India and the Global Attention Surplus Disorder!

Jan 17^th, 2023: BBC releases the first part of the documentary on Modi titled “India: The Modi Question”. Among other things, the documentary goes on to levy charges on Modi for his role during the Gujarat riots back in 2002 when he was the Chief Minister of the state. It is another matter that the courts and different committees have delved into the same matter for so many years and have exonerated Modi for his involvement in inciting the riots as claimed by the documentary.

Jan 24^th, 2023: Hindenburg, an American short seller, publishes a report on the Adani group in which it accuses Adani group of “brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme over the course of decades.” This was just three days before the opening of Adani’s FPO in the market. The ensuing brouhaha led eventually to the withdrawal of the FPO only after a massive evaporation of its market capitalisation.

Feb 6^th, 2023: In the US, the Deputy Secretary of State briefed that “The surveillance balloon effort, which has operated for several years partly out of Hainan province off China’s south coast, has collected information on military assets in countries and areas of emerging strategic interest to China including Japan, India, Vietnam, Taiwan and the Philippines,”

Feb 17^th, 2023: At the Munich security summit, an annual conference on global security issues, George Soros, an American business magnate and philanthropist launched a scathing tirade on the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In his speech, he also referred to the Hindenburg report and said that Modi and Adani were close allies and that their fate was intertwined.

If you look at all these stories, a few things are strikingly common – the stories are about India, they are damning in design and emanating from outside India.

Welcome to India’s “Global Attention Surplus Disorder” ^TM (GASD) era. At the outset, let me clarify that this has got nothing to do with Attention Deficit Disorder which is a mental condition. Global Attention Surplus Disorder is when a country is subjected to excessive attention globally because of which stories mostly of the critical type about the country keep coming out at regular intervals.

It is important to note that all countries are not automatically subjected to this syndrome. In the evolution of any country, there comes a time when the country becomes in a way eligible for excessive attention. Once eligible, it becomes a part of this privileged league of nations. I believe that for India, this started last year (2022), though we have often threatened to get into this league but slipped back in the last minute. Why did India become part of this league and is getting subjected to GASD?

When a sportsperson starts doing well in mega events, she starts becoming the cynosure of all eyes. She also comes under scrutiny not just for her sports feats but also for her conduct in her personal life (Think Sania Mirza). Among all the film stars, if you are a top star like one of the Khans, obviously you are at the centre of all attention and scrutiny. You will receive your regular dose of bouquets but when the brickbats come, they will be heavy and bitter. Ask Aamir Khan. If you are the among the richest and most famous you cannot escape the attention of the prying news reporters. Look at the Ambanis. A dominant and globally successful company is always under media scrutiny not just for its success but also for its omissions and commissions. Search Google. A very quick upstart, which was initially the darling of the one and all could face the bile of the same media and regulators worldwide when it becomes over-successful. What happened to Facebook (Meta)? Even when a politician becomes extremely popular with the public and becomes a darling of the masses, he becomes a victim of excessive and continuous scrutiny. Even if it’s a Modi.

This has what has changed for India in the past few months. For a populous country like India, it weathered the Covid storm pretty well. In the past few years, the fundamentals of the economy are getting stronger because of which the country’s resilience to external shocks has improved drastically. Despite global headwinds like Covid, the Ukraine war and now the global economic slowdown, India continues to grow at a faster clip than all major economies. For the future, the world is now predicting that this could be India’s decade. There is a visible transformation of infrastructure in the country. Highways, Railways, Airports, Metros, sea links are all finally moving toward completion in the next five years after being in a permanent Work In Progress phase. The adoption of digital solutions to solve the country’s public issues seem real and this holds a lot of “hard” promise for the future. In the past, our promises remained “soft”. As we saw in the recent mega order of the aircrafts, big powers are looking to India to help them.

In Marketing it is said that for a market leader apart from doing routine things to increase its share, and expand the market, the bigger challenge is to ring-fence itself from some “Public Relations (PR) storm” or other that it is subjected to now and then. For example, a successful brand and a leader in its category like McDonald’s has to spend extra marketing resources for challenging litigations and Class action suits by say, Vegans. A vigilante group will never waste time and resources on going after say a Biggies Burger or a Burger Singh (yes these are Burger brands and competitors to McDonald’s in India)

My point is, getting subjected to Global Attention Surplus Disorder is a sign of India’s success. It means that India has arrived. In my opinion, China started suffering from this around the mid-2000s when its economy started firing on all cylinders and China became the so-called factory of the world. But that’s when coverage of its record on Human rights, Freedom of expression, Public Data accuracy, Transparency Index, Corruption, etc. also started finding its way into the global media regularly. There is not a single day when there is no negative story on China these days in reputed publications like The Economist, The Washington Post, The New York Times and so on. China has been suffering from GASD for many years; India has just started.

In the coming days, weeks, months and years, you will see India being in the eye of the storm frequently and more often. We have to get used to this excessive attention from the world. As a country, and as a government we should put processes in place to handle PR storms of varied nature from here on that will ensure less Governmental time on such issues. At the same time, we should pick the right battles to fight. Otherwise, we could get into a vicious distractive cycle. India is at the cusp of making history. Focus on the job at hand is more important than getting waylaid by distractions.

As Cricket experts would say, in seaming conditions and turning tracks, a batsman should know which ball or bowler to attack and more importantly which to be “well left”!

Image courtesy: Hans India

The Maahaul of India Shining!

If you are an avid watcher or reader of global commentary, you cannot miss the ongoing spotlight on India and mostly for good reasons. India seems to be the shining star in what otherwise seems to be a global economy that is still coming to terms with post-Covid recovery and the spiralling effects of the Russia – Ukraine war. The past few weeks have seen a downpour of bad news on the economic front globally. And it is not just from the US which is a prime mover in the global economy but other developed nations as well.

India though seems to be a lonely planet in the universe. The stock markets are on a historic high as we approach the end of this calendar year and despite the global demand situation, the Q2 GDP numbers at 6.3% demonstrate that India is tiding over the global headwinds reasonably well. Therefore, on cue, we have been seeing many opinion pieces, commentaries, and encomiums of late not just within India but globally, saying that this could be India’s decade and so on. I am calling this the “India Shining” sentiment for easy understanding! The point to note is the maahaul of India Shining keeps visiting us every 5-6 years and ebbs off after a while.

The phrase “India Shining” was of course used for the first time by the Vajpayee-led NDA government to project a positive outlook of the country to foreign investors back in 2003-04. The campaign was envisaged by Jaswant Singh as the finance minister. Later on, it took shape of a political campaign for NDA in the 2004 polls. Many expert commentators till today opine that the India Shining campaign was the main reason for its defeat in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections. If one does a fine toothcomb analysis of the results, it will be clear as daylight that NDA was defeated due to other issues. We will keep that for another day, another blog.

