Two-Bit Theory

Monday Morning and yet another epistle on the latest election results. I know, I know...there have been too many of these post-election analyses and I can even hear you groan, but this had to be written. Here are a couple of my observations.

* This general election will go down in the history books as the election of spoilers. Look around you. In state after state, whether it’s Andhra Pradesh or Maharashtra, some spoiler or the other has eaten into traditional vote banks and screwed someone’s chances. There are two ways of looking at this development. One is to assume that they are working under the umbrella cover of some large party and have been created to spoil another large party’s prospects. Second, if not, then these elections were the just the semi-finals, they were testing the waters and are now preparing for the next elections.

* The overwhelming support for Congress is, I think, is the voter’s way of showing his middle finger to all the various fronts and two-bit parties hoping to trade their four-five MPs like bargaining chips. The voter saw through the game when pre-poll alliances went out of control.

Turkindi

Here are some words we heard on the streets of Turkey, while trying to keep up pace with the dramatic changes in the Indian political landscape:

Çay – Tea (with the ‘C’ pronounced as “ch”)

Dukkan – Shop

Terzi – Tailor

Dikkat – Danger

Meshur – Famous

Gul – Rose

Sarap – Wine

Sehir – City

Shikayet – Complaint

Turkish Coffee -I

My Istanbul flight timings made sure Monday Mocha gave way to Turkish Coffee on Tuesday. So here are some initial impressions from the land of doner kebaps and koftes.

First, all compliments to the new management at the Mumbai International airport. No more sweaty queues to get into the airport terminal or to get the luggage screened. Smiles all around, courtesies extended and no more desperate crowding. Probably it’s because the air-conditioning was working. But, on a more serious note, the change now makes the flying out of Mumbai a pleasurable exercise.

And then to Istanbul. Somewhere I had been expecting a bleak city, with emotions ruling between the grey and the black, the burden of history weighing heavy on the ordinary Istanbullus’ shoulders. Maybe that’s what happens when you try to see the world through the eyes of Orhan Pamuk. According to him, there is a common leitmotif running through the city’s intricately intertwined genetic lattice – melancholy, or huzun, as a predominant cultural identity. But, on the surface, that somehow seems absent. The city looks bright and colourful, with the people eager to succeed, though the strains of balancing the plethora of competing cultural strands that make up modern-day Istanbul do break through the surface sometimes. But then, this is just a superficial impression gained from spending just one day in this great city. More later. Some pictures too coming up soon.

MID-WEEK MACHIATTO – I

The Reserve Bank is one governor short this week. Deputy governor Rakesh Mohan is heading out to Stanford University as Distinguished Consulting Professor, taking a break from his long stint in public policy to return to academia. But, it is not only RBI which will miss him.

Over the past few years, the top layer of economic policy-making in India has seen the entry of a large number of engineers, with many of them having graduated from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology. Look around. Rakesh Mohan obtained his Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering from the Imperial College of Science and Technology, London. Then, there’s the man who is increasingly driving changes in the micro-structure of the financial markets and the macro-design of the financial system – Raghuram Rajan, former chief economist with International Monetary Fund and currently a professor with University of Chicago. He is an alumnus from IIT. Even current RBI governor Duvvuri Subbarao is an IIT graduate, though he majored in physics (Bsc from IIT Kharagpur & MSc from IIT Kanpur).

In the immediate vicinity outside the policy-making circle is a bunch of advisers and critics who play a very important role. One of them is Ajay Shah, who has also served as officer-on-special-duty with the finance ministry. He graduated from IIT Bombay as an aeronautical engineer. Ajit Ranade, chief economist with the A V Birla Group (apart from being a columnist with Mumbai Mirror), is also a graduate from IIT Bombay.

Most of them then went on to study economics at the post-grad and doctoral level. That raises two questions. First: Do engineers bring some special insight into economic thinking and policy-making? Second: why are so many engineers keen to jettison their first choice of academics and move to economics? Insights anybody?

Voting Holiday

Why are people so surprised that the voter turnout was so low in Mumbai? Wasn’t it kinda expected?

For one, the newspapers were pretty sure that this was going to happen anyway, the day the Election Commission announced the final dates. The long weekend was visible to calendar-watchers even then. Wonder why the EC missed it?

But there are other reasons too. This is Bombay (no matter what other names you use for it) and the city breeds an animal instinct in you, teaches you to look out for yourself, from the moment you enrol into school, or start taking the 8:10 fast to college. You squeeze in, you elbow somebody else in the ribs, you stamp on somebody else’s feet if necessary, but you have to be on that train and you can’t afford to miss out on the first lecture. As Bob Dylan sang out, rather dryly: “Now, they take him and they teach him and they groom him for life./And they set him on a path where he's bound to get ill...” No wonder then that the Mumbai voter thinks – somewhat erroneously perhaps -- national duty or governance issues are not his concern.

But, this seems to be too easy an answer, almost like a politician’s glib reply to the question. Undoubtedly, the city does encourage self-aggrandisement, but that’s only part of the whole picture and it might be downright silly to cast all Mumbaikars in the same mould. Part of the reason also could be the low Muslim voter turnout, as pointed out by M J Akbar in latest column (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Columnists/M-J-Akbar-The-missing-Mumbai-voters/articleshow/4477185.cms). But, this column feels that the main reason for voter apathy is the little choice that politicians and political parties have left on the polling booth table. The absurd drama of pre-poll alliances, the naked greed on display for power and pelf, the glaring absence of issues, the puerile name-calling...all of these reasons (and then some) added up to provide voters with the tipping point. Short holiday? Of course. Voting? Bah!