The European Crisis

By Pepe Escobar

History will register his plane struck by lightning on the way to Berlin, no fancy kisses, and asparagus with veal schnitzel on the menu. This is the way the eurozone ends (or begins again); not with a bang, but a ... lightning strike. Merkollande - the new European power couple drama interpreted by French Socialist President Francois Hollande and German Christian Democrat Chancellor Angela Merkel - is a go.

Trillions of bytes already speculate whether former President Nicolas Sarkozy spilled the full beans about "Onshela" to Hollande - apart from the fact she fancies her glass of Bordeaux. King Sarko also had a knack for making stiff "Onshela" laugh. That may be a tall order, at least for now, for the sober and pragmatic Hollande.

The good omen may be that both do not eschew irony. In the middle of such a eurozone storm, that's a mighty redeeming quality. Then there's that lightning strike on the way to Berlin. Was it Zeus sending a message that his Greeks would have to be protected - or else? Not to mention that Europe is a Greek myth (Zeus made Europa, the beautiful daughter of a Phoenician king, his lover…)

About that German miracle

So now Merkollande has to show results. There's not much they're bound to agree on - apart from the possibility of a financial transaction tax (FTT) which could yield up to 57 billion euros (US$72.5 billion) a year to battered trans-European economies, according to the European Commission (EC).

Berlin is not exactly against it. But Britain, for obvious reasons, is - seeing it as curbing the City of London. The EC, applying some fancy models, has already concluded that a FTT would not be a burden on economic growth; that would represent only 0.2% in total by 2050.

Two members of the troika - the EC and the International Monetary Fund (but not yet the European Central Bank) - along most governments in the EU, now at least admit that some countries, such as Spain, will need more time to reduce their deficits. An FTT in this case would come out handy.

At home, "Onshela" is secure her austerity mantra is popular (61%, according to the latest polls). Yet she lost another regional election last weekend, in heavily urbanized Nordrheim-Westfalen, the fourth largest urban concentration in Europe after London, Paris and Moscow - now suffering from deindustrialization and high unemployment. And this after losing in rural Schlewig-Holstein, near the Danish border.

What's fascinating is that all this had nothing to do with Europe - and the messy fate of the eurozone with the strong possibility of Greece leaving the euro. German voters couldn't give a damn. They are first and foremost worried about their own eroding purchasing power.

So for the first time the Supreme Taliban of austerity, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble, has admitted in public that a general wage freeze - one of the pillars of the new, neo-liberal "German miracle" - should be revised. Even the Financial Times has admitted that consumption in Germany is "anemic". Schauble now says that wage increases might help.

The heart of the matter is that whatever "German miracle" is good for Germany's robust banking and financial system, is not good for a vast majority of its workers. Plus this neo-liberal miracle simply can't be sold anywhere else in the world.

German weekly Der Spiegel did its best to show why [1].

The heart of the "miracle" is - predictably - the deregulation of the jobs market, always against the interests of workers. That implies a tsunami of part time jobs, "non traditional contracts" and sub-contracting. This means masses of workers not eligible for bonuses or participation in profits - coupled with a reduction in retirement payments and pensions. The graphic consequence has been Germany as the current European champion of rising inequality.

Who's in charge here?

It's wishful thinking to imagine some German politician seeing the light, Blues Brothers-style, and suddenly preaching a true European political integration. German regional politics is directly linked to the banking industry - the same banks which had a ball speculating on securities all across Europe, especially in the Club Med countries.

Blaming the eurozone abyss on the irresponsible acts of selected European nations, on their mounting public debt, and even their pensioners, is perverse. The real cause is the ferocious deregulation of the financial system and the worshipping of the God of monetarism. The absolute majority of European political leaders do not have a clue about basic economics. They have been at the mercy of technocrats who could not give a damn about the social and political consequences of their actions.

But now the technocrats are finally freaking out because if Greece, for instance, nationalizes its banks, the Spanish and French financial systems will go bust, and Germany's will be in deep trouble. Once more this is a graphic illustration of how countries across Europe are - in the public as well as the private sector - totally dependent on the financial system of other countries.

The Masters of the Universe in Europe are actually the Institute of International Finance (IIF) [2] a lobby representing the 450 largest world banks. They get a privileged seat on every significant euro-summit. The proverbial EU and IMF "officials" actually ask the Masters how much a country - as in Greece - should pay to get itself out of trouble. Europe's commissioner for economic affairs, Olli Rehn, is a certified servant of the Masters. Obviously the EU leadership will never admit it is in fact controlled by a cartel of bankers.

One currency, 17 debts

It's hard to believe Merkollande can find a way out of this financial labyrinth. We are facing the uber-surrealist situation of a single currency with 17 different public debts - over which the frenzied "markets" can merrily speculate while individual states cannot fight back, for instance by devaluing their currency. It's this set up that has plunged Greece into the abyss - and may do the same with the euro.

Thomas Piketty, a professor of the Paris School of Economics, dreams that Hollande might become the European Roosevelt. That may be as unlikely as Prometheus getting rid of his burden. But at least Piketty identifies the problem; imagine if the Fed everyday had to choose between Texas debt or Wyoming debt - it would never be able to conduct a sound monetary policy (not that it actually does…)

That explains why the European Central Bank cannot possibly be a factor of financial stability. Meanwhile, Europe is left wallowing in the mire of loaning buckets of euros to banks, hoping they will loan them back to individual states; or loaning the money to the IMF, hoping they will do the same.

Into this quagmire comes Hollande with an economic Hellfire missile; he says that instead of loaning at 1% so the banks make a killing loaning to individual states at a much higher rate, the ECB should deal directly with European nations. He wants the FTT - now. And the wants the European Investment Bank to extend credit to companies. And he wants euro-bonuses to finance infrastructure works.

