The new Indian ‘animal spirit’

As a part of his opening remarks made by the prime minister at the interaction with selected newspaper editor on June 29, 2011 he said :

“… frankly speaking in our country this constant sniping between government and opposition or if an atmosphere of cynicism is created all round I think the growth impulses, the entrepreneurial impulses of our people will not flourish and that is what worries me. We must do all that we can to revive the animal spirits of our businesses (our emphasis)”.

What the PM implied was that he was worried that the animal spirit of entrepreneurship of Indians unleashed by him in 1991 might get bottled up in the wake of the corruption controversies, media’s zeal to unearth more scams within government, industry (including proponents and beneficiaries of what has come to be known as crony capitalism), bureaucracy and of course the politicians. Clearly he did not think what he minimally described as “businessmen cutting corners” anything more serious than a weakness in our regulatory system. For him fixing loopholes in the regulatory system is all that is required to address and remedy the clear wrongdoings by parts of bureaucracy, politicians and the beneficiaries in the industry which were pointed out by the CAG, a constitutional body, essentially part of the government. For him too much criticism of the ‘elected government’ would make the bureaucracy hamstrung and lead to impeding or curtailing of the liberalizing economic reforms, affecting the enthusiasm of the entrepreneurs, industry captains and investors. Reviving this ‘animal spirits’, for him, was, has been and is a priority rather than chasing issues of corruption, ‘cutting corners’ by the spirited animals of a new India. 

It may be true that this animal spirit that has helped to drive India’s GDP growth over better part of the last two decades and provided the new-found confidence of Indians in industry, business (especially service sector) and in advertisement, entertainment, fashion and sports. However, one suspects the misplaced spiritedness also having had a hand in the rising rowdiness/arrogance of a certain section of the population highlighted by increasing number of cases of road rage and drunken driving (leading to death and disability to pavement dwellers), kidnapping for ransom, rape, acid attack and other kinds of violence against women, and finally murder for flimsy reasons. The final denouement in the Aravind Adiga novel ‘Last man in tower’ about unsheathed greed goading ordinary people to enact a chilling Macbeth like scenario does not probably appear too contrived in the backdrop of swelling testosterone of animal spirits in a new and almost unfamiliar India.

Though road rage per se is not a cognizable offence under Indian penal code (though often leading to severe assault and death which then becomes one), nor even recorded as a traffic violation, it is probably a very sensitive barometer relating gratuitous violence to apparent economic propsperity (at least to some sections of the population). Roughly 10 million cars, buses, trucks, scooters and motorbikes crowd New Delhi's roads every day, causing long traffic jams and frayed tempers. The city's roads have not kept up with the growth in traffic. While the number of vehicles has grown by over 200 percent over the past two decades, the number of kilometers of road has grown only about 15 percent, as per the transport department. People are on the road for a longer period, and everyone has become impatient. The result is a situation in which even a small verbal confrontation might soon escalate to a physical fight. Vehicles especially new spanky cars, being often a powerful symbol of a newly acquired wealth of a person, if someone on the road even inadvertently scrapes it and leaves a scratch this may feel like an assault on a person's status which is considered unacceptable and a fight ensues. [The above statistics and conditions on the Delhi roads adapted from a write up entitled “Road rage in India growing along with economy” (NDTV.COM ,December 28, 2010)]

There are enough statistics to nail the myth of the benefit of economic growth percolating to poor doing the rounds of government departments, planning commission and their appologists in the press and television. Assuming, however, it is only percolating and not exactly flooding the BPL India with food and fuel, the penetration of the TV and particularly mobile phones, on the other hand, among the Indians in the far corners of the country has been much more noteworthy. Unwittingly for the ruling classes, while these new communication media whetted the economic and social aspirations in the rural hinterland it had also brought home to them the undeniable inequality among ‘us’ and ‘them’ and the growing disparity of incomes. Nor has the growth of employment over these two decades of liberalized economy regime been anything but tardy despite the prime minister’s protestations and promise. Incidences of scams, swindling by the crony capitalists, on the other hand, grew. There has been, in recent years, a rise in the death of whistleblowers, RTI activists (anybody who resists/question cronies and criminals who usurp the spoils of the so-called liberalized economy). And of course the statistics on drunken driving, road rage, rape, kidnapping and murder show an upswing. Whether or not the famed ‘animal spirit’ of the Indian entrepreneurs is in evidence or not the animals in India, including the WHITE TIGERS, are growling. Be advised.

