Pranab Bardhan on the Indian Elections

Is it possible for Pranab Bardhan to write a single sentence which isn't silly? Certainly. Why not? He can say smart, sensible things. However, if he is writing about India, he is under a religious obligation to babble mischievous nonsense. See for yourself-

Many Indians, while preening about their country being the largest democracy, are often in denial about how threadbare the quality of that democracy actually has been, particularly in recent years.

Very few Indians bother to 'preen' themselves about anything so silly. Instead, the vast majority of Indians vigorously defend their right to throw out the incumbent administration by using the ballot box. They are not in 'denial' about things which they see every day of their lives. They don't need psychotherapy, they demand good Governance.

Indian elections are vigorous (barring some occasional complaints about intimidations and irregularities) and largely competitive (the Indian electorate is usually more anti-incumbent than, say, the American).

If Indian elections are vigorous and prone to anti-incumbency then Bardhan's first assertion stands disproved. It is silly of him to contradict himself so quickly.

But other essential aspects of democracy—respect for basic civic and human rights and established procedures of accountability in day-to-day governance—are quite weak.

These are not essential aspects of democracy at all. They may exist under a Monarchy or a Dictatorship. The phrase 'essential aspect' refers to something which must necessarily obtain with respect to its predicate in all possible worlds. However, a democracy is perfectly at liberty to deprive particular groups of people of basic civic and human rights. Indeed, it may round them up and kill them.

A pure Bureaucracy is likely to have more rigorous 'procedures of accountability'. Elected officials, however, are more leniently treated precisely because of the countervailing power of the electorate which may remove them from office.

(I don’t like the oxymoronic term ‘illiberal democracy’, used by many people—from Fareed Zakaria to Viktor Orban—as this ignores those essential aspects of democracy).

Bardhan is being silly. There is no oxymoron here at all. Either he thinks Orban presides over a liberal democracy or else Hungary is an example of an illiberal Democracy.

 In India democracy is often mis-identified with a kind of crude majoritarianism.

Democracy need not be a crude majoritarianism. However, it is likely to be reflect or pander to the views of the majority. This may be done very crudely indeed.

India is no different from any other democracy in this respect.

The Hindu nationalists which currently rule India often trample on minority rights with shameless impunity.

Rights are linked to Remedies under a bond of Law. What Bardhan says impugns the Judiciary because it, and it alone, can mandate remedies.

They have created an atmosphere of hateful violence and intimidation against dissidents and minorities, where freedom of expression by artists, writers, scholars, journalists and others is routinely violated.

Sheer nonsense. Bardhan and his ilk are perfectly safe. Why has he not approached the Court with a PIL if he knows of any such cases? Either he is a liar or a poltroon.

Supposed “group rights” trump individual rights: individual freedom of expression has very little chance if some group claims to take offence.

Bardhan is referring to laws which came into existence almost a century ago. There are no 'group rights' recognized by the Law. Individual freedom of expression has been circumscribed by Statute and Case Law several decades before the BJP came to power. It is not enough for a group to 'claim to take offense'. The Judge has to find a deliberate and malicious intention.

Courts sometimes take redemptive action, usually with great delay, but meanwhile the damage is done in intimidating large numbers of people.

This has always been the case. It isn't a smart thing to stand on the steps of a mosque saying slanderous things about the Sahiban. You will get your head kicked in. The same applies to slaughtering a cow outside a Temple.

Previously, minorities were so intimidated that ethnic cleansing occurred. That was under Congress Raj.

Several universities are currently under assault (both by ruling party goons and politicians), and school textbooks in a few states are seriously distorting history.

Things were much worse in the late Sixties. Thankfully, kids nowadays recognize that studying worthless subjects will destroy their life-chances. Thus they steer clear of politics and try to acquire useful skills.

The appointment of a bigoted Hindu-militant monk as the Chief Minister of India’s largest state, Uttar Pradesh, was a bit like the Republican Party in the US appointing the Grand Wizard of Ku Klux Klan as, say, the Governor of Texas.

This monk had been a member of parliament for over twenty years. The Grand Wizard couldn't get elected dog-catcher in a one horse town. Furthermore, the monk belongs to a long recognized and well established sect within orthodox Hinduism. The KKK can make no similar claim.

(The state now tops in incidents of hate crimes in India, according to the latest report from Amnesty International).

