Articles by JM

Back to a 1980s type borrowing for consumption is thus the hallmark of the new 'middle way'; and like that of its predecessor, the life of this episode will only be as long as foreign financiers allow it to continue.

Privatisation: Magic Wand or Budgetary Cop-Out?
JM THE annual ritual of pre-budget meetings of the finance minister has many purposes, but these mostly have very little to do with the stated objective of generating ideas about how to approach the forthcoming budget exercise. It does not require a great deal of cynicism to discern this; after all, it would be surprising if, even as late as two months before the presentation of the budget, the finance ministry actually has no idea about the future course of action. Thus these meetings have a slightly different, three-fold. orientation: firstly, to give various pressure groups (industrialists, trade unions, and now, farmers' organisations) a chance to vent their steam and express their own desires; secondly, to imply that this is an 'open' government which is open to suggestion from outsiders, including 'experts' drawn from the field of economics; thirdly (and possibly most significantly) to test the water for some of the government's actual intentions, by giving prominence to certain ideas which conform to the government's vision. These meetings thus assume significance essentially because they provide pointers about what the next year's budget may contain, if the government's own intentions are realised.

Back to Reforms JM The nation has so far avoided the devaluation-inflation- devaluation spiral that has wrecked Latin American economies. But the unimaginative policies being pursued since July 1991 have been continuously pointing towards that direction. And the underlying politics of it all suggests that a Latin American-type unconcern for the poor and for future generations is now the norm amongst our ruling elites.

black is the description of the lowliest of the genus, the sudras. The rules of the caste game are well known: the kshatriyas and the vatoyas aspire to break into the occlusive fold of the brahmin set, and, similarly, sudras too, slave to the inherited inferior complex, aspire to reach the higher ranges of caste most proximate to them The Indians, once they arrive in the States, follow the rationality of the varnashram It is not the first time in history that this has happened. Sixty years ago, resident Indians in Hitler's Germany tried to curry favour with the Nazis: the latter must be kind to them; they too were, after all, Aryans, only somewhat bronzed off, living a couple of thousand years or more under the tropical sun has given them one or two extra coatings of tan; they were nonetheless as enthusiastic staiKlard-bearers of the philosophy embedded in the swastika as the Nazis themselves were; just consider the closeness of the German language to classical Sanskrit. An identical behavioural process is at work in Los Angeles and Chicago and New York and Houston: we Indians, who have made good in the States, are creme de la creme of the varnashram system back home; we belong to the superior castes; our own instinct tells us that the blacks do not quite belong; despite the so-called civil rights revolution of 1954 and all that crap, the blacks are richly deserving of a segregated, caged in existence. It is with a tinge of pride that Indians settled in the United States will inform, in confidence, the white, affluent American householder, their next-door neighbour, that they vote the straight Republican ticket, Ronald Reagan was the man after their heart.

An Alternative Economic Survey JM IT is customary just before the budget to survey the economic events of the preceding year, and juxtapose claims made with the actual outcome. The official Economic Survey is supposed to do just this, but since it does so officially it is less than frank at best of times, and may be worse this year coming as it does before the presentation of, what an influential newspaper has already termed, a Fudget. Publication of this Policy Watch will almost coincide with the release of the official Survey, and it might be interesting to provide an alternative Survey, keeping in view particularly the alternative viewpoint presented in a statement signed by 35 economists last July, shortly after the devaluation and before the last budget.