Law, Liberty and Livelihood by Dr. Parth Shah and Naveen Mandava; Academic Foundation & Centre for Civil Society; Price: Rs.595; 313 pp

Almost a century ago, the great but now forgotten (unwarrantedly villified by Left intellectuals) historian Prof. Arnold Toynbee in his eight volume magnum opus, A Study of History (also available in an outstanding illustrated single volume; OUP 1972 and recommended for all school and academic libraries), explained why great civilisations which once seemed likely to endure forever, declined and fell.

According to Toynbee, civilisations decline and fall when their creative minorities cease to be creative and together with governments transform into “oppressive minorities”. This prompts a social phenomenon which he describes as the “secession of the majority”. With the great mass of people withdrawing from the tacit social contract in this slow secessionary process – a process which could take a few centuries- law and order is the first casualty as great civilisations become vulnerable to internal and external “barbarians” and decline and fall.

The purpose of this reference to Toynbee’s thesis is to speculate whether the decline of post-independence India’s aspirational liberal-humanist “civilisation” has begun. It seems as though the creative minority which wrested the nation’s freedom from imperial rule, knitted the subcontinent’s 500 provinces, protectorates and princedoms into a democratic nation ruled by law, has lost its creative impulse and has made common cause with a predator state. It is arguable that the process of secession of the majority from post-independence India’s oppressive establishment as evidenced by the growing popularity of anarchic right and left wing extremist groups (barbarians) has begun.

Evidence of establishment oppression and the transformation of government into a dreaded predator is available in bucketfuls in this extraordinary study authored by Dr. Parth Shah, president of the Delhi-based think-tank Centre for Civil Society, and Naveen Mandava, a research associate of the society. Law, Liberty and Livelihood explains in compelling detail how and why the much-trumpeted economic liberalisation and deregulation initiative of 1991 which admittedly uncorked the creative and entrepreneurial capabilities of Indian industry, has completely by-passed the nation’s urban and rural poor who remain shackled by iron and chains devised by petty bureaucrats and policemen.

“The truth is that there has been hardly any liberalisation for the working poor. For them it has been all LPQ (licences, permits and quotas) and little LPG (liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation). The poor still suffer under the weight of regulations, restrictions and harassment by government and lack basic economic freedom in the areas of their livelihood,” write the authors.

In support of this contention this revealing study cites horrifying case studies of the plight of street hawkers, shopkeepers, butchers, auto and cycle rickshaw pullers, railway porters and even well-meaning philanthropists and educationists who are still bound hand and foot by red tape and have to pay continuous bribes to government officials to conduct their business and trade.

The basic truth that there is public demand for the services provided by this urban under-class has not yet — economic liberalisation and deregulation notwithstanding — impacted itself upon state and municipal governments across the country. Instead of being nurtured as potential taxpayers — the study repeatedly emphasises that all the service providers enumerated above are willing to pay reasonable taxes to conduct their business peacefully — these hard-working citizens are routinely treated like criminals and subject to the rapacious mercies of petty government officials and policemen.

Undoubtedly there is something seriously wrong with the attitude of governments at the Centre and in the states towards citizens engaging in economic activity. The broad presumption is that earning a livelihood is anti-social. That’s why as a table in the introduction of this book highlights, it takes an average of 89 days to start a business in India as against 35 in Bangladesh, 24 in Pakistan, 21 in Nepal, eight in Singapore and only two days in Australia. That’s not because government is extra-careful about bogus businesses being started to the detriment of the public. As the thousands of once publicly listed companies which have easily vanished with shareholders’ money testify, there’s no extraordinary duty of care being exercised by government servants in licensing businesses. It’s just that delays are built into the system to extract maximum speed money from people anxious to earn honest livelihoods.

Indeed the whole machinery of the unapologetically oppressive state is designed to construct roadblocks against people engaging in a business, trade or profession- a hollowed-out fundamental right guaranteed under Article 19(1)(g) of the Constitution. The authors provide the poignant example of an estimated 500,000 human-powered cycle rickshaws which ply in Delhi to meet public demand for cheap short distance transport. In its suspect wisdom, the Delhi Municipal Corporation has licensed only 99,000 of them with the consequence that 400,000 rickshaw plyers who can gauge public demand for their services much more accurately, are plying their trade illegally. As such their vehicles can be impounded at any time and they have to pay regular bribes to earn their livelihoods. It’s the same story with street vendors, itinerant hawkers, railway coolies and shopkeepers. In a cruel Kafkaesque parody, it’s vital for them to be licensed but it’s impossible to get a license to trade without paying massive bribes which the poor can’t afford to pay.