The campaign did help to improve the image of India worldwide in that period. India was part of the BRICS coinage, a commentary that would have done countries like India, China, Russia, etc more good than any global PR campaign ever did. I remember in that period wherever I went, the BRICS story dominated discussions in board rooms and what followed was a long period of India Shining till the Global Financial Crisis in the form of Lehman shock struck in 2008. If you recall, the period 2003 – 2008 saw huge investments in real estate and retail with the free flow of “Hot money” to India, all thanks to the positive India Shining sentiment.

The next brief and passive wave of India Shining started in 2014 after Narendra Modi took over as the Prime Minister of a full majority government after 1989. India was the flavour of the world then and this lasted for a few years till 2017. The stock markets saw new highs with a heavy inflow of FII in this period.

What we are seeing now is the return of the BRICS type hype. The difference is, three of the constituents of BRICS namely Brazil, Russia, and China are no longer in the good books of the world while India continues to be. There are a few things that are going well for India overall now. A politically stable government that is confident in itself and no longer suffering from coalition compulsions. A government led by a leader whose popularity and credibility among the masses is unprecedented in a long while which helps take decisions without looking over one’s shoulders. Introduction of structural financial reforms like the GST and IBC that have stabilized and yielding results. India coming out of Covid relatively better off with life and business back to normal. The swift post-pandemic recovery in the economy despite the global headwinds due to the ongoing war. A nuanced management of the economy in the past few years and in a sense better than what the minders of the economy are being credited for, in my opinion.

Countries and Corporations who had conceived the China+1 strategy back in 2013 to de-risk from China are actually getting serious about executing the strategy now by shifting part of production elsewhere. The Covid pandemic and the way China has been handling the pandemic has now morphed the China +1 strategy into ABC (Anything but China) strategy. These have certainly helped the cause of manufacturing in India as we can see in the exports of Mobile phones out of India now. We are still scratching the surface here and still miles to go before we become a credible +1 in manufacturing.

There is a visible infrastructural transformation that is happening in India as we speak. Highways, Railways, Airports, and seaports are all getting upgraded or added at a speed not seen before. Again, the pandemic derailed the progress for two years otherwise, many would have seen completion by now.

There is credence therefore to the India Shining sentiment that we are witnessing at the moment. Here is where I would like to add a caveat. Developed countries like the US, Western Europe, Japan, and so on look at other countries when their internal situations are not good. That is how China got the benefit of a huge benevolence from the US in the 90’s when the US outsourced almost its entire manufacturing to China. Similarly, the US Economy is going through a trough presently with the spectre of a recession looming large. The economy is indeed resilient but there are lots of ifs and buts. Commentators call this the “Yes and But” situation.

If you look at India, I would say we are in a “No and But” situation. Living in India, one cannot resonate easily with the India Shining maahaul. Our cities are in a state of perennial under-construction. Projects, whether they are flyovers or Metros just don’t seem to finish. Interest rates have become so high that have pushed EMIs over the roof. IBC has not helped to resolve quickly the issue of bankrupt companies. In Mumbai, bankrupt builders have ditched projects midway spoiling the aspirations of so many middle-class families and filling the skyline with incomplete towers. Jobs and Unemployment data point to a very grim situation for the youth.

But the economy is indeed growing. GST collections have been on a healthy trend. People are travelling and holidaying like there is no tomorrow. Just look at the long queues for check-in and security checks in big airports like Mumbai and Delhi in the early morning hours. Festival and marriage shopping crowds have been unprecedented of late in shopping areas in all cities. Cheap data and bandwidth have transformed our day-to-day lives in more ways than one. The “India stack” is a global case study. Amidst all the negative sentiments globally, there is an air of positivity in India. We have to move to a “Yes and no But” scenario that too as early as possible.

As Shekhar Gupta says in one of his columns, we have a habit of flashing victory signs early. India as we speak is still a WIP and a lot of work is yet to be done. From here, what we need is an uninterrupted home run where the economy keeps clocking 7-8% if not more on a year-on-year basis for 20 years. If that happens, we will not be talking of just a maahaul but an actual India shining!

Pic credits: Alex Fine in The Economist dated 13th May, 2022.

Wanted: Swachh Bharat Abhiyan 2.0!

After about 24 long months, we are finally seeing a relief from Covid! I am hesitating to say that we are seeing the end of Covid yet, looking at the past propensity of the virus to take different shapes and names to haunt us. In India now, we see normal life returning. Children have gone back to schools putting an end to the tyranny called “Online classes” at least for now. Employees have started working, meaning working from offices except of course those who continue to follow a hybrid model. Shoppers have started thronging the markets and malls. Cinema halls have started seeing crowds. Events of all hue are back. Travel for pleasure and work has re-started. Traffic is back on the roads with a vengeance. And garbage, filth and littering on the roads are also back!

Flash back to the day when Narendra Modi announced the kicking off of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, a Clean India mission during his Independence Day speech in 2014, few months after taking over as the Prime Minister. He said, “A Clean India would be the best tribute India could pay to Mahatma Gandhi on his 150 birth anniversary in 2019!” On the 2^nd Oct, 2014 on Gandhiji’s birth anniversary, Swachh Bharat Mission was launched. I vividly remember the excitement it created immediately. There was a buzz around Swachhata in the following days in the whole country.

Everywhere I went, I could see and hear people talking about a Clean India. Politicians led “photo op” sessions to clean their neighbourhoods. Celebrities followed suit. Social workers led actual sessions to clean their neighbourhoods. Children followed suit. Dustbins started making their presence felt all of a sudden in public places. Administration started spending money on keeping towns clean. Tourist places started to become cleaner. Railway stations, Bus depots sported a cleaner look. Making cities, towns and villages “Open Defecation Free” became part of this program. Construction of toilets got a fresh impetus. Even Bollywood appropriated the fever when a film titled Toilet Ek Prem Katha was made with Askhay Kumar in the lead with toilets for women as the theme. Swachh Bharat Abhiyan had arrived.

India had not become a Singapore but there was a movement in the right direction. But down the line somewhere, the goal post got shifted. Somehow the government made “Open Defecation Free” (ODF) by 2^nd October, 2019 as the only goal of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. Parameswaran Iyer, who had resigned from the IAS earlier was re-drafted as Secretary of the Ministry of Sanitation and Drinking Water and was tasked with achieving the ODF goal. He made the unthinkable happen.

As of November 28 that year, some 10.14 crore individual household toilets were constructed under the programme. And as per the concerned minister’s statement in Rajya Sabha, the sanitation coverage in the country, which was 38.7 per cent as on October 2, 2014 had increased to 100 per cent and all the 5,99,963 villages of the country had declared themselves ODF. Therefore, while this goal of achieving universal sanitation through toilet construction was achieved, which in itself is not a mean achievement at all, the original objective of a “Clean India” got buried somewhere in the garbage dump perhaps. I am not yet clear as to when the goal post got shifted.

With the return of the Modi Sarkar in 2019 in the back of a historic win in the elections where toilet construction also played a part, the original Swachh Bharat Abhiyan seemed to have vanished from the collective memory of the nation. Then of course by March 2020, Covid struck and everything else lost focus and priority.

