Tag: privatisation

PSBs’ Branch Count Declines, Employee Workload Rises, but Recruitment Still Inadequate: Report

The trend of declining employee count, restricted branch expansion, and an increase in business per employee is an indicator that the government is preparing some of the PSBs for privatisation, said an expert.

New Delhi: While employee workload has increased in public sector banks (PSBs), recruitment has been inadequate, despite a decline in the number of branch counts.

Due to massive consolidation in the 2017–2022 period, branch counts of PSBs declined by 7,189. In contrast, private sector banks’ (PvSBs) branch count went up by 13,211 in the five years up to March-end 2022, the Hindu BusinessLine reported.

However, as mentioned earlier, recruitment has been inadequate in PSBs, but employee workload has increased, C.H. Venkatachalam, general secretary, All India Bank Employees’ Association (AIBEA), told the business daily. He also added that the number of bank customers have been increasing manifold in PSBs.

The trend of declining employee count, restricted branch expansion, and an increase in business per employee is an indicator that the government is preparing some of the PSBs for privatisation, S. Nagarajan, general secretary, All India Bank Officers’ Association, told the newspaper.

Separately, PvSBs generated more employment than PSBs over the last decade or so.

In FY23 alone, PvSBs added a net of 98,518 jobs, while PSBs head count declined by 3,385, the newspaper reported, citing Reserve Bank of India data.

However, the average business per employee was higher in PSBs at Rs 23.80 crore, as compared to that of PvSBs at Rs 15.02 crore, per data compiled by the Indian Banks’ Association.

Govt’s Privatisation Ambitions Stall as Adani and Vedanta Face Increased Scrutiny

Of three dozen companies originally identified for sale, the government is left with a list of 17 – 10 unlisted and seven listed – companies largely because of legal and insolvency issues, Bloomberg reported.

New Delhi: With the Adani Group and Vedanta looking financially vulnerable, the Union government’s privatisation ambitions appear to have come to a halt.

Of three dozen companies originally identified for sale, the government is left with a list of 17 – 10 unlisted and seven listed – companies largely because of legal and insolvency issues, Bloomberg reported.

Of the listed companies in the government’s privatisation list, Vedanta is an interested party in at least four of them. These are Bharat Petroleum Corporate Limited Process, Container Corporation of India (Concor), NMDC Steel, and Shipping Corporation.

Of these, Adani is also an interested party in two companies – Concor and NMDC Steel.

However, the conglomerate has decided to not take on additional debt and focus on prepaying loans.

In less than a month after Hindenburg Research published its report, accusing the Adani Group of stock manipulation and accounting fraud, the conglomerate lost 60% of its stock’s value. The report slashed more than $100 billion of market value from the company.

Following the fall in shares, increased scrutiny on its offshore dealings, removal from several global indices, and opposition demand for a joint parliamentary committee probe, the Adani Group went on a course correction path by paying off debts, in an effort to build investor confidence.

And, the company is going slow on new investments. It’s already rethinking plans to participate in the privatisation of Concor, India’s leading freight rail operator, the report said. Bloomberg reported that Adani has shelved its ambition to acquire businesses like Concor.

In a February analyst call, Karan Adani, chief executive of Adani Ports, said the company’s “first order of preference” is to lower its debt before reconsidering the acquisition.

Meanwhile, Vedanta is struggling to settle about $2 billion of bonds due in 2024, the report added. The Vedanta companies have seen their share prices drop so far this year, another Bloomberg report said, adding that they are using more equity as collateral to borrow money.

Vedanta also considered selling its international zinc business to Hindustan Zinc Ltd for $2.98 billion to raise more capital. But the government opposed this decision over concerns of valuation. Hindustan Zinc is a subsidiary of Vedanta.

The Union government has also set a conservative target to raise funds through the divestment of state enterprises in fiscal year 2024, after mop-up fell short in the last fiscal, analysts told Reuters.

Since 2014, the government’s total disinvestment proceeds stand at Rs 4.7 trillion – or about a 10th of its proposed spending budget for 2023. And at current market valuations, India would only fetch about $13 billion from selling the seven listed companies, Bloomberg reported, citing calculations.

“Government firms are tying up scarce capital in unproductive concerns, which has ‘a high opportunity cost in a developing country such as India,’ Nandini Gupta, associate professor of finance at Indiana University‘s Kelley School of Business, told Bloomberg.

