The Debate on Constitution & Legalese
By: Amit Bhushan Date: 27th Jan. 2018
We move on from 69th Republic Day in a tumultuous environment with the commercial news media seeming to convey that the 70th would be different, possibly. It is evident on account of the fact that no less than the President needs to appeal to control manner of display of the dissent. Would that have impact on the street violence is still to be seen, but the absence of morality amongst the Netas has ensured its dilution with the public and the result is seen everywhere including in politics. There are enough Journos again who would go into assessment of the legalese or the social fabric to decipher the signals and their meaning in the current circumstances. Very few would explore policies of the government and the efficacy of implementation of the laws and policies. Also the criticism of the laws regards some of the redundancies in contemporary circumstances is again a new subject with very little information and debate in the media, although some Netas would make statistical claims rather than their impact and achievement for the public. The economics is unlikely to be discussed even though it seems to be having a major impact on politics despite of the Netas not wanting to recognize the same. Guess this is an opportunity for this article as we keep debates on the commercial news media on softer issues depicting of its soft power/influence on politics. Basically, the challenge has been around management and control of the factors of production/productivity viz. land, labour (education & skills), capital, entrepreneurship (primary factors), materials and energy (secondary factors). The government of the day with its policies are responsible for how the factors are likely to be distributed and ease of access, cost to people/segments of business for these factors. The Netas wanting to lead ‘change’ would need to convince people regards the policies around these factors with the impact that such policies could have. This is because public seems quite open to ‘change’ (not many in media with all their paraphernalia can say this with any confidence though, since 'change' happened in spite of many of them rather than because of them) as depicted by its response to the Netas promising ‘change’ as a slogan, even though the Netas don’t seem to have realized this as of yet. It is however important to understand that what would possibly bring this ‘change’ rather than groping in dark.
While the Land is a finite resource however limitation to its usage ensures government control on its becoming available for a particular kind of usage and this usage also determines its price. The Netas decide on the land use along with some administrative machinery and the machinery is almost always subject to a high degree of manipulation and some of the protests in the capital depicts the tussle in this regard although such tussle is seen everywhere and everyday even if not captured by the commercial news media. Ensuring better use of this factor i.e. land has at least one requirement, viz. that the land is not hoarded by the people who would want to jack up the price artificially. While we have had many regulations and reforms but no attempts to help develop any political understanding around the same. The movements like Bhudaan and land reforms especially in the left-run West Bangal around farm land helped in 60s & 70s and have had political impact during its time. This was because some of the farm land hoarding came down and land was distributed amongst some people who would put it to production. We still seem to be grappling with the challenges around this, where industrial, commercial land as well as agricultural land is being held by a few. The parties and the Netas would however keep discussion laws which are only about how and at what price should land procurement be made and that too from farmers. Those holding on to industrial/commercial land without any production, is not a topic for discussion and the media will not want to know/understand the subject as a challenge even though people in politics want to have/maintain a major influence on this factor of production and this still involves major black-money. There is a need to increase tax on land holding not being put to production or on inadequate production, but the Netas and parties who have/represent interests, would fail to come up for discussion or make speeches on the same or find a suitable formula for its delivery as they continue with many other debates around land.
Labour is another factor and there are a plethora of regulations on this. But we first need to step back in present day Hi-tech circumstances. Presently, much of labour is ceding ground to machines as a factor of production unless trained well and in possession of skills to ‘operate’ these machines. The labour also needs to keep itself healthy (and ensure the same for their families as well) in order to keep delivering upon production goals. The government has a heavy hand in both the health & wellness sector as well as the education and training sector. We have a polity which is increasingly willing to give up control on this as long as this also ensures that they would have no responsibilities regards this as well. They want the labour to negotiate with the businesses directly in one-to-one rather than organized manner and reduce allocation to health and education due to paucity of funds with the government. The debate on education as well as government health-care institutions seems to be picking up including its privatization and low quality of the private institutions as well. These articles have praised the efforts of the commercial news media who are giving voice to the concerns of the public.