"Onshela" is bound to give him a firm "nein" on all this - except, maybe, the FTT. Because this all implies that these debts are part of a common European debt. That would be, according to Hollande's vision, a conception of Europe true to its construction - less technocratic, less hostage of the God of the market, less constrained by the dogmas of the financial system. Will Merkollande pull it off? Ask "Onshela".

Note:
1. See The High Cost of Germany's Economic Success, Der Spiegel, May 4, 2012.
2. - See here

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

IPL can't duck the F(FIXING) word

by Sharda Ugra in Cricinfo

On Wednesday night, Lalit Modi complained about how the TV channel that showed the sting operation and put certain information "in the public domain" was "totally misleading". He felt for the viewers, the fans and the sporting fraternity, he said, because the sting had no proof. 

Quite the contrary. What India TV's "Operation IPL" proved beyond doubt was that India's young domestic cricketers, those who drift away from centrestage, are quite happy to pocket any extra cash that the delusional or foolish may want to shell out.

If caught they will either be reprimanded - like Ravindra Jadeja or Manish Pandey - or be consigned to the some outer darkness like the suspended five players will possibly be. And that will be that.

What the India TV programme did not prove on camera was that any of the players stung on tape had either willingly accepted cash on camera and then bowled a no-ball, or "spot-fixed" as promised. That is not to say that does not happen - it just didn't show up on tape.

The IPL, set up to imitate the franchise model of American sport, is actually a very cosy family business. The owners are, for the majority, in this largely for individual and corporate mileage. They owe their original loyalty to the BCCI, which continues to play patriarch. It is why they are protected and if players are caught being invited to break rules, they are the ones who get punished. This is not to say that players are poor lambs being seduced by cash but everyone knows the difference between being the guy receiving the pay cheque and the guy actually signing it.

In leagues where rules matter, teams are punished - however powerful they may be. In 2006, Juventus of Turin, historically one of the richest and most powerful football clubs in Europe, were found guilty of rigging games with four other teams and stripped of back-to-back Serie A titles, relegated to Serie B, booted out of the UEFA Champions League and forced to play three home matches without any fans.

The National Rugby League in Australia has fined four teams more than US$165,000 for breaching the salary cap in 2012. A fifth team has just lost an appeal over a US$185,000 salary cap fine from 2010.

Sometimes it's not what the club itself does; earlier this month, football clubs AC Milan and Inter Milan had to pay 20,000 euros and 10,000 euros for insulting banners seen among their fans during a local derby as well as one that racially abused a player.

During a 2011 NFL lockout, three teams including the Tampa Bay Buccaneers received six figure fines - $250,000 was found to be the Buccaneers' fine - for breaking the rule that no players could be contacted during the lockout period. By this yardstick, Mumbai Indians should have been fined along with Jadeja but weren't. Over the last few years the players get flung the rule-books and the franchises offering extra frills are treated with respect.

If Ravi Sawani discovers that the black money being talked of casually by the suspended five was actually paid out, will any of the teams be punished? A sports law expert, Vidushpat Singhania, has said that for any code or investigation to actually matter, it had to be completely spelt out and it needed to have teeth. That is how the partnership between the ICC and Interpol is said to work. It is how the US anti-doping agency was able to ensure that Balco went to court and Marion Jones went to jail. If the BCCI is serious about its anti-corruption code, it must have the government, the cops and the courts on its side. The first problem with this, though, is that the BCCI has long avoided public scrutiny.

Modi, in that interview, spoke warmly of his "close", "great" and "best friends" who had "supported" his league in its early days, buying up franchises, and with whom he said was always "impartial".

Everyone involved with the league knows there are some franchises who can be a bit bendy with the rules because they are allowed to be, and there is another that is not required to bend rules because it cannot be argued with.

	Rules have been changed as the IPL has gone along: without warning, the retention clause was brought in, as opposed to all players going back into a public auction

It is why the addition of two teams in 2010 became so problematic - the new entrants came from outside the circle of friends and the flexibility of the IPL's rules was not about to be explained to them.

Rules have been changed as the IPL has gone along: without warning, the retention clause was brought in, as opposed to all players going back into a public auction. This helped some of the key "icons" stay with teams that could offer them rich pickings.

Then came the "secret" bid to help solve dead-heat tie-breaks during an auction. The most public 

secret of that new rule was the fact that whoever had the most cash would get the player they wanted and anything beyond $2m would remain unmentioned and be given to the BCCI as a bit of a sweetener.

Franchises will always talk about what it actually costs to get the best domestic talent into their side. There are many stories about offers that players couldn't refuse: extra cash or "jobs" as euphemistic extras, cars, owners criss-crossing the country in chartered planes to speak to the most desirable domestic players …

The Rs 30 lakh salary cap for non-India players began with noble intentions. It was the BCCI's attempt to try to keep domestic cricketers interested in playing all formats, to ensure that Twenty20 cricket does not become what it has - the one form of cricket that every kid wants to play - and the IPL contract the one legal but still flexible document everyone wants to grab.

Now Rs 30 lakhs in India is a more than decent income in itself - and more so for someone in his 20s. It puts the player in the top 1% of the Indian salary bracket, alongside the Ambani brothers, Sonia Gandhi and Shah Rukh Khan. According to the National Council of Applied Economic Research, any household earning an annual income of Rs 12.5 lakh (1% or less than 1% of the population) are India's "affluent or rich."

Yet the figure is a victim of its environment - and of the messages cricketers get. Some franchises are willing to offer more to ensure that they have at least four half-good domestic players once they have filled their quota of four foreigners and local "stars" in the playing XI.

The IPL's ecosystem grumbles that 'market forces' should come into play over salary caps. It will imply that market forces will put in more cash with the overseas buys and less with the Indian players, which would be fine if this were not an event that required teams have seven Indians in their playing XI.

