Ah, the revolution! It is coming!

Peter Drucker once said: “In all recorded history there has not been one economist who has had to worry about where the next meal would come from”. Some Economists in our country assume that, by this, Drucker was suggesting doing Economics as a good career option for youngsters.

Not surprising, considering the fact that we indeed have economists, perched in their state funded academic ivory towers, preaching the virtues of subsidies and telling us how labour reforms are a bad idea to begin with.

It seems, once labour reforms happen, it would be difficult to earn wages without working. Now, who would know it better than these scholarly men that there cannot be a worse concept than having your wages linked to your contribution to work! I mean, can you imagine, the right to wages being conditional? The right to life is a fundamental right, and income, which is so basic to life; can it be conditional upon, say, work?

Isn’t it so obvious that the right to strike too is a fundamental right? Apparently, the honourable Supreme Court is not taking into consideration the rights and the aspirations of the common man. I didn't say this. The Professors, they said it!

Of course, the right to employment is a fundamental right as well. Doesn’t it follow that you need to be employed to have the right to strike? In which case, if someone is unemployed, it means that the state has failed to protect the rights, and hence the government should resign. Now, don’t ask me why only the government should ensure results, when the labour force of the country wouldn’t have to! Or may be I should attempt to answer that. Let me think... Is it that while the labour force forms the proletariat, the comprador capitalists, who cannot be left unaccountable, run the government?

Aha! I can see some sense now. Too good! I am glad that despite American imperialism strangling even our cultural ethos, and the liberalization, privatization and globalization, forced on us by the MNCs, the World Bank and the IMF, we have not lost the ability to think clearly. I am glad we haven’t been influenced by the steady growth in the economy or the expansion of the middle-class or even the gradual reduction in poverty. Ask the Professors and they can disprove all the changes that you think you have seen in the last two decades. In case, some things can’t be disproved, they can very well tell you how terrible those would be for the country in the long run.

Alright! Let us put two and two together: The Left in this country is allowed to have it way and the right to wages, the right to strike, and the right to be employed become fundamental rights. This, clearly, precludes the possibility of any rights to the capitalist-employer. Since the employers, given their limited rights, would then decide to minimize the use of labour, it becomes imperative upon the state to generate employment. The state, since it needs capital to employ these millions, and since it is expressly anti-national to depend on imperial agencies like the World Bank and the IMF, taxes the capitalists to the extent possible. The capitalists, who would thus see their capital sponged off, could then either go and settle abroad with whatever they have or continue producing till s/he is broke and join the labour force. You thought of cost cutting through technological change as a possibility? Sorry, the money that could have been invested in R&D would have been wiped off as taxes, and foreign-collaboration is a strict no-no! Thus, as more and more businesses close, the state steps in to provide jobs for more and more people. How long? Since there are no additional sources of capital left, the state starts pump priming and galloping inflation sets in. Or did you think of the possibility of state-run firms employing everyone who were around and still making profits and thus, generating enough capital to continue running the show? Goodness, you are so right! I mean, if we can make sure that there is no competition from anywhere for the goods and services produced by the state-run firms, why can't they make profit? May be the prices might rise a bit, but the Government can subsidize… oh, sorry, forgot that there is no money… well, prices might rise and then the salaries can be increased and then the prices may rise a little more and the salaries can rise a little further…

Hours and days pass by and finally the system comes to a stand-still! The reserve army of the unemployed swells up instantaneously and the revolution- ah! the revolution, the Professors have taught and foretold a whole generation of students - would finally happen. Of course, this revolution may not have guns and bullets. Stones and sticks should still be affordable, and in any case, Marx hasn’t said anything about that. The state, the ultimate oppressor, would finally collapse, and assuming that other countries are all too busy with their own affairs, peace, a just peace, an academically ideal condition, would prevail, even if it would be of the graveyard variety. What is important is that by then all private property would have been eliminated, and inequality would have already become history. And, well, the poor! You see, there can’t be such categories as the rich or the poor then.

The better-off and the worse-off? Yeah! The dead and the living!

My bets are on the Professors joining places ranging from Amherst to the Hague, offering new courses on neo-imperialism and underdevelopment, as soon as the Left parties come to power!

'Son-stroke' at twilight!