What the government and the political parties can do

Calling for nebulous changes in the rape law including death penalty or castration is a cheap populist response that befits the practitioners of opportunist lowest-common-denominator politics, pandering to the emotional street reaction of the public baying for the blood. Activists not given to rhetoric know very well that with a harsher punishment, the conviction rate, already abysmally low (26%), would drop further and therefore they have never advocated death or similar penalty for rape. Even the prescribed minimum sentence of seven years is not always handed out in many cases one is lucky to see conviction. 

That the government means business can be shown, more pertinently, by taking demonstrable actions – not just by token actions against some low level functionaries - but against the gangrenous organs of the state machinery including top-level ‘engineers’ and ‘architects’ responsible for designing and controlling the operations of this machinery, which has cumulatively over a long period of time created this atmosphere of impunity in which the criminals and their apprentices seem to feel at home and be emboldened.

To do justice it would not be enough to promptly arrest and arrange to prosecute the perpetrators in the particular case of the recent brutal assault on the young medical student in Delhi. These hoodlums and sadists happen to be the dregs of the society and not in any way connected with anybody in power. It is unrealistic to assume that the record of police in pussyfooting cases for years in cases the accused is politically well connected (like the abduction and rape of one 14 year old in Lucknow in 2005 by a youngster connected to somebody in the Samajwadi party in power then and now) will be rectified immediately. But that is exactly what the government should aim for if its protestations are to be taken seriously. Also fast tracking this high profile case in Delhi (under the present public pressure) and pressing for maximum punishment for the offences under law – while passing over many thousand other pending cases of violence against women (a large fraction being rape) in Delhi and indeed all over the country, would not help lift the gloom enveloping the democratic edifice the country is justifiably proud about.

Because to do justice would also mean taking serious steps to fill in huge gaps in judicial appointments, not just opening fast track courts today only to let them become nonfunctional over time due to manpower, funds and resources. That will also require massive overhaul of the forensic laboratories languishing all over the country for skilled manpower and infrastructure. Fast tracking of court procedures without due diligence in obtaining scientific forensic evidence will not lift the rate of convictions in rape cases thus undercutting the effectiveness of justice delivery and putting paid to the goal of deterrence.

Naming and shaming the sex offenders (possibly with their pictures and addresses) by police is being suggested as one of the concrete deterrents for the would-be offenders. May be that would be a good thing if the thought ever materializes into actual charts in police stations all over the country, public places, on the web. But what about naming and shaming the insensitive policemen and the politicians ?

During the last two weeks several political leaders made usual statements (about the dress and the character of the victim, advisability of her venturing out, etc) that can clearly be associated with a retrograde patriarchal mindset that, by way of a convoluted rationalization, effectively justifies violence against women. Of course this is not the first time they have been saying these things. Nor are they the only ones who venture to display a penchant for analysis in this context. Many policemen (Noida, park street ..) were equally wise. Can the top leaders of the parties to which these leaders with proclivity to make foot-in-the mouth statements belong, publicly tell them off and remove them from important party positions, deny them election ticket for a period should an election be round the corner ? Can such policemen be publicly reprimanded and punished within the rules for showing disrespect and insensitivity to complainants or refusing to register the FIR ? And this has to happen routinely, not just around December 2012 but through out 2013 and thereafter. These things do not require deliberations in committees, but an acknowledgement about the rotten mindset that, everybody says, should change.

May be that is a tall order. But if such a miracle were to happen, those intrepid protesters who were chanting ‘we want justice’ (whose import the honourable home minister said he did not quite understand) and many others behind closed doors would have started believing that the government finally found a way to start responding.