The India TV sting operation will end up being misleading only if the IPL allows it to be. What the sting operation has revealed again is that some of the IPL's most influential stakeholders are willing to go the extra mile to get players they believe they need. The players, who cannot understand what the word 'enough' means, are just willing to bargain long and hard.

If the franchises are not pulled up or reined in, another sting operation in a few years' time will just offer up another round of suspensions.

Sharda Ugra is senior editor at ESPNcricinfo

------

Why do the IPL franchises get away with it

by Harsha Bhogle in cricinfo

The India TV "sting" this week, where players were caught on camera allegedly attempting to negotiate more lucrative IPL deals for themselves, was, I'm afraid, tame and misleading. There were some issues there that deserved airing, but they were concealed by the theatrical, incessant self-promotion of the TV channel in question. Cricket needs to be careful of those who write film-style dialogues and those who over-dramatise. 

And so, in a typically Pavlovian response, far too many people are screaming match-fixing. Or its cousin, spot-fixing. The greater issue in this sting - if you were patient enough to get to it - was the realisation that many players get paid more than they are entitled to. And that because there is a ceiling on how much uncapped domestic players can earn, there are some naughty money transfers going on.

It is a practice that has been whispered about, occasionally loudly talked about, for a long time now; especially in the days before IPL 4. With a limited number of capped Indian players in the auction, there was a rush to find the best of the rest, and strictly speaking, if one franchise couldn't pay more than another, very few players had strong enough reasons to move. But then, there are many things that are whispered about on the circuit, and just because something is whispered about, it need not necessarily be true. More important, it cannot be proved to be true.

And so the issue of players being paid more than the contracted amount remained a whisper. Now players are saying it happens. The BCCI can look at it two ways. It can disbelieve the players or it can accept what they are saying and launch a serious investigation (which has been done but I do not know what its scope is) though it is very unlikely the board would not have known about it in the first place.

It will be unfortunate if only the players are investigated because you cannot accept money unless someone offers it. If the players are saying they were offered extra money, then it means the franchises were violating IPL rules too. If players are to be punished for accepting money they shouldn't have from franchises, then the franchises should be punished too. In his recommendation in 2010, on the Ravindra Jadeja case, Arun Jaitley suggested as much, and I think his legal acumen and stature can be used to strengthen procedures in the IPL.

Eventually this league belongs as much to the BCCI as to the franchise holders, and if it has to become one of the great sports leagues in the world (and it should not consider a smaller objective), they need to work together to strengthen it. And so, this cannot be buried, it has to be taken as seriously as a corporation would a whistle-blower.

To be fair, the basic principle behind the founding of the IPL was sound: that each franchise has equal resources available to it and so has an equal chance of winning the title. If the transfer of uncapped players favours richer franchises, then the principle on which the IPL was conceived is threatened. And so to take it to the next stage it needs stronger processes, but it needs more openness, for the more transparent an organisation is, the less it can hide wrongdoing. It is also something the fans are entitled to, because without them there is no revenue.

Now to the other danger, which too was known, but which the sting has highlighted. Indian cricket, like the Mumbai film industry, lures many towards it. Some come with the dream of making it big and playing for India for ten or 15 years; some others quickly fall away and seek every opportunity to make a buck in the time they have. It is not wrong but it exposes them to all manner of people. As there are fine and respectable people, there are maggots, too, who prey on the insecurity of young cricketers and lure them onto the path that can only lead to fixing and other crimes. And match-fixing, or spot-fixing, remains the single greatest threat to the continued success of the IPL. This sting, if the videos were ethically edited, confirms that day might already be upon us.

The people who carried out the sting exploited this vulnerability among young cricketers. The only way to protect them from more such vultures is to educate them and provide harsh deterrents. Ironically, though, such stings seem to have become the only way of exposing loopholes. Maybe a law passed by the government making match-fixing a criminal offence will help.

In many industries, corporations are free to run their business as they want but are answerable to a higher entity. For its own good, the IPL needs to have a higher entity, one that seeks no political or monetary gain, to question its functioning. This entity could be self-appointed, and there are many champions of corporate governance with a track record of integrity who will be happy to serve on it. The IPL will thus become a stronger, more rigorous organisation, and in becoming so, will benefit Indian cricket enormously.

 

Harsha Bhogle commentates on the IPL and other cricket, and is a television presenter and writer.

Chávez's economics lesson for Europe

Hugo Chávez's rejection of the neoliberal policies dragging Europe down sets a hopeful example to Greece and beyond

• 
• • Richard Gott
  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 16 May 2012 09.00 BST

'Hugo Chávez and his co-religionaries have called for 21st-century socialism, not a return to Soviet-style economics.' Photograph: Handout/Reuters

 

Some years ago, travelling on the presidential plane of Hugo Chávez of Venezuela with a French friend from Le Monde Diplomatique, we were asked what we thought was happening in Europe. Was there any chance of a move to the left? We replied in the depressed and pessimistic tones typical of the early years of the 21st century. Neither in Britain nor France, nor anywhere in the eurozone, did we see much chance of a political breakthrough.

Then maybe, said Chávez with a twinkle, we could come to your assistance, and he recalled the time in 1830 when revolutionary crowds in the streets of Paris had come out waving the cap of Simón Bolívar, the South American liberator from Venezuela who was to die at the end of that year. Fighting for liberty, Latin American style, was held up as the path for Europe to follow.

At the time, I was encouraged but not persuaded by Chávez's optimism. Yet now I think that he was right; it was good to be reminded that Alexis Tsipras, the leader of Greece's radical left party, Syriza, had visited Caracas in 2007 and inquired about the future possibility of receiving cheap Venezuelan oil, much as Cuba and other Caribbean and Central America countries do. There was a brief moment when Ken Livingstone and Chávez conjured up an oil deal between London and Caracas which looked promising until it was rejected by Boris Johnson.

