Whilst the drum-beats fade, the bugle trills get louder

A decade passed into eternity – a new one is already on saddle, and I’m in a quandary! A friend in one of the local channels asked me how I would like to sum up the out-passing decade….and I told him, to me it was - one of change, recollecting a letter Einstein had written to Robert Oppenheimer in the early ‘50’s; and it said…..“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”

I think the biggest change for the decade that went by, was the thinking – the thinking behind liberalisation giving way to the conservative right – world-wide. From the US to India, from Eastern Europe to the Middle East, from Scotland till Brexit – it’s changes of thinking all the way.

My Take: But that’s too much of a macro – I’ll rather come down to three basics for India only: a) the major changes in the decade, in terms of the biggest wins, the biggest losses and the biggest “stayers”; b) what do we take home from all of that; and c) what my prescriptions would be for the new decade (my eighth).

Amongst the biggest wins in my view was technology, USBs and Phones won over DVDs, Web Series won over multiplexes, the PSLVs won with gusto with the Mangalayan and the Astrosat. Artificial Intelligence processes won over, in logistics and shop-floors in the country. 

Wins in social reforms, of privacy being a fundamental right and so is the right to Passive Euthanasia, so is the right of choice of sexual orientation – and outright rejection of reprehensible laws like Section 57 of the Aaadhar Act and section 66A of the IT Act, but the best win was the victory of three brave women trashing triple talaaq!

On the political front the remarkable wins were in restructuring Jammu and Kashmir and its intended integration with the rest of the country. 

On the military front there were great wins in the perceptional canvas post the surgical strike and the Balakot air-strike – that India would play its rightfully tough role on proxy warfare – and it worked!

On the academic field – the 3 Nobel Prizes in a decade have been a great win.

The great win came for Goa emerging front runners in the Sustainable Development Goals of India Index 2019.

The big losses were those from terror – both cross border and home grown – the biggest ones were the Mumbai Attack 26/11, the Pulwama, Dantewada, Sukna, Uri, Jnaneshwari Express and so many others where we lost more than 4200 precious lives. 

The other biggest loss was the downslide in our economy and the consequent denial mode. In many ways we haven’t moved an inch forward in the operational numbers during the decade – we have actually gone down in parameters like our hunger index, our unemployment situation, our Multidimensional Poverty Indices, our Gini’s coefficient of inequality, our non-oil imports and exports, our industrial production our consumer goods production, our electricity generation, our farmers’ distress and finally our dwindling Tax Revenues. And all this in spite of the great oil-bonanza we got! Our fundamentals, however, in terms of our debt situation, our inflation and our reserves are still strong but that by itself will not give us growth, investments, jobs and demand. 

The next big losses were in business: Malls losing out to Amazon, watches and cameras losing to cell phones and pick-pockets miserably losing out to ATM Frauds – but the biggest losers I would say were Delhiites – they spent the last 3 winters with only SPMs to breathe!

And now the biggest “stayers”: whilst we wrote some laws and we improved upon our “ease of doing business” rankings – you are no wiser – from the Fugitives Economic Offenders law to the Bankruptcy code, from the Anti-Rape Law to the Lok Pal, from Demonetisation to Electoral Bonds, where were the gains really? Insolvency proceedings still take ages, NPAs still sky-high, Banks still being swindled, Swiss Bank, HSBC and Panama papers still invisible, economic offenders still walk free and rapists still on rampage. Backlogs in Courts is still a hefty 3.3 crore cases, in spite of the biggest judges airing their grievances in public. Investigations in the Aarushi-Hemraj Case, the Sheena Bora Case, the National Herald case, the DLF Land Grab Case, the Saradha Chitfund Case, the Narada Sting Case, the Babri Masjid Demolition Criminal Case are all gathering dust in some shelf or the other in spite of the CBI fighting the CBI in public.

Another noticeable change was the strong-and-silent ones issuing political statements, from holy godmen to mighty commanders – it’s free for all as politicos.

Compared to its size Goa emerged perhaps the biggest “stayer”. The Mhadei deadlock is still on, all six Casinos still merrily adorn the Mandovi, the mining imbroglio continues, the Mopa Airport and the Zuari Bridge being constantly deferred, State borrowings finally crossed limits and taxis still have no meters on them!

My prescriptions: (On the major ones). We need to repair our Economy first. In the immediate run, I think we should be concentrating on rebuilding our credibility, particularly the “sab ka viswas” part and the Data-Credibility part! Then corrections to the Financial Sector and reforms in land and labour. These can’t wait. The CAA and the NRC can!

Thereafter we need strong midterm actions of electoral reforms, administrative reforms and downsizing, investigation mechanism reforms and judicial reforms. That’s priority!

And in conclusion: The new decade should be the decade-of-the-economy – the 5-trillion-one and for that Einstein’s words are prophetic…” It cannot be changed without changing our thinking!”

A very happy New Year and a New Decade!

(Binayak Datta is a Finance Professional)