Thrishivaperoor: When Shri K Karunakaran, the crafty old man of Kerala politics, handed over the flag of his new party to his son, Shri K Muraleedharan, many in the audience were left wondering if he had finally lost the script. The veteran ‘leader’ would have liked his family form a dynasty at the state level in the Congress, on the lines of the Nehru-Gandhi family at the national level. For almost a decade now, he had tricked and blackmailed the Congress leadership at the Centre and at the state level, into deals, which foisted Shri Muraleedharan on to the state unit of the Congress in return for peace from him. But, the ever-spiraling ambitions of the father-son duo and the dormancy of Shri A K Antony’s leadership ended up in the parliamentary positions from the state being handed over to the opposition Left front on a platter. A complete disconnect with the grassroots meant that the Congress high-command did not know what actions to take until the state unit of the Congress had lost all semblance of credibility.

It was only after a couple of months that a leadership change in the government and a course correction in group politics happened. Less-idealistic but highly shrewd politicians took charge of the anti-Karunakaran forces in the Congress in a process, which found Shri Antony pleading once again before the party leadership for accommodating Karunakaran and his family. Yet, neither Shri Antony nor Shri Karunakaran’s friends at the centre, Shri Pranab Mukherjee and Shri Motilal Vohra, could stop Shri Karunakaran’s exit from the party. The central leadership apparently expects the party, as would anyone familiar with the see-saw politics of Kerala, a chance to sit in the opposition after the next Assembly elections. Hence, it becomes pointless to pamper Shri Karunakaran. The fact that even the Left wouldn’t openly woo him would have been considered when Shri Muraleedharan was expelled from the party for six years.

At his moment of reckoning, Shri Karunakaran was forced to choose between the party he built in the state and his son. He chose his son. Ironically, now that he finds himself outside the Congress, any dynasty, which he would have wanted to build through his son, can now be realized only in a setting similar to that of any of the Kerala Congress factions, where he could be a mere scarecrow on the fields of either of the opposing fronts in Kerala. What a fall for someone who was affectionately called by many Keralites as ‘the leader’! Smt Margaret Alwa appropriately referred to Shri Karunakaran’s problem as ‘son-stroke’. It is likely that history would judge him a trifle too harshly for succumbing to this sickness at the twilight of his life.

May Day wishes for the unemployed!

Collecting thoughts and colouring them with ink may not be treated as labour and so I wonder if I can rightfully celebrate May Day! That brings me to an interesting question about the place the unemployed have in India's proletarian parties.

The immediate provocation for this is the sustained opposition of the Left parties and the trade unions to labour reforms in this country. It is not very difficult to comprehend the position of the trade unions: Self-interest necessitates defending their existing rights and benefits. So it makes perfect sense for them to fight to keep wages higher than what they should be, even if it means that the demand for labour remains lower than what it should be. As long as they remain employed, the effect of high cost of labour on the overall industrial employment and the nature of production do not matter to them. Rational behaviour? You bet!

The Left parties cannot oppose the Trade unions. It is a problem, part of a historic image trap. Organised workers are the most visible component of the working class and historically, Left movements have identified with their cause. But where does that leave the Left parties vis-a-vis the unemployed, the underemployed and the employees of the unorganised sectors?

Contrary to the expectations of basic economic logic, Indian industrialisation has been predominantly capital-intensive, even as the country has remained as an obvious case of a capital scarce, labour abundant economy. A couple of distortions explain this. One is the presence of the so-called 'depreciation allowance' on tax, which allows companies to write off amounts against capital depreciation, promoting an obvious bias in favour of capital over labour. What a brilliant state policy for an over-populated country, right?

What is, but of much more consequence is the inflexibility in the labour market and the presence of laws obviously biased against the employers. Once the real cost of employing labour is artificially high, it should hardly be surprising that industrialists prefer capital-intensive techniques of production, even in a labour abundant country like ours. So the liberalised private sector now grows at exciting rates, but without any reforms in the labour market, there is hardly any growth in employment in the manufacturing sector. Well, the critics of economic reforms talk about jobless growth, but what they would not want to admit is the fact that it is due to less reforms and not more!

In a country, where nearly 9 out of 10 workers in the manufacturing sector are in the unorganised sector, where a good number of agricultural workers are underemployed, and where unemployment levels are high even by developing country standards, should a small percentage of unionised workers hold back employment growth? Should the better off among the working class be allowed to protect their interests by effectively blocking the entry of others?