It is therefore I feel, now that we have a reprieve from Covid and things are getting back to normal in India, it is time to put Swachhata on the National agenda again. I read that in October 2021, Modi launched the second phase of the Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban (SBM-U) and the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) stressing that these missions were aimed at making India’s cities garbage-free and water-secure. So it looks like the program is in place. However, I don’t recollect (probably it could be due to our pre-occupation with Covid way back in October 2021) the launch of this second phase.

October 2^nd, 2019 has come and gone and three more years have gone by. It is time to go back to the original idea of “A Clean India”. In my earlier posts on Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, I had mentioned that if this program fails, it is not because of Modi. It is because we as public failed the program. I see now that people are back to littering on streets. Paan spitting and “painting the city red” never even paused. I pity the municipality workers who are given the job of cleaning road dividers time and again of the paan stains only to be painted red just in a few days. Men peeing on highways has become a common sight again. Those toilets which were put across highways have somehow vanished! Garbage is overflowing from the bins on to the streets. Public places like municipality parking lots in Mumbai and Pune (which I have seen first-hand) are reeking of squalor like in the past.

There is hope still. When one sees for example, the Ghats in Varanasi or the Railway stations these days, they are squeaking clean. Just that the awareness about Clean India has to be brought back as a National obsession. India needs Swachh Bharat Abhiyan 2.0.

As I wrote before, Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is not about cleaning but eliminating or reducing the need for cleaning in the first place. The onus of that of course lies with us, the public of India not the municipalities, not the State Government, not the Central Government and certainly not Narendra Modi.

Pic Courtesy: Swachh Bharat Mission website

Wanted – Reforms on “Kaizen” Mode!

In the last few days, newspapers and online portals have been filled with nostalgic Op-Ed pieces on how the 1991 reforms happened as we celebrate 30 years of the reforms. These pieces by some of them who were part of “reforms team” then and other commentators often talk about the circumstances in which the reforms were unleashed, how the then Prime Minister Narasimha Rao weathered the political storm in taking some bold steps and how the then Finance minister Manmohan Singh and his team went about implementing them finally.

Yes, the “1991 reforms” was a significant event in our post Independent political history and in terms of impact on the ground, probably the most significant. Though it was not realised then, the reforms package helped to change gears of the country which was stuttering at a modest pace of growth all along, while the rest of the world was galloping. It also helped lift millions of Indians out of poverty in the next 20 years. So, it is apt that we give due recognition to the process and the people behind it and celebrate with much enthusiasm.

As a country, we are in a phase where we need the next reforms momentum. One that will define our growth trajectory for the next 30 years. In that sense, we need to now move on from living in past glory of what the 1991 reforms delivered and initiate the next cycle of reforms. So, what could they be? A reform is defined as a change brought in an existing system to make it better. Therefore there are reforms that result in incremental changes, thereby incremental benefits and there are reforms that are big which result in monumental changes and thereby impact. 1991 reforms can be grouped in the latter category.

In the last 20 years, since the Vajpayee regime till now, it’s not that there have not been reforms of the big impact category in our country. But they have been few and far between. In the issue of reforms, I would like to see the glass as half empty. What we need is the next bust of reforms one shot that will change the course of our country forever and for the better. And if at all there is an opportune ‘muhurat’ for the same, it is this. Because when we come out of Covid hopefully very soon, we need to not just recoup the lost two years but get back to an irreversible high growth trajectory. And for that, we need a whole set of big bang reforms that need to be unleashed ASAP. And I will group them in the following critical areas:

Ease Of Doing Business: While we continue to say that we have improved our ranking on the Ease Of Doing Business front from before, those of us on the ground very well know that India continues to be a complex country to do business in and with. And the issue of “Central” subjects and “State” subjects adds complexity to the whole thing. To put this in perspective, we have 1536 Acts, 69233 Compliances and 6618 filings to comply with for our businesses in our present regulatory environment. There have been bits and pieces effort in states to remove/amend rules and regulations in the last few years. But these are just incremental changes and do not move the dial. What we need is a complete review of the existing rules and regulations across all states that include Central laws and state laws and a wholesale repeal of all the frivolous ones.

Labour: This is connected to the “Ease Of Doing Business” but has scope beyond that as well in terms of ensuring competitiveness and achieving productivity as well. A paper I read on Labour Reforms mentioned that labour laws in India constitute 30% in terms of acts and 47% in terms of compliances in our regulatory framework! In terms of numbers, it is 463 labour Acts, 32542 labour Compliances and 3048 labour filings! Not that the existing regulatory environment has benefited the labour so far. The current labour laws cover only 9% of India’s employee base! So, there is an express need for simplified labour laws that will help the industry to grow while remaining competitive, will be fair to the employees while empowering them while bringing a majority of the labour force in its ambit.

Infrastructure: It is undisputable that the general infrastructure in India has grown leaps and bounds in the last 20 years. There are two ways of looking at this. If we compare with where we were in the past, then of course, things are certainly better. If we look outwards and compare with our peers, then we will realise that we have still a long way to go in basic infrastructure. It is also a fact that with respect to infrastructure we are always in a perennial “catch up” and “Work in Progress” mode. And I will explain this with an example. In 2005, in the Nagoya city of Japan, a new airport was thrown open just to coincide with the World Expo that happened in that city. When I visited Nagoya in that year, I was appalled to find the new airport almost empty though, it was witnessing almost 4-5 times the normal traffic on account of the Expo. Compared to the old airport, the new one was huge and I was told then that this airport was now built forecasting for next 30 years of traffic growth so that they don’t have to meddle with this for a long time. Now, this is the approach required for infrastructure projects. However in India, we build projects based on today’s situation and by the time the project is completed, it is already bursting at its seams. The new Bengaluru Airport is an example of this. Inaugurated in 2008, it had to launch its expansion by 2011 within just three years! Most of our highway projects are planned like this. That’s why I say that the grudge towards the bullet train project in India based on today’s situation is ill informed. By now, we should have kicked off at least eight bullet train projects, not one. Unlike in the past, financing for infrastructure projects is no longer a concern. There are global multi-lateral agencies backed by developed countries willing and waiting to fund viable infrastructure projects in a country like in India which offers potential and returns. In the area of Infrastructure, we need drastic reforms in our planning method and execution. And that brings me to the next critical area.

Land: Most of our infrastructure projects get stuck or go through inordinate delays due to the issue of land availability aka land acquisition. This is an indeed complex issue but we need to study best practices in other developing nations and come up with a new method that is fair to all and makes the process easy and less time consuming. The present Land Acquisition bill in its form needs urgent reform.

There are other areas too where reforms are the need of the hour and I will continue with those in Part – 2 of my blog next week. But my focus remain on areas related to economic growth. To part conclude this piece, I would like to say that “Reforms” are a continuous process. And so continuous improvement of what we do is required. Going back to the Japanese way, they call it the “Kaizen” approach in management. In India, we need Reforms on “Kaizen mode”!

To be continued.

Return of the Dragon!