More important than the prospect of cheap oil is the power of example. Chávez has been engaged since the turn of the century, even before, on a project that rejects the neoliberal economics that afflicts Europe and much of the western world. He has been opposed to the recipes of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and has fought hard against the policies of privatisation that harmed the social and economic fabric of Latin America and with which the European Union is now threatening to destroy the economy of Greece. Chávez has renationalised the many industries, including oil and gas, that were privatised in the 1990s.

The words and inspiration of Chávez have had an effect beyond Venezuela. They have encouraged Argentina to default on its debt; to reorganise its economy thereafter and to renationalise its oil industry. Chávez has helped Evo Morales of Bolivia to run its oil and gas industry for the benefit of the country rather than its foreign shareholders, and more recently to halt the robbery by Spain of the profits of its electricity company. Above all, he has shown the countries of Latin America that there is an alternative to the single neoliberal message that has been endlessly broadcast for decades, by governments and the media in hock to an outdated ideology.

Now is the time for that alternative message to be heard further afield, to be listened to by voters in Europe. In Latin America, governments following an alternative strategy have been re-elected time and time again, suggesting that it is effective and popular. In Europe, governments of whatever hue that follow the standard neoliberal template seem to fall at the first fence, suggesting that the will of the people is not engaged.

Chávez and his co-religionaries in the new "Bolivarian revolution" have called for "21st-century socialism", not a return to Soviet-style economics or the continuation of the mundane social democratic adaptation of capitalism, but, as the Ecuadorean president Rafael Correa has described it, the re-establishment of national planning by the state "for the development of the majority of the people". Greece has a wonderful chance to change the history of Europe and to throw their caps of Bolívar into the air, as once the Italian carbonari did in Paris all those years ago. Lord Byron, who planned to settle in Bolívar's Venezuela before sailing off to help liberate Greece, named his yacht Bolívar; he would certainly have been pleased with contemporary developments.

Naomi Klein - The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

The Mahabharata Explained

India Inc. and Its Moral Discontents

By Ravinder Kaur in EPW

While the Arab revolts were challenging
the western hegemony
to pave way for grass-roots
democracy last year, India was witnessing
a different kind of mass mobilisation
dramatically named by a few in the
media as the “second struggle” for Independence.
Delhi – like Cairo, Tunis,
Damascus and Manama – had become
the centre of protracted though nonviolent
popular protests with demands
for accountability from the corrupt ruling
elite. The media even took to describing
the protests affectionately as “our Arab
spring” and likened the site of protests in
Delhi as “our Tahrir Square” – imbuing
the event with revolutionary fervour
and turning it into a kind of catharsis
necessary to purify a corrupted postcolonial
nation. That these protests were
largely composed of a restless youth
population – though reliably steered by a
non-partisan “Gandhian” patriarch –
only served to make the comparisons to
the Arab revolts seem natural. Yet the
differences could not be starker. Unlike
the uprisings in west Asia that sought
to address the societal crises – rising
inequality, infl ation, massive unemployment,
lack of political freedoms and
disenchantment with the ruling elite –
as political subjects seeking political
change, the popular mobilisation in
India has primarily been the work of
“apolitical” activism more in tune with
the Tea Party movement of the United
States given its neo-liberal fantasies of
“small government”.


This essay sets out to unpack the economy
of the moral outrage we have witnessed
the past several months and which
continues to occupy a central position on
the nation’s agenda. The prime question
that needs to be asked then is, how and
when did corruption become the most
pressing crisis facing the Indian nation?
And in whose interest has this project
of moral cleansing of the nation been
affected? This line of enquiry opens up
some provisional answers that help explain
a movement that has built upon a
successful coalition of as diverse interests
as the techno-elite, professional middle
class, the urban poor, the religious and the
secular-minded individuals, big corporations,
global non-governmental organisations
(NGOs) and localised neighbourhood
associations. Three crucial interrelated
developments within the Indian
socio-political landscape can already
be noted in this regard. First, the neoliberal
conception of the nation-form as
commodity-form that India has steadily
transformed into since the 1990s economic
liberalisation. The success of the
nation is now no longer measured by its
ability to secure territory and the welfare
of its people alone, it is primarily
measured by its ability to attract capital
investments and maximise revenues.
The Indian nation has acquire d a new
nomenclature – India Inc. – that is vastly
popular within the corporate and policymaking
circles. The addition of the suffi
x “Inc.” highlights the corporate character
of the nation that has become its
prime identity in the past two decades.
It is following this neo-liberal logic of
nation as corporation that Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh is often addressed as
the chief executive offi cer (CEO) of India.
This popularly bestowed title gains particular
currency in his case as he is seen as
the main architect of the Inter national
Monetary Fund (IMF)-World Bank-led
economic reforms in early 1990s.
Second, corporations as well as global
bodies like the World Bank have increasingly
become invested in initiating
reform s at the social level in India. The
widely shared belief is that India is unable
to reach its full potential as a global economic
powerhouse precisely because of
socio-cultural constraints. The culture
of corruption – bribes, nepotism, and lack
of transparency within the governmen t
– is seen as one of the biggest impediments
to complete market reforms. The
anti-corruption mobilisation, thus, has
substantial support from the corporate
sector including several corporationcontrolled
newspapers and television
channels. Third, not only is a corrupt
government found detrimental to India’s
rise as a great power, the government
itself is seen as an impediment in the
path to that goal. A particular feature of
the anti-corruption protests is the outrage
against the government as the primary
source and cesspool of corruption. This
popular view is in line with the neoliberal
belief in “less government” and
more market as the path to economic
growth and prosperity. In other words,
to speak of politics – and anti-politics –
of anti-corruption mobilisation in India
today only in terms of “the people”,
“government” and “civil society” is to
miss out on new realities that constitute
the reformed Indian nation. Not only do
corporations play a dominant though
unpublicised role in the currents of Indian
politics, the Indian nation itself has been
reinvented as a corporate body whose
legitimacy is derived from its ability to
maximise revenues and profi ts. This nexus
between corporations, global fi nan cial
institutions and the anti-political populist
rage is key to understanding the new
agenda of nation’s moral cleansing.
What follows is an attempt to outline
the corporate logic of the moral panic
in India.


