Shiners versus Whiners; it’s Economics, Stupid

thank you sir veeru:

..tho` must confess am more still confused...;)...you need to elaborate for a simpleton like me... and i see harish is still in hibernation...

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gujjubania:

...my first post to you...if you do not mind... despair not...it is not the end of the world...the growth will continue if not at 10.5 maybe above 9.0 (don`t quote me;))...growth has its own momentum...and it will still be higher than most regional countries...

Expect Gandhi to continue peace talks, and cricket matches, with Muslim Pakistan.

Expect resistance to American hegemony in the Middle East. Gandhi`s Congress party has traditionally been pro-Arab. Expect economic collaboration with the U.S. to continue, with one caveat: American corporations and the World Bank will face tougher negotiations.

from my friend haroon siddidiqui

rgds,

t

India`s two highest elected offices would soon be held by a Muslim, and by a Roman Catholic. It is like having a Christian elected to President of Pakistan, and a Hindu elected to become Prime Minister of Pakistan. I wonder if any Pakistani or any muslim intellectual would speculate on how long it will take for this to happen in Pakistan or in any muslim country. Failure to even venture should tell them the first problems to tackle.

Clearly this is a victory for the arrival of more than 1 billion world citizens from India into democracy. With this about 18% or world citizens do not live under democracy. Majority of them are in Muslim or African countries. This should indicate something to the readers at the Chowk.

Indian voters threw out Indira Gandhi, voted out Narsimha Rao, and elected the shiners to power, and now voted in the whiners into the power. With these election results, the voters have rejected TNT as preached by Modis of India. The power of Indian voters is clear. They do not applaud a general hijacking an elected head of state to put in a jail. A few days before Delhi went to vote, Modi on campaign trail in Delhi was asking that no one will rent a house to Sonia so how can the nation give her the Prime Ministership. Prior to the previous election, out seven seats from Delhi, BJP had 6, and Congress had 1. Even after Modi`s campaiging, BJP has 1, and Congress now has 6. 6-1, became 1-6, let us hope shiners of yesterday do not become whiners of tomorrow.

Another good aspect of such a transition is that, politician - bureaucratic corrpution nexus will break too. Now shiners have tasted the power, and while out of power and corrput nexus, will not wait to expose if the media will remain as vigilant and available as tehlka.com was.

The whiners now have power with all time highest foreign exchange reserves, and the largest job creation process underway in Indian history.

Therefore, their only mission should be ``India Delivers with Honesty``.

The best part of this result is that with it Hindutva has been cremated, and Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi will soon depart with its ashes and ``Astrology in IITs`` to Allahabad for the immersion. A sobering sight for the leader of Allahabad. Also, with these election results, no power in the U.S., the Europe or elsewhere in the world would come forward and can to India ``Please deliver Kashmir to Pakistan or else``. Finally, India can persue its foreign policy based on economic reasons, rather than purely on geo-politics.

Regarding Harvard case studies. These can be purchased for about $2,500 each. Pakistani intellectuals should purchase it and read. Also they should read the case study on Turkey. Both Pakistan and Turkey, had dictatorships and all ingradients according to these cases. Both floundered. Whereas, Romair indeed is correct, Korea, Taiwan, even Muslim Malayasia and others continued to progress. These phenomena must be looked from what economy needs. It needs, stability and ability to create markets. Asian tigers provided stability and the U.S. first and later Europe provided the market. Both Pakistan and Turkey failed to follow this paradigm of stability and market creation. Both are emotional countries, unlike muslim Malayasia, where economic development was left in the hands of Chinese and Indian entreprenuers first. Can Paksitan leave its economy in the hands of entreprenuers? Who is going to tell Fauji Foundation to get out of business and let Punjabi entreprenuers create post partition Delhi phenomena? Faujis only job should be to provide stability nothing more nothing less. This is my opinion on Pakistan from my arm chair.

Anil Kapuria

re:#14 by Romair
Japan, with much help from USA, turned from a poor war ravaged nation into a highly industrialised nation. South Korea has transformed itself into a prosperous nation. So has Taiwan. All are democracies.
Sridhar

re:#16 by Romair
After 50 years, you guys still do not know what kind of democracy would suit you. Why don`t u debate with your compatriots for another 50 years and let us know what u think?
This is from Ayaz Amir`s column:
http://www.dawn.com/weekly/ayaz/ayaz.htm
Sridhar

Romair,
One of the major reason cited by Ian Talbott in his book ``Inventing a Nation``, cites the unholy alliance between the industrials and the bureaucracy as the major reason for accumulation of wealth in 22 hands. There was corruption involved in the allocation of grants and soft loans.This could have been checked rathet than bring in socialism of Bhutto`s populism. It is Bhutto who rolled back the decade of progress from which we are still to recover.