Since it is by far and away the biggest state in terms of population- this is precisely what we would expect.

Encouraged by such leaders roving groups in North India are terrorizing people in the name of cow protection.

Cow protection is a 'Directive Principle' of the Constitution. The bare possession of beef is a cognizable offence in many States. No doubt, there has been increased vigilantism but this is because of the wider agricultural crisis.

These cow-worshippers are oblivious how their coercive interference with cattle trade and transport is wreaking havoc on the larger cattle and farm economy, with huge numbers of stray and aged cattle loose in the countryside.

Bardhan does not like cow-worshippers. Yet Hinduism- the religion of the vast majority of Indians- does feature cow-worship. Why does Bardhan not understand that both the Hindu religion and the Constitution of India mandate the very thing he complains about?

Many voluntary groups (“NGO’s”) in the business of critical monitoring of the implementation of public policies are regularly harassed and frightened by hostile action from government agencies—one tool of harassment is the arbitrary application of the FCRA, Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (from which, by the way, all political parties are exempt).

If people 'in the business of critical monitoring' get 'frightened by hostile action'- they should find another job. Furthermore, if what they are doing really is useful, they should find indigenous donors. Alternatively, they could become political parties and contest elections. They would then be free to get money from anywhere they like.

In India the political parties are neither public entities (“GO’s”) to which the Right to Information Act should apply, nor “NGO’s” to which the FCRA is to apply, and meanwhile they enjoy tax exemption.

How can a political party be a 'G.O'? Is this man a complete idiot? Why should it pretend it is a Charity? Who would believe it?  Bardhan must know that many parties in India are dynastic. R.T.I would mean a son would have to reveal what Mummy said to him as she fed him sweeties.

Does Bardhan think Political Parties are business enterprises? How on earth can they be taxed if they neither produce nor sell anything tangible?

In the Social Hostilities Index, brought out by the Pew Research Center for 198 countries, at the end of 2016 India was among the 8 worst (the index labeled “Very High”) countries.

 Precisely what we would expect of a very poor, vastly over-populated still largely agricultural country with a youthful demographic. Still, the Pew Research Center is wholly idiotic. It puts India above Syria! This means, from the legal standpoint, Indians should get the same priority in asylum cases as Syrians. The UN should be shelling out billions for Displaced People in India.  But nothing of the sort will happen coz this is fake news. Incidentally, the index puts France above Myanmar.

In the World Press Freedom Index, brought out by Reporters without Borders, in 2017-18 India’s rank among 180 countries was 138.

Another piece of junk which puts Jamaica above the UK and Myanmar above India.

In the Rule of Law Index brought out by the World Justice Project for 113 countries, in 2017-18 India’s rank was 62 (tied with Indonesia).

So what? India is very poor and the dysfunctions of its Judiciary have always been apparent which is why it is disintermediated most of the time. A lot of the cases clogging up the Courts have to do with disputes between different Departments of Government.

In the Report of the Economist Intelligence Unit on the State of Democracy in the World for 2018, both India and Indonesia are in the category of ‘flawed’, not full, democracy;

Indian democracy is not flawed- it is as full as a very poor country can afford. Why not simply say 'India is very poor which is why in the Global Ranking of anything at all, it will fare poorly.'

out of 167 countries India’s rank is 41, worse than Latvia, Taiwan or Botswana (Indonesia’s is even worse at 65)—the rank for both India and Indonesia having sharply declined compared to 2014.

Since nothing has changed since 2014, the decline is meaningless. How does it matter to an Indian if some other country decides to improve its Rule of Law or State of Democracy? Such metrics are useless.

In general there is not much to be proud of in these indices for the world’s largest democracy.

What is wrong with Bardhan? Does he not understand that there is never anything to be proud of in comparing yourself to others? All that matters is what you yourself have been doing to make things better.

Suppose the rest of the world were ravaged by a zombie apocalypse. Would Bardhan really be all puffed up with pride because India was suddenly number one on all good metrics? This is moral idiocy of a deeply repugnant sort.

Of course the Indian government and business economists show off India’s high growth rates.

Why? It is because they want to attract f.d.i. Thus their concern is not to boast but benefit the people of India- something Bardhan and his ilk will never manage to do.

The growth rate numbers (with some doubts occasionally arising from mismatch with figures about credit or investment or crude alternative measures of economic activity) and those about fiscal deficits (served with a bit of creative accounting) are primarily for the consumption of credit rating agencies and foreign investors.