2 Nation as Commodity

In the past two decades, the free-market
logic of the nation state has increasingly
become visible not only in the attempts
to patent national commodities, but the
nation itself. The nations, especially those
most newly reformed such as India, are
branded, graded and placed within the
global hierarchy of nations according to
their success in attracting foreign direct
investments (FDIs) as well as revenues
from tourism. This commodifi cation of the
nation – as a profi t-making enterprise –
lies at the heart of this great neo-liberal
transformation. The unique assets of
the nation – its culture, history, natural
resources, human labour, locality, and
the inalienable essence that makes it
authentic – are commodifi ed in order to
maximise its capital and expand its power
in the global scheme of things. Nationality
Inc. blurs the lines between the state
and market to an extent that the state no
longer merely exists as the “monitor” of
the market, instead the market becomes
the underlying principle of the state.2 As
Jacques Ranciere (1999), recalling Marx’s
once-controversial assertion that governments
are simple business agents for
international capital, suggests, it is now
an “obvious fact…the absolute identifi -
cation of politics with the management
of capital is no longer the shameful secret
hidden behind the ‘forms’ of democracy; it
is the openly declared truth by which
our governments acquire legitimacy.


The role of the state as an active economic
agent – a corporation in search of
ever greater profi ts and revenues – has
always existed, the neo-liberal thinking
has only brought out in plain sight the
well hidden secret: the collusion between
the domain of politics and the
domain of the economy. In short, the
neo-liberal turn has surfaced the disarticulations
of the hyphenated dialectic
condition that binds the nation with the
state, and instead fully revealed the
corporate logic of the nation. India Inc.,
the new nomenclature for the nation is,
thus, suggestive of the new species of relations
between the market and the nation
where the Indian state appears as a
facilitator for the circulation and maximisation
of capital.


A significant part of the economic
reforms which opened India to flows of
FDI, private participation in the domain
of government, and withdrawal of the
state from the social sector has been the
attempt to brand the nation in the global
market. As early as 1996, the Indian
state had created a subsidiary agency of
the Ministry of Commerce – India Brand
Equity Foundation (IBEF) – with the primary
task of marketing “Made in India”
products around the world. This lagging
project was revived in late 2002 by the
National Democratic Alliance reform
minded government though with a redefi
ned task – to not only showcase Indian
brands abroad but transform India itself
into a corporate brand. The offi cial brief
was now to “celebrate India” as the “destination
of ideas and opportunities” in
order to bring in FDI as well as invigorate
tourism.

 And by 2004, Brand India was
set in motion to “build positive economic
perceptions of India globally”.6 The new
initiative not only formalised the corporate
approach to governing the nation, it
also confi rmed the alias by which the
nation is known in the corporate world
– India Inc. – an entity consequently
gover ned by a CEO rather than a political
representative.

One of the key tasks for India Inc.
unsurprisingly, then, has been that of
image making primarily for a global
audience – corporate investors, leaders of
global fi nancial institutions and wealthy
tourists. Two Delhi-based advertising
agencies specialising in place branding
were recruited to create a distinctive
logo, a slogan and a “business kit” to be
presented through glossy campaigns in
print and electronic media.8 While one
of these agencies is responsible for creating
a more popular and vastly visible
global campaign called “Incredible India”
mainly to attract foreign tourists, the
second agency works hand in hand
though with little visibility within India
to enhance “Brand India” in the global
fi nancial markets. Brand India unveils
its annual advertising blitzkrieg spectacularly
at the World Economic Forum,


Davos amidst an assembly of corporate
heads, leaders of industrialised nations
and functionaries of global fi nancial
institutions. The idea is not only to
familiarise the world fi nancial leaders
about the current state of Indian economy
but also to report back on the progress
made by the Indian state vis-à-vis
economic reforms.


The corporate sector in India together
with the global financial institutions
perceives the 1991 economic reforms as
incomplete and partial, and each successive
government is therefore routinely
asked to undertake further “unshackling”
of the economy and take the reform to
its logical conclusion: a fully liberalised
market economy without regulatory
oversight and constraints affected by the
social and environmental costs. Davos is
one such prominent location where reformed
nations are reviewed in a global
setting – the “good governments” are
celebrated, whereas those lagging behind
are warned and encouraged to follow
suit. India Inc. has been both a subject of
celebration and warnings about its inability
to reach its potential. The little understood
complexities of Indian sociopolitical
order – caste stratifi cations, religious
divisions, communal violence,
and more importantly now, the “culture”
of corruption – are often posed as impediments
in India’s path towards economic
growth. The question confronting the
corporate state – an effective imagemachine
– is: how to create a desirable
image of the nation while erasing or
minimising the effect of all that “holds it
back”? Or more concretely, how to
project India as the most “attractive” investment
destination in order to lure
away potential investors from other
competing nations in the world.9 The
answer, in branding parlance, is to minimise
the “negatives” – associations with
poverty, archaic social practices, political
turbulence, and corrupt practices –
to halt the adverse news flow about the
nation in global media. This constant
quest for an attractive brand image and
the fear of the contaminating effect of
powerful negatives such as corruption,
then, is a partial explanation for the
moral discontent that is currently raging
in India.


