India PostUri

 This period of stress  for the country post-Uri has not been without its benefits. The PM  personally has in the last two days proved a major point re leadership by the quiet but determined manner in which he has mobilised national sentiment and resolve without uttering a word.

Prompt international reaction  showing anger against the Uri attack and forceful support for India are primarily the result of his own strategy of close personal contact with world leaders. He defied protocol and followed a course dictated by his instinct, good sense and belief in the power of friendship. Even China will not be able to ignore the sinister  role of their friendly Pakistan in the Uri attack.

People are generally beginning to see Modi as one different from their perception of the past. He was seen as a silent and tolerant  witness to many indiscretions of some members of the ruling group. Over time, however, when they found him reacting in his own way in his own time to show disapproval and curb unhelpful practices there was a change in  general attitude. I know people now see him as one who is capable of handling a crisis quietly but effectively. Even the Pak premier cannot but feel guilty over his betrayal of one who tried to build bridges defying public opinion.

In the present situation which is military in nature he has done wisely to leave the military to give him the options which they can implement. The military should then be left totally to plan and strike. Meanwhile diplomacy should be actively at work. 

I list three issues for PM's attention. These may appear to be of not too much consequence but which really are crucial  in practical terms and particularly in times such as now..

TV reporting  in India seems to have fallen victim to intense competition. Ethics and protocol have no role in this business which seems to be keener on prominent displays of their success rating vis a vis competition. A news channel reporting from Uri was casually narrating movements of VVIP’s that day in the area and I have written immediately  to the Defence Minister  about this. We seem not to have learnt from the consequences of  a major reporting indiscretion during 26/11.

TV channels on the air proudly flaunt copies of official documents such as internal notes of ministries, even cabinet notes and sensitive investigation reports claiming exclusive access. How are these documents accessed ? I was  shocked to see yesterday one of the channels  proclaiming “PM’s review meeting –exclusive access” on their Inside Track programme.   This meeting was the PM’s top level CCS meeting. True or false, these patently unacceptable  practices have to be challenged and dealt with severely. 

Finally , I have to refer to our representation in UN and the presentation of our papers at UN meetings. Although these are  ready scripts I would have imagined that these are meant to be presented forcefully and not merely read as if from a text book in class. I mean no disrespect to the individuals concerned but in UN where oratorical skills are very much on display – and relevantly so – the right person has to write and another right person to present it if necessary. In my view, a representation has to be forcefully visible and audible.

A Day of Shame

Monday 12^th Sept, was a day of shame for Karnataka State.Never before had been seen such wanton acts of violence, arson, destruction of public and private property and such total helplessness of the administration.

We are all aware of the anatomy of every bundh.All bundhs start with a proclamation  of peaceful demonstrations but what happens is total mayhem. Blocked highways and rail roads, burning tyres, stone- throwing, destruction of public and private property and forcible closure of businesses are the usual scenes. All these are unlawful and hardly peaceful and quite  detrimental to the economy and image of the city and the country. It is sad that in many States the local governments are also complicit totally disregarding  the plight of lakhs who depend on daily earnings for sustaining their families.The “common people” in whose name the bundhs are organised are really the victims of these disruptions.

In some States as in Kerala many years ago the courts  imposed restrictions and penalties on these bundh-makers.Unfortunately the governments have been lax in enforcing these restrictions. Votes become the consideration and the national interests are subordinated to party aims.

In Bangalore on 12^th Sept. large-scale agitation was expected by the city while awaiting the Supreme Court order of that day but the government and the Police seemed to be unprepared for the  scale of the mayhem. When the police did make their appearance  the city had already been taken over by rampaging mobs of lumpen elements and known groups of professional bundh-makers. The full scale of the devastation was seen thanks to TV and it was frightening.

Clusters of street urchins and goons, unlikely supporters of any civic cause, some carrying back-packs, stoned and  shattered glass frontages of buildings,  turned parked vehicles upside down and set them alight and even forced a driver out of his lumbering car-carrier, fortunately empty, and set fire to the vehicle. Fifty buses of one company, parked in their parking lot. were burnt down by miscreants. In a short while most of Bangalore’s main roads were full of burning vehicles.