Yes I tend to agree with your suggestion of the Oligo Economic model.

The new Government will have to face the dilemma, but I feel there will be no major reversal. They have Pakistan to learn from.

I also feel that now India will be more pressed for trade with Pakistan. Pursuance of economic policies will pacify security concerns. I hope it is so because we in Pakistan need a long economic break.

Cheerios

Ralph # 17
BJP had won the election on a swadeshi plank and then supported the reforms once in power. The congress supports the reforms. The problem is containing the commies ….
Being a gandhi family chumcha has been a career option for a while in India. What can I say


Faruk

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Gajjubania # 20

If I recollect correctly, you were neither with the Hinutva types (RSS,VHP) nor with the socialist and controlled-economy Kangress types.

You were with the 10% growth, globalization and Industrialization types.

Now you seem to have modified your stance towards Indian heritage linked with its religious philosophy as

``message of the Vedas and Upanisads is universal brotherhood and equal respect for all faiths and methods of worship. The culture and traditions of this ancient nation have nurtured these values and preserved them for posterity and for nations and societies deprived of the benefit of this kind spiritual discipline``

No one can take away the Indian history or heritage. But does this have to form a part of the Indian Ideology. I think India does not need it.

Simple Democracy is good enough as a method of social change and progress. The recent elections have actually re-corrected the dangerous ideological bent in one direction.

Christianity has already played itself out. Islam is undergoing the final painful pangs of getting rejected from the mainstream everyday life.

Let Hinduism remain in the background and play out its liberal ethos quietly as it has done for thousands of years.

#18 by veeresh

On the other thread Arjun posted these numbers:
``INC 26.8%
BJP 22.1%

Interestingly, these were the figures in 99
INC 28.3%
BJP 23.75%``

Now, what it says here is that the INC or BJP almost matched numbers from 1999. In fact, INC got less. In this scenario, I think what worked for INC was better alliances this time and perhaps less candidate of INC itself.

I think this would be a good comparison:

How many seats INC contested this year vs. 1999. With less number of seats to contest, they (INC) probably had resource to concentrate on the seats where they had a good shot to win Vs. spreading their resource thin like they probably did in 1999. With better alliances, they eliminated vote split also.
Now this theory would disappear in thin air, if they contested exactly the same number of seats in both elections.
I just don’t see any earth shattering victory here. Somebody in INC just did some home work on numbers from 1999 and worked on a better strategy. Core votes for both parties show that the parties are about even in public’s eye. INC ended up with more seats due to good election strategy.

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Hi T-Bhai . . . let me try to tell you why I think the media got it wrong . . . actully even the political parties themselves got it wrong . . . being almost out of media, here is one answer for you . . . almost everyone of us from the chattering classes in India are currently quite consumed by our own brilliance . . . means we can hardly see the true lights outide . . . now over the last few years the politicians started believing the media and vice-versa . . . as a result they forgot one thing . . . the underdog (and a large percentage, say 75%??, of India`s population is still underdog?) jut decided that s/he would collectively show ``them`` how much smarter s/he was . . . so is this a ``spite`` vote then?

No, it is:-

a) Smart electoral mathematics. To figure that out, ask any true Bengali (non Ghotee) how voting is really organised in West Bengal by the loyal and effieicent cadre. That will explain a lot of the Communist seats.

b) For the rest, the maths of votes polled is . . . exquisite.

I think many Indians just got tired of the smug looks on the faces of some of our erstwhile beloved leaders, and decided to give others who had had time to wipe off previous smug looks another chance.

The key word here is, therefore, cyclical.

And the key ministry may well be -Environment & Forests- . . .

Faruk

On this one count I am extremely happy. M.M. Joshi deserved to go. Good riddance.

But it`s the commies, anarchists, and Rahul-worshipping slaves who scare me....what good are these nuts? God help India.

stuka #1: ``The same people who voted for a Congress MP out of khunnas for the sitting BJP one but may still have preferred Vajpayee as the national leader. If this is an indictment of anything, it is of the parliamentary system and demonstrates the need for a Presidential one.``

I have always wondered whethered a Presidential form of govt. is better for third world countries. Vajpayee seems to be easily the most popular leader in India. What to talk of India, he is popular in Pakistan also. Yet he may not even become the leader of opposition. In a Presidential system, one would guess, he would be the President, regardless of who won the provinces.

