One of the peculiar anomalies of self-styled socialist India governed by a greedy establishment with superpower aspirations is that it is the largest importer of arms, ammunition and defence equipment worldwide. The fact that 46 percent of the country’s children suffer chronic malnutrition induced by poverty, mass illiteracy and unemployment for which the Central government’s Integrated Child Development Services for children in the age group 0-6 needs more than the pathetic Rs.17,700 crore allocated in the Union budget 2013-14 for 1.6 million anganwadis (early childhood nutrition and care centres), doesn’t seem to bother the establishment in the least. Budget 2013-14 allocates a massive Rs.203,672 crore for defence and according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, during the period 2008-12, India’s defence equipment import bill was 109 percent higher than China’s, the world’s second biggest arms importer.

The commonsense wisdom of involving private companies in the production of arms and defence equipment has dawned upon the Congress party and the  establishment 65 years after independence. Until last week (April 20) when the Union defence ministry’s Defence Acquisition Council took a belated decision to enable “rapid indigenisation of defence products, with both public and private sectors playing pivotal roles,” domestic production of arms and equipment was the monopoly of the public sector Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) which has been a massive failure. Hence the nation’s huge annual defence equipment imports bill, on which coincidently all ruling parties and politicians routinely earn sizeable hard currency commissions.

The question which should arise in the minds of all right-thinking people is why was private industry barred from developing and producing defence arms and equipment?  Could it be because rupee kickbacks were not as attractive as hard currency deposits in Swiss banks? Contrary to public perception, decisions of great pith and substance are often driven by such base, pedestrian considerations. 

Effete reformers

The self-declared assets of Jagadish Shettar have multiplied 400 percent during the past five years and are currently valued at Rs.4.44 crore; the value of K.S. Eshwarappa’s assets has increased from Rs.3.47 crore to Rs.4.8 crore and his wife’s from Rs. 68.33 lakh to Rs.2.47 crore; the assets of R. Ashok have almost doubled from Rs.12.45 crore to Rs.23.34 crore during the past quinquennium. These worthies are the incumbent chief minister, deputy chief minister and home minister of the BJP government which has misruled and almost ruined the administration of the state of Karnataka, until recently the best in the country. Yet these are by no means the wealthiest politicians in the state.

Curiously the mysterious wealth accretion of Karnataka’s politicians cutting across party lines doesn’t seem to trouble the electorate at all, as BJP’s super-rich politicians are all set to be replaced by super-rich Congress politicos. In classical economics, individuals become wealthy because they provide goods and services society needs. When entrepreneurs and businessmen fulfill the needs of a substantial number of consumers/customers, society rewards them by filling their coffers. But this basic rule of economics seems to have been turned on its head by Karnataka’s new genre politicians who, far from providing much-needed services — good administration, law and order, roads, public transport, water, sanitation, civic governance etc — have ruined the state’s administrative system.

While one admires the people of Karnataka for their forbearance and fortitude, it sticks in your editor’s craw that after a lifetime’s effort — and investment in education which is many multiples of the investment of nouveau riche politicians in their education — one can barely boast assets of Rs.1 crore. And patience and forbearance is not a virtue confined to the ignorant poor who don’t know better. The Bangalore Political Action Committee (BPAC) — a club of equally rich businessmen whose hearts bleed for the garden-turned-garbage city — instead of jumping into the fray themselves or supporting new reformist political formations, disingenuously believes that moral exhortations and apolitical action will persuade Karnataka’s mainstream loot-grab-and-return politicians to turn a new leaf. Given the naivete of these effete reformers willing to strike but not wound, it’s hardly surprising the state’s cynical politicians run rings around them.            

Remembering Wilson

The death in Britain of baroness Margaret Thatcher whose commitment to economic freedom and aversion to socialism — the soft cousin of communism — made her a hero in and beyond Britain, brings back memories of Harold Wilson, another successful British prime minister who dominated politics in the wet, green and pleasant land where your editor was actively involved in student politics in the 1960s.

In conformity with the Churchillian observation that if you aren’t a liberal at 20, you have no heart, your editor began his political career as a supporter of socialist Labour Party and Harold Wilson with whom I had a memorable exchange on Labour’s softness towards apartheid in South Africa. But it wasn’t long before it became clear that the dominant ideology of Labour was envy of the entrepreneurial and successful. The basic premise and general expectation of Labour supporters was that the State should provide food, clothing, shelter, education, and health services free of charge to those in need. Worse, Labour was in favour of nationalisation of all industry, and its supporters actually believed that business-illiterate bureaucrats and workers could manage industry and corporations which would miraculously generate the surpluses to pay for the plethora of goods and services provided by the welfare state. Of course that didn’t happen and British Steel was chalking up a loss of £1 million per day before Mrs. Thatcher denationalised it in the early 1980s. 

Curiously, Wilson suddenly resigned from the prime minister’s office in 1976 amidst rumours that MI 5, the British intelligence agency, had uncovered him as a long-term Russian spy. To this day, Wilson’s abrupt resignation and overnight departure from 10, Downing Street hasn’t been sufficiently explained.