For few months now, China has been in the news mostly for all wrong reasons. First, due to the way it handled the initial outbreak of the Corona Virus and now for the LAC row. Ever since the Corona virus became a pandemic bringing the entire world to its knees, there has been a perceptible anti-China sentiment in most parts of the world. In the midst of fighting this perception battle, China also has been engaging in turf wars. The obvious question is, why would an embattled China engage itself in these activities at a time like this? I am no foreign affairs/Geo political/Defence/Strategic affairs expert. But as an avid follower of current affairs, it is not too difficult to understand the predicament of China, at least towards India.

Consider the following chronology of events (Aap Chronology samaj lijiye):

In 2013, China announces its One Belt One Road project (OBOR), now known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This was aimed at connecting China with important cities and ports in Asia and Europe through maritime corridors and shipping routes. All of the neighbours of India like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan with the exception of Bhutan have joined this initiative.
In 2017, India announced its decision not to join this China’s ambitious programme on account of strategic reasons – read as “National Interest”. Not just that, India did not send even a representative to attend the launch summit which was attended by many countries which were not part of BRI. (The project is in tatters with some participants expressing concern over the large debt trap they were walking into)
In June 2017, India and China got into a border standoff at Doklam when India objected to the alteration of status quo by China, in constructing a road in Doklam at the trijunction border area. “Operation Juniper” was launched by India whereby, several companies of Indian soldiers crossed over to the Doklam area of Bhutan to prevent the construction. The standoff continued for two months and after hectic diplomatic parleys between India and China, the standoff ended with the halting of the road construction.
September 2017: India relaxes its rules relating to obtaining forests clearance for infrastructure and army projects along the LAC in a bid to speed up construction.
August 2019: Fresh from the re-election, Modi government changes the status quo of Jammu and Kashmir. As part of that, Ladakh region becomes a Union territory directly under the Central government. Though this is an internal re-organisation, the impact of this move on China was not lost on anyone. During the parliament speech, Home Minister Amit Shah thunders that whenever he refers to Jammu and Kashmir, it includes POK and Aksai Chin.
In November 2019, India opts out of the negotiating table of RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership) ostensibly due to the China factor. One of the main reasons from the Indian side is to protect Indian industry and farmers from a surge in Chinese imports, if a free trade pact is signed.
February 2020: In the Union Budget, Customs duty on Toys was hiked from 20 percent to 60% to curb Chinese imports. Similarly 10 to 20 percent hike in few other product categories where China was the chief exporter.
Mar 2020: In the wake of Covid-19, QUAD (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue) originally intended to be among United States, Japan, Australia and India) got upgraded to Quad Plus to include New Zealand, South Korea and Vietnam. The conference calls, aside from discussing the fall out of the pandemic has also been seen as an opportunity for India to enhance its strategic weight in the Indian Ocean region.
April 2020: India revised its Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) rules to prevent “Opportunistic take overs” of firms who have become vulnerable due to Covid-19 triggered business slowdown. This was few days after People’s Bank of China increased its shareholding in HDFC. The move for obvious reasons irked China.

In between all this we also had informal summits between Modi and Xi in Ahmedabad, Wuhan and last year in Chennai, multi-fold increase in FDI from China into manufacturing and construction projects and start-ups and so on.

In Marketing and Public Relations, there is a strategy which is adopted by large corporations. Which is to “Say one thing in public and do exactly the opposite” in a bid to catch the competition on the wrong foot. I forget the exact name for this strategy but let me call it “Marketing by Deceit” ^TM for want of a better term. This strategy cannot be used by the same company repeatedly but to be used like a onetime Brahmastra!

If you see India’s strategy, it has been something like this. While, we have tried to engage with China to improve trade and diplomatic relations overtly, we have also tried to secure our National interests in matters of strategic concern. I am surprised that this point is lost even on expert commentators who keep referring to Modi’s photo-ops with Xi.

If I were an official in the Ministry of Foreign affairs in China in charge of India, I obviously would be concerned by the above timeline events. Combined with the pressures around the spread of Corona Virus, it is not an enviable situation to be in. As a wannabe dominant power, China wouldn’t like to show that it is embattled or weakened at this point in time. So, the approach of “Offence is the best form of defence” not just in the Indian borders but in Senkaku Islands, in Taiwan and South China seas etc.

Ergo, our attempts at the LAC to up our infrastructure has been faced with a belligerent China. For both the countries, this development comes at a wrong time. Not just India, but China also is facing the ills of a plummeting economy now for few years. Both the countries are also in the midst of fighting the world’s worst pandemic. Hence better sense has to prevail at both sides to avoid a full blown war.

For India and the government, it is paramount to protect the sovereignty of the nation without getting engaged in a bloody battle. In Arthasasthra, Kautilya aka Chanakya says, “Do not reveal what you have thought upon doing. But by wise counsel, keep it secret being determined to carry it into execution!” In line with this, I believe the government will do what it should in India’s National interest without being overt about it in an All-party meeting or in a media conference. It is laughable that the opposition and the commentariat being hell bent to know what the government is intending to do to resolve the standoff.

In India, Bruce Lee’s film was released as ‘Return of the Dragon’ as a sequel to his earlier hit ‘Enter the Dragon’! But in Chinese and in the original version released in the United States, it was ‘Way of the Dragon’! Even in real life, between 1962 and now, let there be no doubt that it is the “Way” and not the “Return”. So, our Statecraft must be prepared to deal with this.

Pic Courtesy: India Today

COVID-19: Turning the crisis into an opportunity!

COVID-19 has turned the world upside down. What started off as an outbreak in Wuhan, Hubei province of China is now a pandemic that has spread in more than 130 countries worldwide as we speak. In India too, the number of people who have detected positive has been multiplying by the day. Most of the state governments are waking up to the reality and state after state have been shut down.

In this sombre time, it may not sound so appropriate to talk about tapping opportunities that may arise. But then, one of the key jobs of strategic experts in counties is to always look beyond the obvious, see ahead of today and tomorrow and peep into the future. In India, if such experts do that, they will see a window to turn this crisis into a long term, game changing opportunity.

Few weeks ago, when Corona virus had not spread like it is today, other than the human calamity, discussions were about how global supply chains have been disrupted due to the outbreak in China. Today, with China controlling the spread quickly using strong arm action and with the virus spreading all over, discussions around supply chain disruption have receded. The focus today is around containing the spread as country after country have found people inflicted by the virus. However, when the dust and storm around the pandemic settles down in a few months, policy makers and industry experts will start pondering over putting all manufacturing eggs in the Chinese basket. De-risking from China for future would be top in the agenda. Already, we are beginning to see some noise in that direction.