The government is yet to invite expressions of interest for Concor’s privatisation, while for NMDC Steel, financial bids are yet to be invited, the report added.

Privatisation of BPCL, which was dubbed India’s biggest ever, was stalled in May 2022 with just Vedanta left in the fray. The other two funds which walked out of the deal were US venture fund Apollo Global Management Inc and I Squared Capital Advisors, PTI reported.

Only the Tata Group-Air India deal was a successful example of privatisation in India.

According to Poonam Gupta, an economic adviser to Modi, to land more sales, the Union government must clear legal hurdles facing bidders, improve its technical expertise and urge states to take a proactive stance in privatising their assets.

“There is firm acceptance, in principle, of the need for more private ownership,” she told Bloomberg. “Yet the execution of privatisation is often a complex task.”

How Neoliberalism Has Widened Inequality in India, Alienated Socially Vulnerable Groups

Since inequality is a functional component of neoliberal capitalism, the state’s role has been relegated to protecting the interests of capital rather than making a commitment towards addressing inequality.

The State of Inequality in India report, recently released by the Institute of Competitiveness, on the request of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India, has thrown open the infirmities of neoliberal economic reforms, which India officially adopted in the 1990s.

More than 90% of the population is earning less than Rs 25,000 per month is a shocking revelation of the burgeoning inequality under the present political economy in India. The Periodic Labour Force Survey 2019-20 shows that the top 10% of the population captures 30-35% of the total income and the bottom 50% gets only 22% of it. Between 2017-18 and 2019-20, the top 1% income rose by 15%, while the bottom 10% income went down by 1%.

Source: Data from the Periodic Labour Force Survey 2019-20

The widening inequality and concentration of wealth among a small section of the population violates the constitutional mandate of creating an egalitarian society based on the principles of social justice and freedom from social and economic exploitation. Even though our constitution owes its ideological foundations to a liberal capitalist framework, it emphasised on the aspects of welfare and justice to transform India into a better society.

The classical liberalism as propounded by John Locke and Adam Smith during the 17th and 18th century wanted the state to play a non-interventionist role based on the principle of ‘laissez-faire’ to encourage individual entrepreneurial skills and freedom. More than the problem of inequality, the prosperity of nations has been emphasised by classical liberal thinkers.

According to classical liberalism, inequality has to be tolerated, so that individual entrepreneurial freedom and potential could be realised.

According to Richard Peet (1975), inequality and poverty are considered as functional components of capitalist mode of production. Thus, even today, international institutions and national governments working within a liberal framework capture only absolute poverty rather than relative poverty, which captures the widening inequality within the population.

Also read: Indians Account For 80% Of Those Who Became Poor Globally in 2020 Due to COVID-19: World Bank

The classical liberal model was not able to save the economy from the great depression during inter-war period. The welfare state model based on Keynesian compromise helped the western countries to recover after the devastating two world wars.

India after independence adopted a similar welfare state model with positive liberalism as ideological foundations in the Indian constitution.

After coming out of colonial rule, the Indian state, along with an underdeveloped private capitalist class willing to invest in the development process, took the centre stage in guiding the political economy. Liberalism encourages individual freedom and a non-interventionist state, but positive liberalism further encourages the state to be interventionist in creating an appropriate environment in an unequal society for everyone to enjoy individual freedom.

Given that India is a country which is socially divided based on the caste system, coupled with strong economic inequality, the state took centre stage in balancing human development and strengthening private capital. Thus, the state-led economy with strong social security measures and affirmative actions were the ideological foundation of positive liberalism in the Indian constitution to create an egalitarian society.

A neoliberal political economy

The economic crisis in the 1970s and 1980s pushed us towards a neoliberal political economy, redefining the role of the state and the economy.

Neoliberalism reinforces the values of classical liberalism based on the principle of ‘laissez-faire’. But it moves beyond that in assigning a positive role for the state to create markets in those areas where there are no markets for private players to make profit. The state does this smartly in the name of “good governance”, through policy intervention it creates space for private players.

Since inequality is a functional component of neoliberal capitalism, the state’s role has been relegated to protecting the interests of capital rather than making a commitment towards addressing inequality. In a country like India, where we have inherited structural inequality in social and economic spheres from the time of independence, withdrawal of the state is having an adverse impact on the majority, who still depend on the state’s support system for their education, health, and everyday survival.

