and water stress would displace thousands of people in India in the coming decades? India’s food security is under severe threat because the frequency of droughts will increase? Shut up. Will you please? We will not let climate scientists, hydrologists, social scientists and others of that kind desist us from the holy duty of organising lavish frog weddings. All that these researchers ever want is to go to heaven. What exactly is the purpose behind their research? Heaven? More funds for their research? Awards? Money? No matter what their interest, we shall focus on frog weddings to please Gods. Let’s pray that the newly married frog couple falls in love in their honeymoon and they quickly have a baby frog. The frog offspring must be male off course. Thereafter, we will send the baby boy frog to Kota for coaching classes to crack the IIT entrance exams. A corporate job after IIT for the baby boy frog and then we will put him up for sale in the marriage market. What next? An even more lavish frog wedding. All to please the Gods for adequate rainfall. God helps those who help themselves? Shut up.

Selling pakoras on the pavement – Whose dream job is it?

I love pakoras and also roadside tea. I have spent enough time of my life eating pakoras and having tea in and around Delhi to know who these people are, where they are from, and what their aspirations are. By conversing with these friendly ‘bhaiyyas’ who create magic with besan and oil which we can’t replicate at home no matter how hard we try, I have learnt that they really are ordinary people with hopes and aspirations. Our politicians who live a luxurious life at our expense have clue about these people. They come like monarchs of the yesteryear's before the elections in their fancy cars or even helicopters protected by security forces (again paid for by our taxes) and make long insincere promises. These obnoxious people know very little about what they are talking. The latest salvo by ‘he who must not be named’ with regard to roadside pakora stalls as gainful employment options for India’s youth may go down as one of the most cruel statements in history after the “Let them have cake” by the French queen.

Roadside pakora sellers in and around Delhi usually hail from rural Bihar or Uttar Pradesh. Driven out of the rural areas due to the crisis in agriculture, they are eking out a living in Delhi with hopes of educating their children so that their children can have a better life. If only our Prime Minister could listen to the ‘man ki baat’ of these men, he would find out how hard these people work for upward mobility. They are very concerned about their children’s education. Most of their children go to private schools and also private tutors. If you ask them what they want to become once they grow up, the answer always is ‘sarkari naukri’. Unlike Indian politicians, none of them want their children to follow their footsteps and become pakora sellers. Then who actually wants to take up the great job of a pakora seller that is being offered. Nobody. It is a distress options for those driven out of agriculture. Some please inform ‘he who must not be named’.

India needs a systematic overhaul in agriculture to ensure food security

Food insecurity continues to be one of the most pressing challenges before India. Despite high rates of economic growth, the prevalence of undernutrition declined marginally from 210.1 million in 1990 to 190.7 million in 2016. Currently over one-fourth of the children are stunted in large states like Gujarat, Jharkhand, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh, and over 40 per cent of the children are underweight in Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar. On the other hand, due to rising incomes, the rich and middle classes in urban areas are demanding a more diversified and protein-rich diet. The composition of the food basket is increasingly shifting away from cereals to high-value agricultural commodities like fish, eggs, milk and meat. As incomes continue to rise, this trend will continue and the indirect demand for food from feed will grow rapidly in India.

Will India’s food production be able to meet the growing demands of its population? The current agrarian situation does not present a particularly optimistic picture. Agricultural productivity in India is extremely low. According to World Bank figures, cereal yield in India is estimated to be 2,992 kg per hectare as against 5,401.4 kg per hectare; 5,362.6 kg per hectare; 7,318.4 kg per hectare and 4,453.2 kg per hectare in East Asia and Pacific, Euro area, North America, Central Europe and Baltics respectively. A study by Praduman Kumar, P.K. Joshi and Surbhi Mittal suggests that India will face a net deficit of three to five million tonnes in rice by 2030 and the deficit in pulses and oil seeds will widen rapidly.

The deep crisis, which afflicts India’s agriculture sector, is not unknown. Farming has become an unviable occupation. About one-third of the farmers in India do not like farming because it is not a profitable activity and 40 per cent are willing to give up farming if they could find a better source of livelihood. Despite this, agriculture employs about 49 per cent of the labour force in India. Indebtedness, the main reason behind the rising number of farmer suicides in India, has increased dramatically. According to figures from the 70th round of the National Sample Survey, about 52 per cent of the agricultural households in India are indebted with an outstanding loan of `47,000 per household. The states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Tamil Nadu have the highest share of indebted households at 92.9 per cent, 89.1 per cent and 82.5 per cent respectively.

Research on agrarian distress has proliferated and most studies agree that a combination of policy-induced, technological and ecological factors is responsible for India’s agrarian crisis. Despite the fact that agrarian distress has been a favourite topic for economic research and the subject is now slowly getting the attention of India’s media, which has so far callously ignored the issue, long-term food security is no one’s concern. Policy actions have typically been in the form of loan waivers for agitating farmers. There have been counter reactions from the brigade, which is against any form of government spending in favour of the poor and destitute. The deep crisis in India’s agriculture sector indeed requires immediate measures but ignoring the ecological crisis and the challenges that climate change poses for India’s long-term food security is likely to be a grave policy mistake.

As a large developing country with a growing population, which is dependent on rain-fed agriculture, India is particularly vulnerable to climate change. The most significant impact of climate change will be felt through its impact on the country’s already stressed water resources. Several studies indicate that climate change will cause significant changes in inter-annual and inter-seasonal variability of the monsoon. The number of dry days and wet days has steadily increased since the 1970s. Currently about 54 per cent of the ground water wells are receding. Fluctuation in rainfall due to climate change will adversely affect India’s already depleted groundwater resources. The World Bank predicts that with a global mean warming of 2°C, above pre-industrial levels, India’s food water requirements will exceed green water availability. A mismatch between demand and supply of water will have far-reaching consequences on the country’s foodgrain production.

Climate models also predict an increase in the frequency of droughts in the north-western region. Increased frequency of droughts will have adverse impacts on foodgrain production, particularly kharif output. Rice, India’s staple food crop, is found to be most sensitive to extreme climate events. According to a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, water shortage and thermal stress will severely impact rice yields in India. Impacts on foodgrain productivity will be particularly severe in unirrigated areas. However, full impacts of climate change on agriculture are still not known to researchers. That is what makes climate change a particularly “wicked” problem.

Unfortunately, India is completely unprepared to tackle the impending crisis. Public investment in agriculture has declined steadily and policy approach towards the sector has been piecemeal. India’s long-term food security concerns must feature more prominently in the policy discourse. Given the challenges that climate change poses and the country’s vulnerability, India needs a systematic overhaul in its agriculture. Indian agriculture cannot afford to rely on unsustainable ways. Sustainable agriculture, which applies less pressure on natural resources, is the need of the hour. Small farmers also need support from the government to adapt to climate change and public investment in agriculture and research also needs to be stepped up. But is anyone listening?