In Pakistan, I think Imran Khan is easily the most popular politician, nationally. If Presidential elections were held, he would defeat everyone easily. His only competition would be Benazir, and I think he would defeat her also. All other names like Chaudhry Shujaat, Jamali, Altaf Hussain, Nawaz Sharif etc. do not have nearly the national popularity nor credibility that Imran Khan has.

Yet in a Parliamentary system, he can just win one seat, and loses at the local level to names like Shujaat and Sharif - in fact, to even unknown names. Hence he will never be in a position of power, because his party can never win. Even though, amonsgt the current crowd, he would make the best leader for Pakistan. And if you poll Pakistanis, they will tell you that, but they will not vote for his party.......

correcton #14: ``Is the scenario of the rich getting richer, and the poor remaining where they are better than a scenario where the rich get poorer and the poor remain where they are? Probably not? But to the poor, it may seem so.``

should be,

``Is the scenario of the rich getting richer, and the poor remaining where they are better than a scenario where the rich get poorer and the poor remain where they are? Probably. But to the poor, it may not seem so.

Ijaz_Gul #2: ``Could we draw comparisons between the India of today and Pakistan of the 60s.``

I agree and I think we can make a comparison. Though I don`t know the internals of India, too well (perhaps I will become an expert after taking my one week trip to India). And I have no memory of the 60s in Pakistan. But I have read some on both subjects.

The 60s converted Pakistan, from the boondocks of South Asia, to easily its most successful economy. I have not seen much infrastructure built in Pakistan, in my lifetime, and have read that Pakistan had nothing in 47. So everything must have been built in the 60s. Pakistan was way behind India in 47. But was ahead of India by the 60s, in most everything that counts, except political systems and literacy rates, on a per capita basis.

Paksitan averaged 6.7% growth in the 60s. According to Shahid Burki, Pakistan was taught as a case study at Harvard. And according to Omar Noman, Pakistan would have been where Malaysia is today, or furthur ahead, had the economic policies of Ayub been continued, regardless of political turmoil. Pakistan was a potential Asian tiger, when the Asian tigers were still figuring out what to do.

Dictatorship with an efficient economic team and policy is the easiest way to economic progress. We are currently seeing this with the Musharraf/Shaukut Aziz combination (even BB accepts this). Much faster than under a democracy. However the benefit of democracy is that it acts as a safegaurd against complete destruction, which can happen, very quickly, under a dictatorship with bad economic policies. So democracy`s biggest benefit is that it avoids disaster, not that it promotes efficiency.

Is the scenario of the rich getting richer, and the poor remaining where they are better than a scenario where the rich get poorer and the poor remain where they are? Probably not? But to the poor, it may seem so. Hence they will vote for Communists in India, and kick out Ayub Khans in Pakistan i.e. either everyone gets rich, or no one should get rich.

Ayub Khan`s economic progress`s biggest problem was that the economic progress was divided along ethnic lines. West Pakistanis, as a whole, were getting richer, while East Paksitanis were not. I always felt the BJP`s biggest problem would be that Hindus would get rich and empowered and Mulsims would not. That would be as disastrous for India, as 71 was for Pakistan. Perhaps the recent result has stopped that trend. Then it is good for India.

On the other hand, I have looked long and hard to find third-world countries that have quickly made it out of the third world through democracies. And I really cannot find any. The only examples I can find are the Asian tigers and China. And all of them, made gigantic ecnomic progress under military or civilian dictatorships. And are only now becoming democratic, after making ecnomic progress.

Could it be that democracy, due to certain built-in checks and balances, while keeping a check on, ``terrible`` rulers, also makes economic progress a very slow and laborious process. Thereby keeping third world countries in the third world, for long periods of time. Because the initial economic progress in any country coming out of the third world will always go to the middle and upper class (which are always a minority in a third world country). It only later trickles down to everyone else. However, in a democracy, the poorer class end up voting out the, ``rich`` people, too quickly, thereby never allowing the economy to reach the take-off stage, where they can benefit also. Or making the journey to the take-off stage very slow.

I think some economist should do a detailed study, on how easy or difficult it is for third world countries to come out of the third world, through democratic systems of governance. Has any country done it? And why is it that an overwhelming majority that have come out of the third world economically, happen to have been non-democratic, at the time?