Capital is the other factor. Often the commercial news media would confuse this with the risk capital (provided by entrepreneurship) rather than adequacy of the capital resources to support production in line with the demand in the markets. In India, the supply of this factor viz. Capital is mainly controlled through banks other than capital markets which can accessed by larger businesses alone. There has been little debate on how banks distribute this capital. The criteria for evaluation of proposals to make the allocation is far from transparent. Businesses favoured by the Netas in the government of the day have regularly walked away with capital while other businesses have struggled. Then of course is the treatment of the NPAs where again the favoured businesses have got a favourable consideration from the banks. The story of Capital markets is also not too good since there are very few success stories (fewer than those of banks) to generate any confidence. The need to attract foreign funds seems to have some impact in the regulations pertaining to Capital markets though. While these articles have continued to raise the voice on banks but not much impact on the media or the Netas is seen so far. This is however likely to be a make or break factor in continuation of the government, considering the manner in which politics seem to be rolling. This is because the factor can flare easily, and some debates around select cases have kept this simmering for nearly all parties and Netas. There may be a reluctance of the Netas to take up the issue due to well-understood reasons and in an increasingly difficult polity would become more apparent.
Entrepreneurship is a factor of production in which it is popularly believed that the government has minimal impact. This is because entrepreneurship involves risk-taking. The government however is responsible to support development of the markets where consumption thrives because the consumers believe that they have adequate protection in enforcing contracts that they enter in, with producers. A legal system which guides model contracts for different sectors (standard clauses and contract specification for popular products and services), legal systems that ensure adequate and easy enforcement of the same and a healthy dispute resolution mechanism is a basic need. So is the need to train and develop entrepreneurs equipping them with the skills to deal with the system. An ‘ease of doing business’ on account of well-structured and well-defined processes and minimization of such procedures to ensure low cost of compliance is another need. The realization of this has been quite late, and the progress is in line. Many parties and Netas still to have a firmed up stand around this issue and in its absence, the government of the day has every right to claim to claim progress. Security of the man, materials and machine impact entrepreneurship and few Netas want to understand this as of now and this remains one of the politically defining concerns. Move towards stronger consumer protection and equal distribution of opportunities would ensure a level playing field and a growth of entrepreneurship.
Then secondary factors include Materials. Materials factor depict what is needed to produce the goods and services in demand. Access to materials or raw-materials in a fair manner ensure competitiveness of the businesses and impact their ability to compete. There seem to be tweak in duties and tax rates along with monitoring of competitiveness of domestic units against ‘imports’. There seems to have claims that this has improved production in domestic area and ‘inflation’ seems to have not gone out of control as of yet, though this may change as we see ‘commodity and energy inflation’. There are also claims that government is looking to impact the cost of logistics besides development of new networks of roads, rails and waterways. One of the factors in ‘material’ is also ‘standards’. This is the ‘standards’ for raw-materials, components and finished goods that can be ‘sold’ in our markets, besides the manner in which such goods can be sold. There were disastrous consequences of ‘reforms’ around ‘mineral resource access’ for businesses under previous administration. While a new Land law seem to be still intact, however an absence of clarity regards land ownerships continues to make things cumbersome even if this may not have been with the view on the Materials factor alone. The political consciousness around this factor is still marred with feudalistic mindset with Netas in government in control and not wanting a policy driven approach taking over.
The other secondary factor is Energy. Under India circumstances, this is a scarce resource. The businesses would be better off if they have an easy access and low cost, however poor population seem to have the same need. The rationing by government tends to favour poor due to need to attract votes and the businesses tend to strike ‘separate deal’ with the Netas. The scarce resource needs a national policy with politics keeping off, so that the tussle amongst Netadom has minimum impact. This should be to ensure maximum competition so that businesses are efficient and wastage is minimum and pricing as competitive as possible. This however has not been the case, even though we have Netas harping around ‘vote bank politics’. We do seem to be making some push towards renewable segment where we may be having adequate domestic untapped capacity. There might be a need to have a more comprehensive policy regards the same rather than adhocism and Netagiri. This factor would again keep on impacting polity as it has been doing so for years.
Instead of a ‘view’ on these factors, the political parties and Netas have almost always held that their main purpose is to ‘balance’ the struggle between different classes in the society be these classes segmented basis ‘Caste & ethnicity’, ‘Faith’, or ‘some Economic & Linguistics factors’ and/or a mix of all these factors together. The commercial news media reflects this as it gives hype to debates around triple tallaq or entertainment project or Liquor-ban etc. with select segment/s of society taking an emotional stand and rally behind Netas Championing ‘their cause’. This then allows the Netas to pursue actual politics with disdain about the public and their actual everyday concerns. Top of it the commercial news media also has steadfastly refused to take any blame since they are just ‘reporting’ what is an actual happenstance, rather than supporting any Neta or party and their politics, which is very far from truth. Therefore it is an opportunity for the ‘social media’ with its ‘Game’ questions to continue to expose this. Let the ‘Game’ evolve…..