Surjit S Bhalla: Coffee, politics, and markets

JADU ECONOMICS

It was perhaps just a decade ago when there were twin concerns of the Indian electorate, and the international investor: government misgovernance and corporate misbehaviour. Today, there is only one concern""government as Enron. This is a view of almost everybody""from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to the elected Left leaders in West Bengal.

But there is a vast minority that thinks otherwise, and this minority is very influential. This minority is very left in its thinking and comprises the so-called liberal elite""doyens of the media, NGOs, the CPM Politburo, the National Advisory Council of Ms Sonia Gandhi, and appointed political leaders in the Rajya Sabha.

This group believes in Lalooisms and, to use conservative author Sowell's evocative phrase, in the "vision of the anointed". The anointed have no trouble defending criminals in politics because while he is not "one of us" he is "secular".

The anointed, even while not believing in God, unfailingly tell others that God is on their side. They are true students of coffee shop revolutions""they have never graduated into reality.

No matter what newspaper you read, what channel you see, or what cocktail party you are at, the view is the same""but for the Left, India would be doing better, meeting destiny, and most importantly meeting China half-way. Let us pause for the moment""who is this Left?

It is not the elected leaders in West Bengal; no, Mr Bhattacharya is sounding, and doing, more and more like a reformer whose primary concern is getting his rather backward state to develop. My god, what an out-of-the-box idea, and certainly not conducive to drinking undergraduate coffee.

I would challenge anyone to name me an elected Left leader of Parliament, besides my TV friend Mr Gurudas Dasgupta and the honourable Speaker, Mr. Somnath Chatterjee. But has anyone heard of his last namesake, Mr Santasari Chatterjee from Serampore? You have heard of Haagen Daz, but have you heard of Mr Khagen Das from Tripura?

Lack of knowledge on our part is not a comment on the faceless parliamentarians""after all, they also serve who stand and wait. The point is simply this: all the guys we love to see, though not necessarily hear, are non-elected officials. Surely an elected government does not quake from barks from the corner of unelected representatives?

The unelected Left does not want foreign investment, or reform of labour laws, or competition in the public sector, or pension systems for the poor and the middle class; but it does want to spend more money on programmes destined to make political parties rich, e.g. the Employment Guarantee Programme, or destined to make the rich richer, e.g. pension subsidies for the top 8 per cent of the workforce.

Why does the government shake in its chappals by taunts from those who are high on coffee? There is one explanation, and in an age when politicians are smarter than Enron in continuing to serve the people even after convictions in court (why, they even become chief ministers and cabinet ministers), I am not prepared to accept the explanation that our elected leaders are dumb.

The only explanation possible for the lack of reforms, political and economic, is that there is a strong constituency among the elected leaders that believes in the oxymoron of coffee shop reform.

So, please, next time do not criticise the elected Left for our lack of progress""those poor guys are busy preparing to get themselves re-elected, and some of their leaders actually believe in serving the people. Not so with those drinking coffee (is the coffee imported? Is it subsidised?).

So how can we improve the delivery of our elected officials? Not to force the pun, but how do we get the honest straight 'uns rather than the crafty wrong 'uns? There are two political reforms that would seem to be necessary, and may indeed be sufficient.

First, expenditures of political parties should be audited. Yes, for those in cyber-space unfamiliar with the intricacies of Indian politics, expenditures of Indian political parties are unaccounted, and unaccountable. In their reformist zeal, Indian politicians did graciously allow contributions to political parties to be open, transparent, and with tax benefits.

But not expenditures""that is the politicians' private business. It is okay for the government to dream up loony ways of taxing non-Enron-type taxpayers. It is okay for a reform-oriented government, and finance minister, to dream up nightmarish schemes to track down evil black money by taxing cash withdrawals from the bank, but not okay for the government to get at the source of most of the black money"" bank accounts of the political parties.

Why not get passed a simple law by which the expenditures of political parties will be audited and open to public scrutiny? Maybe now that the Right to Information Bill has been passed, Ms Aruna Roy will direct her concerns to the real information that is still a political secret. Don't wait for this to happen because the interest groups are not interested""but, hey, no harm in getting high on dreams.

The second reform has to do with our electoral system, the one that allows and makes possible a horse and ass show. The first-past-the-post system, where a politician can be declared a winner with less than 20 per cent of the votes, and where parties are in power with 20 to 30 per cent of the national votes, only ensures the entry of the worst possible denominator"" and it does not matter which party he/she belongs to.

Most advanced economies recognised this some time back, though Britain is a notable exception and for a good reason""this innovation will likely hurt those in power. The US already has this innovation in that it effectively is a two-party system, which means the winner obtains at least 50 per cent of the votes.

The reform is the introduction of a run-off system for each state and national election. In the first round, it is business as usual; everybody can run for election, even the bar girls from Mumbai. But there is a second round""if the winner fails to achieve 50 percent of the votes in the first round, then there is a run-off involving just the top two candidates. Simple, but will it work?

Why not? Let's look at the costs involved. With electronic voting, the administrative costs are considerably reduced. The citizen has additional costs in perhaps voting twice""but she will not care because fewer horses will be elected.

The gainers will be all the citizens and honest independents. The losers will be the dishonest politicians belonging to the major and minor parties. That is why this is a dream that coffee shop revolutionaries will not allow to happen.

ssbhalla@gmail.com