Consequently hundreds of millions of the poor majority who have been endowed with the constitutional right to engage in a business, trade and/ or profession, are branded criminals for exercising their fundamental right to earn a livelihood by an evil unchecked conspiracy of politicians and officials in local government. And who cares? Not the captains of industry engaged in primitive accumulation, nor the nation’s intelligentsia, a bankrupt minority routinely fudging its responses to testing challenges. You can’t blame the poor oppressed majority for being in the process of secession, can you?

Dilip Thakore

Story of steady decline

Stories from Indian Football by Jaydeep Basu; UBS Publishers; Price Rs. 195; 209 pp

Indian sport, apart from cricket, has been largely ignored by biographers and publishing houses. There are few recognisable names and fewer achievements to boast, to ensure brisk sales. The odd tennis or hockey memoir excepted, Indian sport does not figure on the bookshelves. Consequently, a book on Indian football is a pleasant surprise.

Stories from Indian Football charts the course of the world’s most popular game in India from its earliest days. Although the author (a correspondent of the Hindustan Times who has reported the game for two decades) makes a disclaimer at the beginning that the book is not a chronological history of the game in the country, it is to some extent, a brief history of Indian football and offers engaging anecdotes and backroom gossip to keep the reader engrossed.

The book begins with a recitation of Indian football’s earliest triumph. On July 29, 1911, a team of barefoot Mohun Bagan players stunned the East Yorkshire Regiment 2-1 to win the IFA Shield. In pure footballing terms, the result was not significant, for neither team was extraordinary. But, as Basu informs us, the match had a political dimension. An Indian team’s win over one representing our former white masters was translated into a great blow for equality especially in Bengal, because of its relative political maturity.

“Its effects reached far beyond the boundaries of the football ground. It was looked upon more as a major political victory for Indians over the ruling Englishmen, a victory for the oppressed and a kind of boost for the freedom movement that gained momentum since the division of Bengal in 1905,” writes Basu.

Indian football was a strange child, mid-wifed by British colonists and parented by a curious public. Right from its earliest days, when Nagendra Prasad Sarbhadhikari, a young upper class Bengali, introduced this British sport to his schoolmates, the game acquired nationalist overtones. The Mohun Bagan-East Yorkshire IFA Shield final was watched by 80,000 people — a massive audience even by contemporary standards. Matches between British teams and Indian clubs were prickly affairs. The role of sport- cricket, hockey, football- in boosting national morale which in turn spurred the independence movement was important, but Basu only hints at football’s contribution.

Apart from the surcharged political milieu in which football was played, there were complex social and religious factors at play as well. Football wasn’t popular among Muslims in the early days. But when they took to it they dominated the sport. Basu is fascinated by this phenomenon: “Calcutta remained the focal point of the country’s football during those days. For some strange reason, it hardly had any Muslim representative till Mohammedan Sporting Club filled the void in the mid-thirties. Their entry into Indian football was like the proverbial veni, vidi, vici where they took it by storm, crushed every opposition, broke all existing records that remain untouched even today.”

Public sentiment changed from clubs to the national team immediately after independence. Over the next decade and half, Indian teams achieved results that are unimaginable today. In 1960 the India XI qualified for the Rome Olympics where it suffered a narrow (2-1) loss to highly fancied Hungary, held France to a draw (1-1) after leading most of the time, before losing to Peru (3-1). Two years later in 1962 the Indian team beat South Korea 2-1 to win the Asian Games football gold.

However from 1962 onwards, the story is one of continuous decline. Nepotism, squabbles within the governing body, and lack of foresight precipitated a downslide that has continued to this day reducing the international achievements of Indian football to nostalgia, to a “those were the days” fascination. This is a curious feature of Indian sport, whether in hockey, football, athletics, badminton or tennis. Success has been so elusive that the only solace is to look backward and console ourselves that at some remote point in history, we had competed at the international level.

But Basu does not fall into the trap of romanticising the past. He looks at the great football teams of yesteryear objectively, highlights their lack of foresight and preparedness, and especially rails against their insistence upon barefoot play. “There is little doubt that to play without boots in the 1952 Olympics did not help India get into the mainstream of world football. It did bring some curious onlookers and patronising applause, especially on European soil, but that did Indian football no good.”

Nor does Basu hesitate to identify those who were responsible for the decline of Indian football, even if their roles were relatively minor. He doesn’t shy away from narrating backroom intrigue and pressure groups striving for dominance of the game.

The book will be of interest primarily to fans of Indian football. It’s unlikely to capture the attention of the general sports fan who is perhaps more conversant with the exploits of a Manchester United than his own national team. But with Indian football relegated to history, it’s hard to blame him.

Dev S. Sukumar

Also read: Emerging technology integral to develop sports education in India