For countries and manufacturing companies, de-risking from China is nothing new. Many of them started doing it ten years ago when China, in the back of around 10% GDP growth for few years in a row from 2003 to 2011, was on fire as an economy. High economic growth also means increase in wages which shot up from CNY 750 in 2007 to CNY 2420 in 2018! Coupled with raising wages was the non-availability of skilled labour. A factory manager in Shanghai way back in 2012 told me that after the Chinese New year holidays, half the workforce would not return as they would end up joining companies which are located in provinces with higher minimum wages and with more overtime potential. Invariably mobile phones and other high demand product manufacturing units would suck up a lot of skilled manpower leaving other production units to scramble for trained manpower.

The logical option was to expand facilities out of China, if not to shift the entire production. Many Japanese companies who had put up factories in Thailand, Malaysia and later in China went and invested in Vietnam. It was a golden opportunity for India to have tapped that wave in that period. But we missed. Vietnam in spite of not boasting of very high skilled manpower but with relatively low labour cost managed to take advantage of the Japanese expansion plans. I was told that companies used to travel to interior Vietnam provinces and literally call out in the streets with microphones like in the feudal days as part of recruitment drive for factories!

India with its low labour cost and abundance of skilled manpower, still couldn’t feature in the agenda of companies looking at de-risking from China. And there are many reasons for the same.

It’s a myth that foreign companies just go by low labour cost when they try to invest in manufacturing facilities outside of their existing country bases. What they look for is whether the entire manufacturing eco-system is in place. China showed the world as to how to put that kind of eco-system in place that includes availability of low cost land in plenty, abundant skilled and low cost labour, low interest rate regime, tax benefits/holidays, access to ports, high quality infrastructure in the form of roads, highways, airports and sea ports, access to vendor base (this is particularly critical for Electronics and Automotive production) and more importantly what I call as the “hygiene factor”. And this is the comfort factor which expatriates develop for the country where they want to set up production.

In India, we do not attach much importance to this while planning but, in my experience this becomes the key, tilting factor when choosing between options. If the team of expats who spend time in the country looking at options, do not feel comfortable about being able to lead a decent quality of life, they would never recommend that country. We should not forget that when a large production facility is set up, there will be hordes of expats who will be spending time during the project set-up phase and also later at supervisory/managerial roles when the unit is up and running.

That’s why I would not squabble if our governments spend money and resources to put their best face forward when foreign leaders visit here. For, many a times, there is a delegation of corporate chiefs who accompany these leaders and it is important that they carry a good impression of India as a country when they visit. In a Japanese company I worked earlier, the decision to invest in India which was lingering around for a while was finally taken when the group Chairman visited India and got impressed seeing the campus and Golf course of Infosys in Bengaluru!. I am talking of 2005 and fortunately the traffic situation then wasn’t as bad as it is today!

Coming back to the hygiene factor, this includes availability of good international schools, safety for women, availability of their country cuisines and even stuff like “Not a dry state” or “No Beef Ban”…!

In the wake of COVID-19, it is my belief that India must put its best foot forward in pitching itself as a robust manufacturing destination to the world which is looking at options. And for this the government must move on a “Mission” mode quickly and activate “Make in India 2.0”! We may not be able to scale up the economies of scale of China but then we are not looking at China completely. Our pitch must be to position India as an augmenting base.

Compared to the 1^st decade of this century when India missed the opportunity when companies were de-risking, I believe that we now stand a better chance overall and hence it’s worth taking a shot now. Our roads and highways infrastructure is getting better though it’s a work in progress. We can now boast of world class airports in all the metro cities. The ports infrastructure have improved leaps and bounds and our customs clearance processes have smoothened. We could still do much better on the “Ease of Doing business” front, though!

Ergo, I do believe that with a focussed approach towards getting companies to invest in setting up production facilities in India, India can be a good option for companies contemplating to de-risk from China. For India, which is in desperate need of a boost to the economy, nothing works like expansion in manufacturing as it increases direct and indirect jobs.

Author and Economist Shankkar Aiyyar in his book, The Accidental India has documented how in India every landmark game changing event since independence happened as a response to a crisis. Going by that track record, we are in the throes of another crisis with COVID-19 and hopefully we will come up with a response that is game changing!

The last booster shot for the Indian economy came in the beginning of this millennium and that was due to a global threat of a bug! The Y2K phenomenon opened the flood gates for the Indian Software industry and helped erect a pillar for our economy called the “Services”! Twenty years hence, now, a virus could provide the booster shot for the economy if India gets its act together. That of getting the manufacturing ecosystem in place and tap the opportunity which could present itself in the coming months. It’s not easy. But then its not impossible either.

The Dream of a Swachh Bharat!

2^nd Oct, 2019 marked the 5^th Anniversary of the launch of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pet campaign – the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. And ever since the campaign was kicked off, this is my 5^th post on the topic with the central theme being the same which I will come to, just in a while. While launching the program way back in 2014 just after coming to power, I remember Narendra Modi clearly saying that a “Clean India” would be a fitting tribute we would give to Mahatma Gandhi on his 150^th birth anniversary in 2019. Even back then, I had said that the very noble thought notwithstanding, turning India into a Swachh Bharat cannot happen in 5 years.

If one takes stock today, India would not have turned into a squeaking clean nation but a valiant beginning has indeed been made. After the program got launched, within the government a Swachh Bharat Mission was kicked off, breaking down the overarching objective of a Clean India into many, many micro goals with measurable targets. This included stuff like constructing toilets in rural and urban India, making India Open Defecation Free (ODF) completely, achieving rural sanitation, sustainable solid waste management and so on. The thrust given to this program from a top down push and resources point of view has been unprecedented. Just purely looking at the results from a data stand point they are impressive.

Going by the numbers presented in the budget in May 2019, in the 5 years since the program was kicked off, 9.6 crore toilets have been constructed while more than 5.6 lakh villages have become Open Defecation Free. The Finance Minister had then said, “More than 95% of cities have also been declared ODF. More than 45,000 public and community toilets across 1,700 cities have been uploaded on Google maps, covering more than 53% of India’s urban population”! Now considering the sheer magnitude of the task in hand in India, these are not mean achievements and credit needs to be given to the Government, where due. And when the Prime Minister on 2^nd Oct said that “rural India and its villages have declared themselves “open defecation free” there were the usual sneers and sniggers around the same, questioning if there will not be any person who will defecate in the open from the next day in India!

In spite of all this capacity building and pouring in of resources by the Government, has India become clean? The answer is probably “No”. But from 2014 levels, it has perhaps become cleaner. People who visited Varanasi, the Prime Minister’s constituency say that the city is much cleaner, the Ghats are approachable and clean. All over India we keep seeing public clicking pictures from Railway stations and posting in social media regularly as to how cleaner they have become since 2014. It is undeniable that many places of tourist interest look much cleaner now than ever before. So far, so good. At the same time, we still see islands of squalor even in urban centres. Garbage is littered all over the place.

So what has been the problem? While the Government has been doing its bit in running awareness programs around cleanliness, placing dust bins all over the place, constructing toilets, making sanitation accessible so on, we as public have failed the country. Our attitudes towards cleanliness haven’t changed a wee bit.