 Economy of Moral Panic

Anna Hazare’s protest agitation began in
the heart of Delhi – Jantar Mantar, a
part tourist attraction, and part zone of
protest – chiefl y to demand the passage
of the Jan Lokpal Bill (People’s Ombudsman
Bill) as a strong anti-corruption
instrument. The crowds that thronged
the protest site – adorned with symbols
borrowed from the repertoire of Hindu
nationalists and to the chants of Vande
Mataram – in support of the Bill had
pitted themselves not only against the
government’s version (the Lokpal Bill),
but the entire political class as such. And
if there was an enemy in this struggle,
then it was the fi gure of the politician –
usually depicted as a slick character
with easily compromised morals and infi
nite greed for ill-gotten wealth stashed
away in Swiss vaults – that had permeated
the popular imagination egged on by
the rhetoric of protest. The less visible
spokes of the government machinery –
the bureaucrats – were found equally
guilty of entrenching a system that did
not move without adequate grease in the
form of bribery and nepotism. In other
words, it was the domain of government
that had been identifi ed as the root
cause of the rot and therefore in need of
instant repair. This form of identifi cation
also disclosed the collective body of
“the people” in a state of isolation from
the government. Not only was the government
viewed as corrupt, the very
idea of state and government was now
shaped through the discourse of corruption.
Accordingly, the provisions of the
people’s bill focused mainly on the
conduct and practices of public functionaries
which through a series of legislations
– disciplinary measures and
punishment – could be rectifi ed and
controlled. The wider socio- economic
landscape – social injustice and inequities
– around which the notion and practice
 named as corruption thrives was hardly
the focus of the protests.
The most telling aspect of both the
competing legislative bills, however, was
the stark absence of any provisions to
scrutinise corporate corruption. This absence
is particularly signifi cant as most
of the scams in India are related to
murky corporate practices ranging from
provision of supposedly mandatory kickbacks,
bribes to impart fl exibility to
existing rules, purchasing infl uence
within the government to ensure friendly
policies, evading taxes, and committing
fi nan cial fraud. Yet, the corporations
appear in the debate, if at all, as victims
of corruption in the domain of government
that hinders the nation’s economic
growth. This is not entirely unsurprising
in a neo-liberal state where the greatest
fear is the fear of failure to attrac t investments
and a slowdown in the pace
of economic growth. But what is surprising
is the intensity with which this
logic has fi ltered to the core of elite politics
in India to an extent that corporate
excesses are more or less effaced from
the public debate.


Corruption has long been seen as an
impediment towards free market and
economic growth. And in the anticorruption
movement, the corporations
have been able to fi nd articulations of
their own interests that seemingly are in
tune with the public outrage harnessed
successfully by the civil society. Even
before the popular protests had taken
off, the Federation of Indian Chambers
of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) had
issued a statement calling for probity in
governance in order “to preserve India’s
robust image and keep the growth story
intact”.10 This was followed by an open
letter by 14 prominent individuals – corporate
leaders, reform-minded economists
and bureaucrats assembled together
under the sign of the “citizen” –
who identifi ed corruption as the “biggest
issue corroding the fabric of our nation”.


The recommendation of the group was
to address the “governance defi cit” that
had permeated every level of state institutions,
and to restore the self-confi dence
of Indians in themselves and in the Indian
state.11 When the protest began gathering
steam, the biggest support to fi ght
corruption came from the corporate
sector. The corporate leaders expressed
their support publicly proclaiming that
“we completely support Hazare in his
fi ght against corruption which has been
denting India”.12 The corporate voices
had not only begun addressing Anna
Hazare as a moral crusader, but in one
instance also as “prime minister” – the
only one morally clean and worthy of
leading the nation – to show their disaffection
with the elected representatives.
13 In other words, the malaise
ailing the nation had been primarily
isola ted within the domain of government,
and only by exposing and emptying
it out in the public could the nation
be put on the path of purifi cation.
The power and infl uence of the corporations
in the anti-corruption movement
can be gauged from the fact that hardly
any critical voices have been heard
demanding corporate accountability.
Yet, bribe-giving or purchase of infl uence
in the government is often seen by
both Indian and foreign businesses as
an acceptable practice. In a survey of
European fi rms conducted earlier this
year, about two-thirds of corporate
employees named bribe-giving as a widespread
strategy to win contracts and
retain businesses.14 Similarly, a Bribe
Payers Index (BPI) found corporate corruption
to be rampant in the “emerging
markets” and particularly entrenched in
sectors like infrastructure development,
construction, mining, oil and gas explorations
and property development.15 The
State’s fear of losing corporate investments
and the attendant possibility of
job creation and revenue generation
means that there is little challenge to
corporate corruption. Instead, the neoliberal
states go out of their way to facilitate
businesses and overlook any exce sses.
This anxiety of alienating corporations
was visible in the controversy over the
2G court case. The union minister of law,
Salman Khurshid, chided the Supreme
Court for not granting bail to businessmen
accused in the 2G spectrum scam.
He was reported as saying, “If you lock
up top businessmen, will investment
come?” to voice his concerns over threat
to the pace of economic growth and
investment in the nation.16 In this case,
17 individuals were arrested and prosecuted
including the former Telecom
minister A Raja and several senior executives
from some of the largest telecom
companies in India. But somehow the
corporate executives escaped the harsh
probing of their conduct in the public
domain whereas the politician involved
was transformed into a symbol of all the
systemic failures and corruption plaguing
the nation. In short, it is the fi gure of
the politician that is frequently evoked
to rouse public passions in the anticorruption
movement while the businesses
are either seen as hapless victims
of the “system” or kept out of public
spotlight when the irregularities are too
momentous to be ignored.
4 Global Panacea of Reforms