In other words, some useful purpose is served by massaging them. By contrast, no useful purpose is served by pretending India has more Social Hostility than Syria or less Press Freedom than Myanmar.

At election time the ruling party politicians are shrewd enough to realize that high growth rates (particularly when they have not created commensurate numbers of good jobs for the bulging population of youths) do not cut much ice with the restive electorate.

What ice was Bardhan cutting by quoting worthless indices which show India is a more dangerous place than Syria?

So they go for widely publicized sops like loan waivers and income support for (the currently distressed) farmers and other handouts.

This is perfectly rational. Economists know that there is a fiscal election-cycle in all Democracies. Why mention it here as though it showed something sinister and uniquely Indian?

The current government has no doubt had some laudable economic achievements in providing some measure of financial inclusion, roads, housing, sanitation, gas for cooking fuel, etc. for the poor, and somewhat less cumbersome regulations, streamlining of value-added taxes (though clumsily implemented) and insolvency procedures for business.

Very good of Bardhan to say so, I'm sure. But why first utter nonsense about how Syria is safer than India and Myanmar more free? In political analysis we expect an alethic evaluation of economic policy. If there are achievements- what made them possible? How can they be extended? Failures too need to be analysed.

But actual progress in much of these has not matched the constant barrage of official hype, and the Indian economy, particularly in the vast informal sector, has barely recovered from the whimsical onslaught of demonetization in November 2016 thought up by an ignorant but arrogant leadership and carried out by a confused and unprepared banking bureaucracy.

It is the nature of hype that it is unrelated to progress. Why not explain what Modi promised and why he failed to deliver? The truth about demonetization is known to all. Modi did it to capitalize on anti-corruption sentiment stirred up by Anna Hazare and what became the Aam Admi Party. It was a political gambit which paid off.

The government refuses to have any dialogue with most labor organizations in the country (except its own party-affiliated one) on the issues of so-called labor reform.

This is because such organizations are all party-affiliated. It would be pointless to have a dialogue with them. But then, even in the UK, the days of 'beer and sandwiches' at Number 10 for Trade Union leaders are long gone.

On most social indicators, involving education and health, India’s progress has been unimpressive even for its level of per capita income.

Why does Bardhan not explain why this should be? The fact is teachers and Doctors in Government run Schools and Health Centers don't do their jobs. It is the private sector which delivers. Labor reform could lead to truant teachers being sacked- but they count the votes in elections, so Public Sector Education will continue to languish in many parts of India.

In the Human Capital Index recently prepared by the World Bank, out of 157 countries India’s rank is 115, even worse than poorer neighbors like Bangladesh and Nepal (Indonesia’s rank is better, at 87).

Yet India receives migrants from both countries. I may mention the World Bank says it created the Index so as to persuade countries to invest more in Health and Education. The problem in India is that there are zero or negative returns to such expenditure in the Public Sector because of the Labor market rigidities I previously mentioned. You can't get votes by saying 'I'll put more money into Schools'- because voters don't believe the money will be well-spent. That is why Modi is moving to cash transfers- indeed, he claimed demonetization would help digital banking and thus make the thing more economical.

On balance it is not clear how helpful the record of economic performance will be for the ruling party in the elections.

It is a clear as day that voters will look at their real-income and life-chances and punish incumbents on that basis. They won't care a jot about the Pew Research Center or the World Bank. But then, only idiots like Bardhan bother with such things.

When claims about the economy (with Modi as “vikash-purush” or Mr. Development) do not work, the ruling party has an ominous history of invoking religious symbols (like promising to build a Hindu temple on the rubble of a destroyed mosque) and strategically stoking communal suspicion and polarization, or supercharged jingoism against a neighboring Muslim country, all of which often helping the immediate electoral prospects of a majoritarian party.

 Bardhan may hate cow-worshipping Hindus and their temples. However, economic theory classes Temples and National Defense as Public Goods- if people like Temples and want to continue to be part of the Nation. It is perfectly proper, in a Democracy, to give the voters the sort of Public Goods they want. Bardhan may not like it. He is welcome to leave. What am I saying? He left for Berkeley in 1979. Why is this idiot writing about India? Let him concentrate on stuff he knows about- viz academic politics in Sunny California.