We have not stopped littering in public places.
We have not stopped spitting in the open.
We have not stopped painting the town red with paan spitting day in and day out.
We have not stopped urinating or shitting in the open even when toilets can be found in the vicinity.
We don’t clean the dog poop even inside our posh apartment complexes while walking them every day.
We have not stopped throwing garbage in all areas except into the dustbins in the streets.
We have not stopped mixing wet and dry garbage though the authorities have been requesting for a while now.
We have not stopped feeding our pets and others from the balconies.
And we have not stopped from wanting the Government/Corporation/Authorities to keep cleaning the filth we create.
And finally we have not stopped dreaming about a “Clean India” without putting any effort from our side.

Coming back to my pet theme which I referred in the beginning, if we think that Swachh Bharat is about cleaning, then we are grossly mistaken. SWACHH BHARAT IS NOT ABOUT CLEANING, BUT TO REDUCE THE NEED FOR CLEANING IN THE FIRST PLACE!

It is an oft repeated take that the same Indians when we step out of India change our attitudes towards public cleanliness like “Switched On robots” while in India we behave as “Switched Off Morons”!

Having observed closely how things are in our country and world over, I have come to the conclusion that the attitude towards public cleanliness is not a Rich Vs Poor thing. It is not an Educated Vs Uneducated either. It is not even Urban Vs Rural divide. It has nothing to do with Caste, Creed, Religion and so on. It is complex function of a combination of things like Awareness, Empathy, Upbringing, Education, Access, Priority, Laws etc. In short, having an empathetic attitude towards cleanliness not just in one’s own private spaces but more importantly in public places!

This is why I am of the opinion that, since transforming attitudes is a generational thing, it will take at least a couple of generations from here for India to be called a “Clean India”. That is about 50 years from now! And the key to make it happen is investing in resources and time in schools to create, nurture and spread the importance of having the right attitude towards Swachata! While the present Governments at the centre, states, districts and at panchayats continue to work on what they are doing currently, admirably, they and the future Governments must focus on schools at all levels to “indoctrinate” kids at a young age about cleanliness. Investing in the future generations is the only hope we have to achieve the dream of a Swachh Bharat! Cannot wait that long for a Swachh Bharat? Then we must stop complaining of what the Government is not doing and start reducing the need for cleaning! Basically stop some of the things I have listed above.

Does that mean that the campaign is a failure? Certainly not. The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan has helped to bring “Cleanliness” to the mainstream agenda of the country. Far long, we had neglected such basic issues of Nation building. So, kudos are in order to Narendra Modi for waking up India towards Swachata! Swachh Bharat may still be a dream for us now, but certainly not a pipe dream!

Agenda for Modi 2.0!

Dear Mrs. Sitharaman,

First things first. Congratulations on becoming the finance minister of the country. Ever since you have taken over, there has been a flurry of unabated, unsolicited advice on what you should do and should not, in the upcoming budget. I was extremely reluctant to add to that already long list. But then your extremely gracious and earnest tweet the other day, welcoming all suggestions and inputs changed my mind. Being from Trichy as well, I could see the “Trichy Tehzeeb” in that request! Hence this piece, with my wish list not just from the budget but overall from the Modi Sarkar 2.0 from an economic agenda point of view.

I am not an Economist. I am just a keen and informed observer of Indian politics and a well-wisher of our country. So, my points may or may not stand the scrutiny of economists but hopefully will pass muster with the readers of this post. I promise that I am not going to repeat a lot of stuff which has already been suggested by the erudite in their pieces. So, here we go:

First up, the positive effects of implementation of GST and the kicking off of several infrastructural projects from the 1^st term will start bearing fruits in the coming 2/3 years. So, I suggest that the 5 year term till May 2024 be divided into 2 parts – First 3 years till 2022 and the second 2 years till 2024. Take all the tough decisions in the 1^st part and use the 2^nd to stabilise things.
Second, in Modi 1.0, there have been quite a few hits but some misses too. In the 2^nd term, on the back of a solid mandate, Team Modi should play on the front foot with confidence, while at the same time leaving alone deliveries outside the stumps and negotiating short pitched deliveries and bouncers with alacrity. In governance parlance, this means implementing even the not so populist decisions with confidence and not getting muddled in unwanted distractions.
Third, please request the economic ministries to come up with a list of things to be done to rev up the economy which is stuttering. Divide this list into 3.
- 1 – Low hanging fruits which don’t need legislative backing
- 2 – Which need bills to be amended, passed in the parliament
- 3 – which need the states to take action

Get going on this list systematically. Have a target of 60 days to accomplish everything in the 1^st list. This will give a clear message to all stake holders that this government is not the one to rest in its electoral success laurels!

Fourth, you are now in Japan and there is a lot we could learn from the Japanese in terms of going about things. One of the things I learnt from working in a Japanese company is “Prioritisation”! As Indians, we tend to focus on 100 things at the same time and spreading ourselves extremely thin. This was one grudge I had on Modi 1.0 which embarked upon so many projects simultaneously like Make in India, Skill India, Stand up India, Digital India, Smart City project, Ujwala programme and so on. If you closely measure the success, it is only the programmes which had focus like Ujwala, Rural electrification, Rural housing that met with success. In Modi 2.0, I would suggest that the Government takes up a maximum of 2 or 3 projects at a time, focus on the delivery with finite timelines and then move on to the next set of 2/3 ideas. This is what Japanese do.
Fifth, in India we have been talking of linking outcomes to outlays. But seldom has the same been acted upon. So, in the coming budget presentation on the 5^th of July, please do not announce plain outlays but outlays that can be linked to quantifiable outcomes.
Sixth, we usually see that in the budget, there are many outlays which are just carried forward year after year with a % increment or a % cut. For example, since 2013, money from Central Budget has been allocated to Nirbhaya fund to support initiatives towards ensuring women safety. One really doesn’t know how this fund is being utilised and after 5 years what this fund has achieved. This is just one example. In every budget, there are many sundry allocations like this. Please review item-wise outlays in the last 3 budgets, respective outcomes achieved and allocate outlays in the coming budgets only if they make sense.
Seventh, considering the state of the economy, there is a need to mobilise resources to generate income and keep fiscal deficit under check. As Prime Minister Modi has been talking of “Minimum Government and Maximum Governance” one way of mobilising resources is by Government exiting many businesses that are no longer strategic in nature and monetising those assets. In Modi 1.0, in every budget, we had an item called “Proceeds from disinvestment” and this was achieved by making some PSUs like LIC pick up shares from the disinvested PSUs. During NDA-1 under Vajpayee, there was a clear focus on “Real” Disinvestment with a full-fledged ministry and a determined minister like Arun Shourie doggedly pursuing it. UPA did away with this and since then Modi 1.0 included, there has been no serious disinvestment in the country. I suggest that Modi 2.0 take this up seriously. A functional ministry named as “Monetisation of PSU Assets” (since disinvestment is seen as a bad word) should be formed. I also add that the proceeds from this monetisation be parked in a separate account and used for welfare schemes. By this, any criticism of the move can be countered by demonstrating that the proceeds of the same are being used for social welfare. A creative way needs to be found for accounting like this.
Eighth, in Modi 1.0, there was a big push towards infrastructure projects like highways and roads which was really commendable. The same should be continued with additional vigour. However, as admitted by Nitin Gadkari the pace of the projects could have been faster but for complex land acquisition issues. This is a big issue even today. In the 1^st term, after initial belligerence, the government chickened out of the much needed amendments on the Land Acquisition bill. I remember Modi taking this up with rigour in 2014 basically because all the states identified certain provisions in the existing Land Acquisition bill as impediments for timely closure of infra projects. Since the states are equal stake holders in this issue, please have discussions with a fresh outlook, strike a consensus and pass the amendments to the bill smoothly in both houses of the parliament. Renaming this as “Land Partnership bill” or something like that instead of the negative sounding Land Acquisition bill will help too to remove the negative connotation around this!
Ninth, taxation in India is still complex. GST implementation was a landmark Tax reform. I am sure there is a road map towards further simplifying the same with reduced tax slabs and simplifying procedures. Now, in this term please focus on Direct taxes. I hope that the panel working on overhaul of this will submit their recommendations quickly and your government should adopt the same ASAP. In simple terms, the mantra should be lower tax rates with no or very few genuine exemptions. Some of the exemption clauses we have are weird and defy all logic. For example the current clauses we have for LTA exemptions for salaried. Applicable for 2 years in a block of 4 that being calculated from the year 1986 and so on!!! Someone needs to do a Zero based hard look at all the existing exemptions for personal and corporate taxation and do away with most of them which don’t make sense in this day and age!
Tenth and the last one. On the 5^th July when you leave your office for the parliament to present the budget, your team will hand over a brand new brown brief case which will have the budget speech. You and your team will pose with that brief case for the cameras and then you will read out the budget speech from the bunch of documents. And here’s what I suggest. Please, please do away with this brief case and the papers. Instead, amble along in style, pose for cameras with your hands “free” and as you rise to present the budget in the parliament hall, download the speech from the ministry’s secure server and project it in a large screen. Doing away with the rambling, long speech that would be just uber cool, while at the same time giving a push towards Prime Minister’s “Digital India” dream!