The excessive focus on government
together with the near effacement of
corporations from the anti-corruption
discourse is neither an accident nor an
oversight. Rather it is a refl ection of the
global processes that began intensifying
in the past two decades surfacing civil
society as a key player in the domain of
governance. Central to this shift was not
only the lack of belief in the State’s capability
to check corruption, but the fact
that the institution of state per se was
viewed as intrinsically corrupt. The very
defi nition of corruption, at the height of
modernisation theory, came to be particularly
tied to the misuse of public offi ce
for private gains.17 Any checks against
corruption would, then, logically mean
checks against the government itself
which was now largely viewed through
the lens of corruption. This spectre of
corruption became a familiar theme that
was often played out in the context of
the Third World thought to be in particular
need of western style rational
modernisation and development to overcome
the culture of corruption. The anticorruption
campaigns, thus, were initiated
in harmony with the push for structural
reforms in developing countries – more
free market equalled less corruption.
In the early 1980s, coinciding with the
thrust towards structural reforms, the
global institutions such as the World
Bank and IMF began turning their focus
on the “cancer of corruption”18 on the
 one hand, and greater collaboration
with civil society organisations (CSOs)
on the other.19 This was the moment
when one could witness the successful
co-option of the robust tradition of protest,
dissent and speaking truth to power
– by ordinary people against hegemons
– by powerful global institutions to
serve its own agendas. While corruption
was necessarily seen as endemic in the
nation states of the South,20 the CSOs
were encouraged and “empowered” as a
way to minimise the infl uence of the
corrupt and ineffi cient states.21 This focus
on indivi dual cooperation at societal
level outside the domain of government
was argued forcefully as “social capital”
– a cost-effective mode that successfully
limits the government and promotes
modern democracy – by neo-liberal
advocates such as Francis Fukuyama.22
The long-standing tradition of public
activism for public good was, thus, successfully
harnessed to the realisation of
neo-liberal ideals of small government.
Accor ding to World Bank’s estimates,
the CSO sector worldwide is currently
worth $1.3 trillion annually employing
about 40 million people, and channels
fi nancial assistance of about $20 billion
to the developing nations per year.23 The
CSOs are involved in up to 81% of the
Bank-funded projects with a presence in
over 100 nations around the world.
In a recent report published at the
height of the anti-corruption movement,
these seemingly disparate themes – of
corruption, civil society, popular protests
and liberalised markets – were joined
together to weave the narrative of moral
breakdown in the society and its cost to
the Indian economy. The report begins
by evoking the World Economic Forum’s
Global Competitiveness Index24 that
lists a number of freedoms necessary for
a nation’s economic competitiveness
(business freedom, trade freedom, fiscal
freedom) of which India particularly
suffers from the lack of the “freedom from
corruption” that could derail its projected
economic growth and may result in a
volatile and economic environment.25
Nearly one-third of the respondents
believed corruption to be particularly
detrimental to India’s growth poten tial,
while 93% agreed that “corruption
negatively impacts the capital market”.


The lowered levels of ethical values in
the society were no longer merely a
matter of individual immorality and
concern, they had a severe economic
cost for the nation especially its brand
image in the world. The issue of personal
and corporate corruption – evasion of
taxes, for instance – was explained away
in terms of tight regulation and high tax
rates that help produce corruption in
the society.

The successful harnessing of populist
indignation to a cause much favoured by
corporations and global financial institutions
– of free markets – is best illustrated
in the solutions offered to regulate
corruption. Here the provisions of the
people’s bill promoted by the civil societ y
are mirrored in those favoured by the
corporations.26 These include stringent
punishment, high penalties and zero
tolerance to corruption through the establishment
of fast track courts, and special
enforcement powers to the Lokayukta,
or Ombudsman’s offi ce. Remarkably, in
step with the neo-liberal thinking, the
state makes reappearance here in its
new recommended role as that of a strict
regulator of anti-corruption laws and
facilitator of suitable conditions for businesses
to operate in. In this vein, Chinese
state’s solutions to control corruption are
often quoted admirably by the business
community and these include high fi nes
and even imposition of death penalty.27


The Indian model, on the other hand,
with its democratic messiness is seen as
less than ideal for businesses to fl ourish
in. It is ironic that the neo-liberal language
of freedoms that is usually adopted
to advocate for free markets is rendered
speechless when it comes to corruption.
Not only does it look towards an
authoritarian state such as China for
inspiration, it also resurrects the much
despised state to provide legal framework
to control corruption.


Consensual Politics

While the anti-corruption protests have
been widely analysed, and at times even
celebrated, in terms of agonist politics in
a non-violent, democratic space, a closer
look at the movement, its motives, organisation
and opposition shows far
more consensual politics at play between
the government and the protestors than
is commonly believed.28 To begin with,
there is hardly any disagreement with
the central objective of the movement
which is to control and cleanse the public
life of corruption in India. The harmful
effects of corruption on the nation’s
brand image as well as its competitiveness
among businesses and investors
are well understood by the state as well
as the protestors. Though the plight of
the “common man” is the rallying cry
that mobilises diverse groups and interests
– the perception of oneself as victim
of corruption is universally shared
– under the sign of “the people”, it is the
goal of greater reforms and economic
freedoms that guides this politics of
consensus. The differences between the
government and the protestors are of a
more technical as well as tactical nature
concerning the specifi c details of the
regulatory bill and the time duration
within which the bill is expected to
be passed.

That the state is as eager to seize the
populist issue of corruption – and to be
seen as progressive on the economic
growth front – is clear from the ways in
which it responded to the anti-corruption
protests. The protestors were mostly
indulged, and if at all mildly rebuked, in
a manner that appears in stark contrast
to the usual conduct of the police authorities.

