The Congress lemming plunge
PM Manmohan’s re-arrangement of cabinet deck chairs gives the growing impression of a collective mass drowning rush, says ANTHONY SIMOES
One of the longer-lasting myths created by the media is the one about the suicidal tendencies of the lemmings. The myth is that of mass-suicide amongst lemmings, the little rodents that live mostly within the limits of the Arctic Circle. Two generations of impressionable young children have been regaled, in films and documentaries, with scenes of large numbers of lemmings migrating and marching mindlessly off a cliff to their doom in the freezing water at the bottom of the cliff. The mass-migration is a response to rapid increase in numbers. In many rodents, physical proximity breeds tension, like it does amongst humans, which often leads to cannibalism.
This, combined with the reduced food availability causes the mass-exodus. These rodents see major migrations when they multiply rapidly and their population goes to the point when demographic dividend becomes demographic disaster. This is when there is no longer security in numbers. The other myth of mass-suicide is demolished by the fact that the lemmings are good swimmers and any drownings are only incidental. It is the result of accident, rather than design. Unfortunately, these myths have become the origin of the political slang, ‘Lemming-like behaviour’ to describe a political course of action that results in political hara-kiri and potentially political oblivion.
Political scientists in India 2011 can now be forgiven a re-think on the whole fraud. You begin to wonder if there was some truth in it, after all. The ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) seems determined to prove that this instinct of the little creatures, was no myth. The race off the cliff is real, with Congress Lemmings leading the charge of the light-footed brigade. The massive hike in petrol prices at a time of raging food-inflation, was merely one among such efforts. In just 7 months, the price of petrol has gone up by over Rs10. The new hike came even as the government announced that it was taking the price rise seriously and has formed yet more panels and Groups of Ministers to study the problem. Lemmings, after all, mostly act in larger groups.
The ruling dispensation insists in wearing its blinkers and keeping its ear-plugs well and truly imbedded. When Ram Naik of the NDA was the Union Petroleum Minister, he made grandiose promises about abandoning the Administrative Prices Mechanism, adopted then, for the floating prices of petroleum products, based on market forces. Almost a decade and a half later, we find the government invoking all kinds of bogus arguments to justify their ad hocism. Unfortunately, this entire fraud is being perpetrated in the name of the poor and economically downtrodden.
Nobody knows the real cost of petroleum products, because the OMCs (Oil Marketing Companies) operate under so many constraints and variables. Firstly, they buy their crude oils from so many different sources and at so many different prices. Sometimes they are even forced to buy on the spot market. Secondly, because of the different ages of their refineries and commensurate differences in refining technologies, they finish up with a variety of recovery efficiencies and GRMs (Gross Refining Margins). This results in a variety of costs for the end products. Thirdly, they rely on transport infrastructure (rail, road and pipeline) over which they have no control whatsoever.
All of this places our OMCs in the unenviable position of not knowing how to track their costs. From the moment the crude oil appears at their tank farms/SBMs/ports, to the moment fuel flows-out of a bowser-spout into the fuel tank of an automobile or truck, the OMCs are trapped in a maze of costs. This does not even take into account various delays and bottlenecks caused by inadequate/deficient infrastructure. And yet in the face of all this, our politicians rely on some faceless mandarin of a bureaucrat to work out a just price. That’s how we have such a ridiculous pricing mechanism which allegedly brings equity in protecting the poor.
I call this ridiculous for a number of reasons:-
Today there is a spread of Rs50 per litre between the price of petrol at the gas station bowser and the price of kerosene (for the poor) at the fair price shop. This is an open invitation to every scamster, crook, fraudster, adulterator, fair price shop owner, civil supplies minister and his goons to make a quick buck. So, everyday millions of litres of kerosene are used for adulterating petrol or for smuggling across our porous, contiguous borders. Various tricks are used to deprive the poor of their quota of kerosene so it can be diverted into the adulteration market. Shamelessly, our politicians take the votes of these same poor people to get elected and re-elected.
Built into this racket, is another one. Fair price shop owners generally own private shops of their own, registered in someone else’s name. So fair price/BPL kerosene is diverted to these shops and sold to poor itinerant/migrant labour, who don’t have ration cards, at Rs25-30 per litre. That’s 200% profit!!! Over the last 25 years, this kerosene fraud has generated approximately Rs5 lakh crore of unaccounted money. This might look like a huge fraud, but by present UPA- 2 standards, this is petty cash. Not just 2G, CWG, 3G, rotting food grain and land scams like Lavasa, but also Rs5 lakh crore of tax-breaks in 2009-2010 for the corporates controlled by the richest people, in this land. In 2010-2011, this fraud continues. Balance this against a once-off write-off of Rs72,000 crores of farmers’ debts!!! Which only came after the suicides of 50,000 farmers. This can only happen when the country is ruled by a Sardarji clown, controlled by an Italian Empress.