Pic Courtesy: Livemint

Semi-finals and the many Confusing Signals! Part – 2

In my last post (read here), I had written about the recently concluded state elections in 5 states with focus on Rajasthan. In this, I intend to cover Madhya Pradesh and Telangana and try to drive home the message of the confusing signals coming out for an election strategist and watcher.

In MP, in an evenly poised, see-saw battle, Congress eventually scraped through and has now formed the government with support from other parties, having just fallen short of the half way mark. At the outset, it would appear that for BJP’s performance wasn’t that bad considering that it has been in power in MP for the last 15 years. The question is – “Is it par for the course for voters to get tired with a party which has been in power for more than 2 terms?” I don’t think so. Hence brushing aside a defeat owing to just “Anti-Incumbency factor” may not be correct. There could be and usually there are other factors at play which make people ring in a change. Considering the fact that eventually BJP ended with the same vote share as Congress with just few seats less, it doesn’t look like as if a severe Anti-Incumbency wave swept away BJP or Shivraj Chauhan.

To be fair to the BJP and Shivraj Chauhan, MP has seen a sea change on the positive side during the last 15 years. It is no longer cursed as part of the “BIMARU” states of India! Those who have visited the state in the last 10 years can see the visible improvement in the road infrastructure not just in the cities but the connecting towns. 87% of rural roads in MP are surfaced (road laid with bitumen or tar), which is higher than the national average (64 %)! Similarly the progress on the electricity and water supply fronts are visible.

Bijli, Sadak, Paani as far as I heard, were no longer the issues in MP! So what were? Have the voters punished a government even after showing visible vikas?

Farm crisis is one reason which has been talked about. Here again, there are missed signals. Madhya Pradesh has reported the best agricultural growth in India over eight years and yet there is widespread farm unrest. It’s clear that BJP has lost in rural pockets with a seat share drop from 67% to 42% in 2018 Vs 2013. However surprisingly in Mandsaur which was the epicentre of the farmers’ agitation few months back, BJP retained its tally of 3 seats! Similarly in Neemuch district, BJP retained all its 3 seats!

Coming to urban centres, BJP’s major losses came from here unlike Gujarat where it was saved by urban Gujarat! As mentioned before, there has been visible development in urban centres like Bhopal, Indore, Gwalior,.. In fact, Indore has been ranked the cleanest city as per the Swachh Bharat survey in 2018 for the 2^nd consecutive year. Bhopal came in 2^nd! Even then, BJP major losses in this election came from the urban pockets! The seat share fell from 90% in the urban areas in 2013 to 55% in 2018!

It looks like BJP in MP has been felled by the weight of expectations and not on its standalone performance which has not been so bad. The expectations could be with respect to the State’s progress from what it has achieved so far and also of the Centre’s promises to usher in the Achhe Din! In his column – “No proof required”, Dr. Surjit Bhalla calls the election results – “The Revolution of Rising expectations”! It is possible that in spite of the local BJP Government under the leadership of the “Mamaji” – Shivraj Chauhan delivering governance, the people expected more. More in terms of jobs, more in terms of disposable income and finally “Yeh Dil maange sub kuch more”!

In MP, the other factor is BJP lost 10 seats with a narrow margin of under 1000 votes! Again, if you look at the swing of votes against BJP which is at 4%, it is not a big swing but reduced BJP’s number of seats from 165 to 109, a drop of almost 1/3^rd of the seats! What does this say of BJP’s famed booth level management tactics and WhatsApp outreach programmes??? What happened to the “Panna Pramukhs” this time?

The fact that BJP lost 10 seats by a margin which was lower than the NOTA votes polled in those seats would lend credence probably to a simmering anger among a section of loyal BJP voters to teach a lesson to the party! It would be interesting to see if this anger is temporary or permanent enough to afflict a damage to BJP’s fortunes in 2019 Lok Sabha polls!

Coming to Telangana, the TRS (Telangana Rashtriya Samithi) party under K. Chandrasekhar Rao(KCR) successfully saw off the Anti-Incumbency and managed to not just win, but win by a landslide! I have not looked at Telangana closely but as far as I saw, TRS planned out the 5 year period well.

In the 1^st 3 years, KCR’s son K.T.Rama Rao was in the forefront of pitching the state to get investments. In this effort, they rolled out the red carpet to industrialists and companies in India and abroad with a promise of industry friendly policies. In the centre’s ranking of states for “Ease of doing business”, Telangana consistently came 2^nd with its not friendly neighbour Andhra Pradesh coming 1^st. The previous year, Telangana and AP had jointly topped the charts!

In the last 18 months though, Telangana has been focussing on welfare initiatives. Free housing for the poor, Direct cash subsidy for farmers,.., all right at the nick of time in the last year of the rule! It ended up spending more than on Agriculture, Irrigation,… than the Rest of India.