The police neither seriously
attempted to disperse the crowds nor
did it pose effective curtailments to contain
the protests. And when Anna Hazare
began his fast-unto-death the second
time around, no one tried to intervene in
order to put an end to his chosen form of
protest. This could not be more different
than the way in which the civil
rights activist from Manipur, Irom
Sharmila, has been dealt with by the
state. She has been on indefi nite hunger
strike for the past decade to protest
against the Armed Forces (Special Powers)
Act, 1958 (AFSPA) which gives exceptional
powers to the army to discipline
what are called the “disturbed areas”
of northeast India. The most striking
reminder of the sovereign state’s power
to intervene and disrupt are the leaked
images of Irom Sharmila being force-fed
through tubes in order to keep her alive.

Unlike Anna Hazare’s widely celebrated
movement, her cause is not universally
shared in the urban middle class electorate
as well as the ruling elite. If anything,
it is seen as a threat to India’s
territorial sovereignty which must be contained through all means.

 The anti-corruption movement has
brought in plain sight the unity between
what earlier appeared to be different
interests within the “new” reformed
India. The long-held ambition of India
becoming a global power – or what is
often believed to be the natural destiny
of a civilisational nation such as India –
is widely shared within the ruling elite
as well as the infl uential and prosperous
middle class. This ambition is contingent
to the economic growth rates
and the attendant global infl uence they
can purchase. It is upon this matrix that
the interests of the state, the middle
class and the corporations assemble in
complete harmony. And this is what
probably explains the contrasting outcomes
for the two non-violent, peaceful
and democratic protests led by a highly
successful Anna Hazare and by the
largely forgotten Irom Sharmila.

Moral decay? Family life's the best it's been for 1,000 years

Conservatives' concerns about marriage seem to be based on a past that is fabricated from their own anxieties and obsessions


George Monbiot

guardian.co.uk, Monday 14 May 2012 20.30 BST 


'Throughout history and in virtually all human societies marriage has always been the union of a man and a woman." So says the Coalition for Marriage, whose petition against same-sex unions in the UK has so far attracted 500,000 signatures. It's a familiar claim, and it is wrong. Dozens of societies, across many centuries, have recognised same-sex marriage. In a few cases, before the 14th century, it was even celebrated in church.



This is an example of a widespread phenomenon: myth-making by cultural conservatives about past relationships. Scarcely challenged, family values campaigners have been able to construct a history that is almost entirely false.



The unbiblical and ahistorical nature of the modern Christian cult of the nuclear family is a marvel rare to behold. Those who promote it are followers of a man born out of wedlock and allegedly sired by someone other than his mother's partner. Jesus insisted that "if any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters … he cannot be my disciple". He issued no such injunction against homosexuality: the threat he perceived was heterosexual and familial love, which competed with the love of God.



This theme was aggressively pursued by the church for some 1,500 years. In his classic book A World of Their Own Making, Professor John Gillis points out that until the Reformation, the state of holiness was not matrimony but lifelong chastity. There were no married saints in the early medieval church. Godly families in this world were established not by men and women, united in bestial matrimony, but by the holy orders, whose members were the brothers or brides of Christ. Like most monotheistic religions (which developed among nomadic peoples), Christianity placed little value on the home. A Christian's true home belonged to another realm, and until he reached it, through death, he was considered an exile from the family of God.



The Reformation preachers created a new ideal of social organisation – the godly household – but this bore little relationship to the nuclear family. By their mid-teens, often much earlier, Gillis tells us, "virtually all young people lived and worked in another dwelling for shorter or longer periods". Across much of Europe, the majority belonged – as servants, apprentices and labourers – to houses other than those of their biological parents. The poor, by and large, did not form households; they joined them.



The father of the house, who described and treated his charges as his children, typically was unrelated to most of them. Family, prior to the 19th century, meant everyone who lived in the house. What the Reformation sanctified was the proto-industrial labour force, working and sleeping under one roof.



The belief that sex outside marriage was rare in previous centuries is also unfounded. The majority, who were too poor to marry formally, Gillis writes, "could love as they liked as long as they were discreet about it". Before the 19th century, those who intended to marry began to sleep together as soon as they had made their spousals (declared their intentions). This practice was sanctioned on the grounds that it allowed couples to discover whether or not they were compatible. If they were not, they could break it off. Premarital pregnancy was common and often uncontroversial, as long as provision was made for the children.



The nuclear family, as idealised today, was an invention of the Victorians, but it bore little relationship to the family life we are told to emulate. Its development was driven by economic rather than spiritual needs, as the industrial revolution made manufacturing in the household unviable. Much as the Victorians might extol their families, "it was simply assumed that men would have their extramarital affairs and women would also find intimacy, even passion, outside marriage" (often with other women). Gillis links the 20th-century attempt to find intimacy and passion only within marriage, and the impossible expectations this raises, to the rise in the rate of divorce.



Children's lives were characteristically wretched: farmed out to wet nurses, sometimes put to work in factories and mines, beaten, neglected, often abandoned as infants. In his book A History of Childhood, Colin Heywood reports that "the scale of abandonment in certain towns was simply staggering", reaching one third or a half of all the children born in some European cities. Street gangs of feral youths caused as much moral panic in late 19th-century England as they do today.



Conservatives often hark back to the golden age of the 1950s. But in the 1950s, John Gillis shows, people of the same persuasion believed they had suffered a great moral decline since the early 20th century. In the early 20th century, people fetishised the family lives of the Victorians. The Victorians invented this nostalgia, looking back with longing to imagined family lives before the industrial revolution.



In the Daily Telegraph today Cristina Odone maintained that "anyone who wants to improve lives in this country knows that the traditional family is key". But the tradition she invokes is imaginary. Far from this being, as cultural conservatives assert, a period of unique moral depravity, family life and the raising of children is, for most people, now surely better in the west than at any time in the past 1,000 years.



The conservatives' supposedly moral concerns turn out to be nothing but an example of the age-old custom of first idealising and then sanctifying one's own culture. The past they invoke is fabricated from their own anxieties and obsessions. It has nothing to offer us.