Labour reforms would reduce the cost of employing labour and would thus result in an increased demand for labour. Any benefit this process accrues to the industries would again translate into more jobs. In a country, where the average level of education is nothing worth writing home about, service sector jobs can provide employment only to a small, often English educated, minority. So there is no way one can truly undermine the importance of employment generation in the manufacturing sector. This, but, demands the immediate removal of anti-employer biases from labour laws. In the long-run interests of the working class movement, in the interests of the 'reserve army of the unemployed', would the Left parties oblige? Let this May Day mark a new beginning for the poor and the unemployed of this country.

Juvenile pleasures...

Happy April Fools'!
Copyright Manorama Online 2004

Human Rights!

CLASSIC VERSION...

Remember the old story!!!! The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.

MODERN VERSION...

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving. BBC, CNN, NDTV show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. The World is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can it be that this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so? Arundhati Roy stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house. Amnesty International and Koffi Annan criticizes the Government for not upholding the fundamental rights of the grasshopper. The Internet is flooded with online petitions seeking support to the grasshopper. Opposition MP's stage a walkout. Left parties call for "Bharat Bandh" in West Bengal and Kerala demanding a Judicial Enquiry.

Finally, the Judicial Committee drafts the Prevention of Terrorism Against Grasshoppers Act [POTAGA]", with effect from the beginning of the winter. The ant is fined for failing to comply with POTAGA and, having nothing left to pay his retrspective fines, his home is confiscated by the government and handed over to the grasshopper in a ceremony covered by BBC, CNN and NDTV.

Arundhati Roy calls it "a triumph of justice".

Source: Mail forward. Origin unknown

The Curtain Rods

She spent the first day packing her belongings into boxes, crates and suitcases. On the second day, she had the movers come and collect her things. On the third day, she sat down for the last time at their beautiful dining room table by candlelight, put on some soft background music, and feasted on a pound of shrimp, a jar of caviar, and a bottle of Chardonnay.

When she had finished, she went into each and every room and deposited a few half-eaten shrimp shells, dipped in caviar, into the hollow of the curtain rods. She then cleaned up the kitchen and left.

When the husband returned with his new girlfriend, all was bliss for the first few days. Then slowly, the house began to smell. They tried everything: cleaning and mopping and airing the place out. Vents were checked for dead rodents, and carpets were steam cleaned. Air fresheners were hung everywhere. Exterminators were brought in to set off gas canisters, during which they had to move out for a few days, andin the end they even paid to replace the expensive wool carpeting.

Nothing worked. People stopped coming over to visit. Repairmen refused to work in the house. The maid quit. Finally, they could not take the stench any longer and decided to move.
A month later, even though they had cut their price in half, theycould not find a buyer for their stinky house. Word got out, and eventually, even the local realtors refused to return their calls. Finally, they had to borrow a huge sum of money from the bank to purchase a new place.

The ex-wife called the man, and asked how things were going. He told her the saga of the rotting house. She listened politely, and said that she missed her old home terribly, and would be willing to reduce her divorce settlement in exchange for getting the house back...

Knowing his ex-wife had no idea how bad the smell was, he agreed on price that was about 1/10th of what the house had been worth. But only if she were to sign the papers that very day. She agreed, and within the hour, his lawyers delivered the paperwork.

A week later, the man and his new girlfriend stood smirking as they watched the moving company pack everything to take to their new home...including the curtain rods.

I LOVE A HAPPY ENDING, DON'T YOU????

Source: Mail forward. Origin unknown.

SUGAR AND SPICE AND ALL THINGS NICE??

Here is a poem that I found on the MCC Alumni group mailing network. Comments are welcome!

An angel of truth and a dream of fiction,
a woman is a bundle of contradiction.

She's afraid of a wasp, will scream at a mouse,
but will tackle her boyfriend alone in the house.

She'll take him for better, she'll take him for worse;
she'll break open his head and then be his nurse.

But when he's well and can get out of bed,
she'll pick up the tea-pot and aim for his head.

Beautiful and keenly sighted, yet blind,
crafty and cruel, yet simple and kind.

She'll call him a king, then make him a clown,
raise him on a pedestal, then knock him flat down.

She'll inspire him to deeds that ennoble man,
or make him her lackey to carry her fan.

She'll run away from him and never come back,
but if he runs away, then she'll be on his tracks.

Sour as vinegar, sweet as a rose,
she'll kiss you one minute, then turn up her nose.

She'll win you in rags, enchant you in silk,
she'll be stronger than brandy, milder than milk

At times she'll be vengeful, merry and sad,
she'll hate you like poison, and love you like mad.