It looks like KCR’s government divided the 5 year period into 2 halves. In the 1^st half they focussed on long term, reformist initiatives, while the 2^nd half closer to elections they came out with short term, populist welfare schemes that would give electoral results. A closer analysis of how this pans out probably may provide a working model for all those seeking to beat Anti-Incumbency. That of balancing long term with short term by focussing on reforms and structural changes in the 1^st 2/3 years of the rule and resort to populist, welfare programmes in the last 2 years closer to elections.

With the many confusing signals emanating from these results, it becomes all the more difficult for an election strategist particularly of the BJP to come up with a winning formula for 2019! But here, one must not forget, that India has begun to vote differently between state elections and National elections. Therefore one should linearly extrapolate the trends from these Semi-finals to the finals at their own peril. However, it is safe to conclude that with these crucial wins in the Hindi heartland, Congress has got its mojo back and BJP is on the back foot. The next few months will be interesting to see how the final narrative for the 2019 elections unfolds.

Kumarakom yesterday, Vagamon tomorrow!

If there is one state in India, which has almost got its act together on tapping its tourism potential, it must be Kerala. I say, “almost” and mention Kerala in relation to other states of India. For a relatively small state, Kerala boasts of varied choices for a traveler from beaches to hill stations to back waters to Ayurveda to Culture and more. In a strange twist of irony, for a state which still has its ideological moorings firmly tilted to the “Left”, it is “smart marketing” that has played a great part in positioning the state as ‘God’s Own Country’ over the years. To its credit, certain gaps notwithstanding, Kerala does live up to this tag line to this day.

I’m certain that there are other states which are bigger in size in India that can provide a better offering than Kerala to tourists. Karnataka, for example. And some of them have now realized the potential, tourism as an industry offers and are boarding the bus, though late. The tourism circuit of Kerala over the years has evolved from just back waters of Kochi and hills of Thekkady in the 80’s to now Kumarakom, Alleppey, Munnar, and spots in Malabar area like Wynad, Bekal,… Outside of this circuit are a few places that are in the verge of earning their stripes. Of them is Vagamon, a hill station in the Idukki district and closer to Kottayam in terms of access, which I had the opportunity to visit last week.

Being a native of Kottayam, I have had the chance to visit Kottayam many times. It was the default summer vacation option while growing up. And with family roots still entrenched there, social visits have been a regular. Though Vagamon is just 40 Kms from our place in Kottayam, we never thought of exploring this location in the past. Not just familiarity, but proximity also at times breeds contempt isn’t it? Having been hearing of this place as an emerging hill station, we decided to visit Vagamon and spend a night there during this trip.

For long, Vagamon was mainly known for its milk – Vagamon milk is popular in the surrounding areas. Like all hill stations of India, though the British were the ones who discovered this place, I understand that it is the Christian missionaries in Kerala who developed Vagamon and among the first to live there. A Dairy farm that still exists was the early business activity to flourish and hence the popularity of Vagamon milk! So one can say that it is a place where honey and milk literally flows! The road leading to Vagamon from Kottayam is patchy having been battered by the recent heavy rains. For a Mumbaikar used to pot holed roads resembling craters of the moon, they were still bearable, but then Mumbai is no bench mark for a tourist destination! As you near the place, the scenic beauty of the place and the accompanying chill weather just enthrall you. The views on the way give you an idea of what to expect.

The resort where we stayed (Treebo Adrak Summer Sand Resort) is right at the heart of the town and has fantastic views. Located next to the Pine Valley which is one of the places of tourist interest, is neat, clean and very well maintained. The property is great and picturesque. However, for such a nice property, the staff is inadequately trained and is marred by slow and laidback service. We see this dichotomy in many small towns in India.

All places of visitor’s interest are in a span of 5 Kms which include breathtaking viewpoints, idyllic Tea estates, the Dairy farm, the Pine Valley,… and could be covered within few hours. Being a fledgling tourist destination, the infrastructure is just developing. One of the popular viewpoints has now become a paragliding point where frenzied construction activity is going on. I realized that as of now, Vagamon is more of a one day outing place for those nearby during holidays and long weekends. The result – all the points of interest were overcrowded and vehicles parked alongside the narrow roads clogging the approach. The Prime Minister’s Swachh Bharat Abhiyan was tottering, with people who bring food along eating alongside roads and littering the place with plates, cups and left over food! This was sad for a state which I always thought was in the forefront of Swachata. Though declared a plastic free zone, plastic could be freely seen strewn in places where people thronged.

The 3.5 hour drive back to the Kochi International Airport, half of which is through hilly terrain is quite scenic. Airtel 4G connection of mine failed the test, as in many places my phone was out of coverage. On the other hand, our cab driver’s JIO connection passed with flying colours when we need to access Google maps. Not to mention of the equally effective cell phone coverage of BSNL in those far off areas! The drive through also gives an insight on why the “Left” is so well entrenched in Kerala. Red flags flutter in regular frequency in a gap of 10-15 Kms even in those remote areas. Even in a non-election season like this, there was a nukkad meeting going on being addressed by a spirited leader with at least a 100 keen listeners! But one cannot dismiss the flowering of the Lotus here and there. In fact, the day we were leaving Kochi, BJP was kicking off its “Project Kerala” in Kannur with Modi as the main face in posters alongside the Kerala BJP President Kummanam Rajashekaran, who incidentally resembles Modi in some angles. Yet, it will take years of labour to dislodge the Left from probably its last bastion in India!

With Nature in abundance, Vagamon has immense potential to be the next Munnar or Kumarakom of Kerala. Additional place of interest for Westerners is a place called Bharananganam which is on the way from Kottayam to Vagamon. It is the abode of Sister Alphonsa who was the first woman of Indian origin to be canonized as a Saint by the Catholic Church. But, to get into the God’s Own Country circuit, Vagamon needs to be developed in terms of its infrastructure. Incidentally, the same day I saw a quote of the new Central minister for Tourism Alphons Kannanthanam who hails from Kerala, talking of Vagamon in the same breath as Munnar as an area to focus for tourism development.

The jury is still out as to whether development happens first and then tourism picks up or the other way about. But there is always a tipping point. Like for Kumarakom, when in the last week of December in the Year 2000, the then Prime Minister Vajpayee decided to ring in the New Year at Kumarakom. The musings of Vajpayee from Kumarakom still reverberate in the air! Similarly, another event that catapulted Kumarakom to its today’s glory was Arundati Roy’s Booker prize winning novel “The God of Small Things”. Set in the village of Aymanam which is at a calling distance from Kumarakom, the novel made many Western tourists include Kumarakom part of their itinerary!

May be Prime Minster Modi, who in his last Mann Ki Baat address called upon people to explore new destinations in India to boost tourism, could emulate Vajpayee and take a break at Vagamon during Diwali! Who knows, in that calm, cool and scenic setting far away from the political nerve centre of Delhi he may discover some new ideas to bring back John Maynard Keynes’ “Animal spirits” of the country!!!

anandkumarrs

Random expressions of a Wannabe

Infrastructure