Over the past three years, as the global crisis has unfolded, banker’s jargon has become common parlance. TV anchors now refer glibly to the “restructuring of distressed assets” and the “deleveraging of balance sheets” when they mean “recovering what little you can from bad loans” and “flogging assets in desperation to pay off debts you shouldn’t ever have incurred”.
Another commonly used term is “asset-liability mismatch”. Bankers generally use this to excuse an error of judgement when they’ve taken on short-term debt (which the lender wants returned pronto with interest) to fund long-term loans (that have gone belly-up). A typical case occurs when a bank funds, say, a 15-year housing mortgage (the asset) with one-year fixed deposits (the liability). If the fixed deposit holder cannot be persuaded to roll over when the loan matures, the bank has to scramble to return the cash.
In a different, broader sense, India has a huge asset-liability mismatch. The asset is a young population — the so-called demographic dividend. Roughly two-thirds of Indians are under 35 and roughly half are under 25. Given average life expectancy of 70, this represents a large, potentially highly-productive labour force. Literacy is no great shakes. But it has steadily improved and young people are easier to educate and teach specific skills. If the asset of a young population can be leveraged effectively, it could spark decades of sustained growth.
The liability is the geriatric, infirm leadership of the nation. The prime minister is 79 and has survived bypass surgery. The leader of the Opposition is 84. The average age of Indian parliamentarians is roughly 55. The president of the Congress is “only” 65. But she’s also suffering from an unspecified illness that has necessitated much time in hospitals. The “Young Turks”, Mamata Banerjee and Mayawati, are 56 and 55, respectively.
Let’s put this in perspective. Alexander the Great was 33 when he died. Bill Clinton is the same age as Sonia Gandhi, and he’s been retired for over 10 years. Barack Obama will be 51 when he seeks re-election in 2012. Merkel is 57, Sarkozy is 56.
Do you see a pattern here? It’s an odd one. Nations with older populations have the wit and wisdom to elect younger politicians. India, with its young population, elects geriatrics. Most nations, including India, set a retirement age of between 58 and 60. That is just about when the “desi leader” is getting into his or her stride in terms of political aspirations.
The pattern of Indian political gerontocracy is usually broken only when dynastic considerations take over. The most obvious example would be the late Rajiv Gandhi, who stepped into his mother’s shoes at 40. But almost every “young” MP is, in reality, the middle-aged child of a political parent.
Now, politicians are supposedly on call 24x7. In theory, they should maintain concentration through long days in order to negotiate complex, nuanced issues. This is patently impossible for most elderly people. At a certain age, the neurons start to misfire, the cardio falters; the bladder weakens; there is an increasing inability to comprehend or utilise technology. Productivity declines.
This is exactly why the concept of a retirement age exists. It is why Manmohan Singh was a successful reformer in 1991, when he was a relatively energetic 60. It is also why Rath Yatra I (undertaken by a 61-year-old Advani) was more effective than Rath Yatra II.
The law says that, in order to stand for the Lok Sabha, a citizen of India must be a minimum 25 years of age. A Rajya Sabha member should have crossed 30. We’d see an improvement in political performance if there was a statutory retirement age as well. It would make more sense than all this hullabaloo about a Lok Pal — which is, incidentally, spearheaded by a 73-year-old.