For instance, in the education sector, we have spent only 0.64% of the gross domestic product in 1950-51, which gradually increased to 3.93% in 1990. However, the Kothari Commission had in 1966 recommended to spending 6% of the GDP on education. But since 1990, we have been hovering around 3-4% of the GDP expenditure in education, in spite of making education a fundamental right.

Reduced expenditures have meant that the quality of education in government schools has declined as standard facilities and human resources have taken a hit. More than 90% of the schools during 1990 were under the government management, whereas the number of private schools has been increased substantially to reach more than 20%.

Neoliberalism encourages contract-based employment, where people can be easily hired and fired. According to the 8th All India School Education Survey (AISES 2016), the number of para teachers in India increased 302.5% between 2002 and 2009. During the same time, the number of part-time teachers increased by 210.6%.

Similarly, we spend around 1% of the GDP on health, which indirectly creates a market for the private medical practitioners due to poor facilities at government hospitals. Such deliberate reluctance to spend on the part of the state has adverse effects on health indicators. In 2019, the prevalence of anaemia among women during their fertile years (15-49 years of age) was around 53%, which was only next to Nigeria where around 55% of women and girls suffer anaemia.

The states’ failure to take deliberate action on providing clean drinking water has encouraged a greater market for packaged drinking water. After the formalisation of neoliberal policies, we see this attitude of government in many sectors, where the states’ action or inaction creates favourable space for the private players.

Growing inequality

The London School of Economics researcher Maitreesh Ghatak has said in his research that the top 1% of the population had around 10-16% of wealth share till the 1990s, which has increased manifold to reach 42.5% in 2020. But the bottom 50% wealth share has decreased from 12.3% in 1961 to 2.8% in 2020.

Since 2020, India’s Gini coefficient, which is a measure of inequality, has been at its peak of 82.3, according to a Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report, published in 2022. On the other hand, between 2020 and 2021, the number of millionaires in India has increased from 689,000 to 796,000.

Further Thomas Piketty exposes the growing inequality during the neoliberal period in India. During the 1930s, around 21% of the total income went to the top 1% of the earners, which reduced to 6% in the early 1980s, and again reached 22% during the contemporary neoliberal period.

The profound policy changes after the adoption of neoliberalism has further widened the gap between the rich and the poor. It further alienates the socially disadvantaged groups, who were discriminated based on caste, gender, religion, and ethnicity, and who are still dependent on state support to break away from the centuries-old discriminatory shackles.

Our development discourse is still relying on the trickle-down theory, which failed to a larger extent. It’s also focussed on GDP-centric development rather than human-centric development. Our policy directives during the neoliberal period have violated the constitutional vision and commitment towards creating an egalitarian society. The new labour codes, privatisation of key public sectors, and shrugging off the constitutional responsibility of the state in providing social security to the vulnerable sections of the society and working class is going to further widen inequality and structurally isolate a majority of the population in India.

There is an urgent need to rethink our political economic choices and reorient our political discourse to reclaim the constitutional values and priorities to create an egalitarian society based on social justice and people’s democracy.

Venkatanarayanan S. is associate professor and head of the department of political science and history at Christ University, Bengaluru.

Judiciary in the Modi Era: Shielding the State and Leaving the People Vulnerable

The courts are adopting an interpretation of the constitution which can only boost the authoritarian, neoliberal impulses of the executive.

After initially suggesting that parliament is incapable of debating the issue of “freebies”, Chief Justice of India (CJI) N.V. Ramana retreated a few days later in what looked like a confession about the constraints of the judiciary in a parliamentary democracy. But the country is passing through such a bleak stage that even occasional reiterations of constitutionalism are cause for celebration.

Also recently, another bench of the Supreme Court, led by the CJI in-waiting U.U. Lalit, granted regular medical bail to veteran poet Varavara Rao, after a long wait of 18 months. But the supreme custodian of the civil liberties of the individual has not shown any indication to reconsider the Bhima-Koregaon case – despite the mounting evidence of its infirmities.

Thus, these silver linings raise an important question about the Indian judiciary. Are the highest courts of the country trying to champion the cause of the constitution or trying to play a balancing act in the face of authoritarianism?