The police who should normally have the power to enforce the law on their own initiative have generally been emasculated by politics. They are damned if they do, damned if they don’t. It was only after the Central RAF arrived that the police presence became really visible. But then the deployment was uneven with some disturbed areas with no police  and some with too many. Some well-known rabble-rousers were leading some of the processions and were seen arguing with the Police who, I thought, treated them with undeserved  courtesy.

In most organised cities, there would have been preventive arrests of known trouble-makers and mobile and static armed police patrols in a show of force. A retired police chief  was saying that in crunch situations as existed yesterday with uncontrolled  violence his old-fashioned police would have sent a police jeep with a loud-speaker ordering the crowd to disperse. There would be a warning of “shoot-at-sight” . He said the maximum that had to be done to disperse a motley crowd,unlike an organised demonstration for a cause, were a couple of shots in the air. He added that when frenzied mobs were running riot there just had to be an immediate, dominating show and use of force.

The Centre needs to take note of the wider national impact of such disturbances in Important business centres such as Chennai and Bangalore.It should be remembered that most marketing conditions lie outside the Centre’s control with the States.We cannot ignore the immaturity of our politics in  which narrow party interests often dominate national causes. Our politics and politicians need to grow up fast if PM Modi’s ambitious plans are to turn into reality. It would be a crying shame if we did not capitalise on our growing opportunities to be a commercial and industrial hub.

Bangalore has had three bundhs in the last few weeks  and with the most recent three days of lock-down and violence the loss resulting from the bundhs runs into thousands of crores. The States and Centre have to deal with this issue urgently. The Inter-State Council and the National Development Council of which little has been heard for quite some time provided  good and regular meeting opportunities for the PM and the Chief Ministers for useful interaction and personal acquaintance.

The States would now have to be graded according to their business-friendliness and available investment opportunities have to be directed accordingly. A panel of representatives from CII, Assocham and FICCI, State and Central governments and chaired by the Commerce Minister  should fix the grading parameters. The earlier this is done the better it would be. What is certain is that the mindless bundh trend has to be halted if the national economy is to flourish. Ambitious development plans need a fertile environment in which to become reality.

 A Day of Shame

Middlemen Muddle

We seem never to be free from the spectre of corruption in most of our fields of governance. It we are not doing post mortems on past deals we are seeing ghosts in current and future deals.I am happy to hear that your new procurement policy  aims to change this course and has introduced measures which recognise the existence of middlemen and seek to remove their sinister secrecy from procurement proceedings. This will stop us from shooting ourselves in the foot and losing out on chosen military products.

My purpose in writing this is to share my experience of dealing with the “middleman” bogey when I was MD of a quarter billion USdollar joint sector project in the 1970’s. That was the worst time in India for business with bad politics, bad economy, pressures of a hostile environment with active agents and  middlemen. Ottavio Quattrocchi led the powerful group of deal-makers I had to contend with.

The Chief Minister of the State government and my company, promoting the project, were determined not to spend a paisa more than essential as the country was cash-strapped for

foreign exchange. The foreign contractors had all cushioned their prices as they had been advised that extra-legal payments were unavoidable in India, particularly when government controlled every move.

In our negotiations with contractors we agreed  all government clearances  would be our responsibility even to the extent of assisting them with their problems. In return, with great difficulty, we managed to include a provision in our contracts barring use of agents. The provision also said that if extra-legal payments were seen to be made the contractors would pay the client ”n” times the payment made to middlemen. The “n” was kept to 2 or3, just enough to recover any cushioning in the quote and impose a penalty not so large as to raise another dispute. It worked well.

It is my suggestion that this format  deserves your attention. My assessment is that as a long term  defence procurement prospect, India will be able to enforce the penal provision we used. It is my conviction that the middleman  has become a regular feature only because of artificial obstructions created in the procedures and arising during negotiations.