In all this, we are missing out a huge unaccounted cost being incurred year in and year out, for at least the last 30 years. The adulteration of petrol with kerosene, causes billions of rupees worth of damage to millions of petrol engines, throughout the country. The cost of labour, spare parts, down time, environmental degradation and loss of faith in our system, must surely make us sit up and think.
Now that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has re-arranged the deck-chairs on the Titanic, the impression of a collective rush to mass drowning only grows. Handing the rural development portfolio to a man, just trashed by the Supreme Court for protecting money lenders in Vidharba while he was chief minister of Maharashtra, has a Kamikaze-like courage about it. Not only did the court admonish Vilasrao Deshmukh in scathing terms, it also enhanced the fine levied by the Bombay High Court’s Nagpur bench on the government of Maharashtra, in the same case, from Rs25,000 to Rs10 lakh. Now, in normal and non-lemming circles, this would have lead to his un-accompanied exit off the Cabinet Cliff. Obviously, in Dr. Singh’s view, the perfect candidate to preside over the destiny of rural India and its development. A man during whose 8 years as chief minister of Maharashtra, well over 30,000 farmers took their own lives in the state – a feat unrivaled anywhere else in the country.
Dr Singh and Montek Ahluwalia have also bought into the George Bush Food Doctrine: the huge price rise in food items suggests that the poor are doing better, eating more and causing food-inflation. The cliff runway is free and the lemmings have been cleared for take-off.
Or is this the one that flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest???
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It takes all types!
By Ervell E Menezes
I stopped at the newspaper vendor, on my morning walk. and before I could pick up the paper, there was a guy reading aloud the day’s headlines as though well versed with India’s and world affairs, but wasn’t dressed to deserve the ranking. Then, under his breath, he whispered something to the vendor who looked sheepishly around.
Another customer answered his query, which was the matka number. He then asked me for my pen to so that he could scrawl it on his hand. Poor guy, I thought he could not even remember it. Wonder what number he’d play today.
The thing about matka is that it is so popular that almost everyone plays it. In Goa, the news vendor again comes around distributing newspapers and numbers to those who count the minutes before he arrives. He is like the morning sentinel, number before news.In the distant 1970s, I was one of them and at parties, I would bring up the subject which most guests pooh-poohed, as if they would not touch it with a barge pole. Then gradually as the party developed, yours truly would admit to being a player. In a twinkling of an eye, most of the guests, at least half of them, would also admit to being hooked on to the game. Thank God for the emergency rule, it put an end to my vice. That’s the only good thing the emergency did.
But it takes all types to make a world, some simple and quite sincere, others crafty and devious. Some hard working, others hardly working. There is that usual cliché, all fingers are not equal. Neither are all men, naturally. But should one strive to improve oneself or leave it to the genes? Obviously, different folks react differently.
Then there was this guy on a bicycle, a regular conman. If he caught your eye, he’d switch on that “long time no see” smile. Give him any sign of recognition, and he stops dead. “Weren’t you in Nariman Point, he asks. The best thing to do is to say “no.” and a firm one before carrying on. If you make the mistake of saying “yes” you’ve had it because he’d spin you a long tale of woe. “My wife died a couple of days ago. I cremated her but now have no money.” Then came out the inevitable hand for cash. One’s normal reaction would be to feel sorry for him and dig into your pocket. But I put up a stern front and said I didn’t have any to spare. A few weeks later, he did the same thing, not realising he had touched me before. This time I cut it short at source. It pays to remember these tricks. But he’s still seen on a bicycle with the hope that “each day a sucker is born.” As long as it isn’t you, it’s quite okay
Living in a tough city like Mumbai, you learn not to wear your emotions on the sleeve. Keep them well below the surface and use them at rare times, when they are really needed.
On my morning walk again, one sees a lot of kids trudging to school, some joyfully, others drudgingly. Some with the parent, others alone. This time, I saw a young mother with two of her wards in tow. One happily, the elder boy but the younger one, hardly four years of age, was crying bitterly and the mother scolding him. “If you continue crying like this your teacher too will beat you,” she told the sobbing child.
It took me back to my tender school days and my hair kept rising on my hand. As I went past the trio, I couldn’t help patting the child on his cheek, consoling him, or at least trying to. She smiled a knowing smile, but at least, she did not upbraid me. Thank God for that. Yes, it truly takes all kinds to make up this world.