For example, last month a bench led by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud granted bail to journalist Mohammed Zubair almost unconditionally.

“We can’t say that he won’t tweet again. It is like telling a lawyer that you should not argue. How can we tell a journalist that he will not write?” observed Justice Chandrachud on July 20, while hearing a petition by the journalist challenging the cases filed against him by the Uttar Pradesh police.

This observation – and the tone of the judgment – provided a measure of relief to the country. The bench clearly saw through the motives of the state in repeatedly arresting the fact-checker, who had become an irritant to the politics and the ideology of the ruling party and government.

But even before the ink on this bail order dried, the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court on August 4 denied bail to another journalist, Siddique Kappan, who has been languishing in jail for two years. He was arrested on conspiracy charges while on his way to Hathras, to report on the rape-and-murder of a Dalit woman.  Justice Krishan Pahal declared that Kappan “had no work in Hathras” and that his trip with “co-accused persons who don’t belong to [the] media fraternity is a crucial circumstance going against him”.

The judge did not explain the judicial rationale behind considering a journey with alleged members of the Popular Front of India (PFI) as sufficient grounds to deny bail – especially when the PFI is not a banned organisation.

This logic exposes not just the glaring irrationality of the judgment but also the unseemly spectacle of a judge of a constitutional court – which is supposed to safeguard freedom of the press – scripting do’s and don’t’s for a supposedly independent media. Similar instances have occurred with journalists from Kashmir and the Northeast.

Journalist Siddique Kappan. Photo: PTI

Thus, for every Zubair or Varavara Rao who receives bail, there are many more jailed Kappans – whose cases make the euphoria around Justice Chandrachud’s judgment short-lived. This fragility of the Indian justice delivery system  stems not from the subjectivity of individual judges in interpreting facts or statutes but from institutionalised arbitrariness in applying the fundamental principles of justice, especially in cases that discomfort the ruling elite.

A clear example of this dissonance between principle and implementation can be seen in the contrasting manner in which one bench of the apex court upheld the patently draconian provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering  Act just two weeks after an earlier bench had underlined the importance of curbing the abuse of investigative process.

On July 11, the bench of Justices S.K. Kaul and M.M. Sundresh stressed the paramountcy of individual freedom by ruling that bail is the rule and jail is an exception. The bench went to the extent of assuring citizens that “in a democracy, there can never be an impression that it is a police state as both are conceptually opposite to each other” and asked the government to introduce a comprehensive law on bail, based on established principles. Thus, the judgment laid down the principle that individual liberty by way of arrest should be only resorted to in extraordinary conditions, when it is absolutely necessary to meet the ends of justice.

This was also well in tune with the concerns expressed by Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana in a legal services meet in Jaipur on July 16. The CJI nailed the problem by observing, “In our criminal justice system, the process is the punishment. From hasty indiscriminate arrests, to difficulty in obtaining bail, the process leading to the prolonged incarceration of undertrials needs urgent attention.” Later, speaking at the Rajasthan assembly, the CJI also bemoaned the fact that the space for the opposition is diminishing and differences are met with hostility, resulting in the degeneration of democratic institutions.

His comments were made as the BJP-led Union government is facing allegations of using investigating agencies like the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to target opposition leaders to engineer a split or silence them.

The data also backs up the claim that the Narendra Modi government is using the ED to deliver political results. While instances of the ED using the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) and the PMLA have increased five-fold after Modi came to power in 2014-15, its conviction rate is dismal.

Also Read: With Low Conviction Rate, ED Is Nothing More Than a Caged Parrot That Can’t Get Anyone to Sing

The ED also got a boost after amendments to the PMLA made it as draconian as the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). Bail under the PMLA can be denied even after the chargesheet is filed, if the accused fails to prove the twin conditions of proving his innocence at the stage of bail itself and also “prove” that they are not likely to commit any crime while on bail. This inverts the principles of natural justice by shifting the burden of proving innocence onto the accused.

Unlike in other criminal cases, the ED is not obliged to serve the equivalent of a first information report (FIR) to the accused. Thus, the PMLA has become a classic instrument in the hands of the ruling government which in effect is “shrinking the space of the opposition” and thwarting “democratic dissent”. Thus, it gives a “clear impression of a police state”.

Still, on July 27, a bench headed by  Justice A.M. Khanwilkar upheld all the amended PMLA provisions as fundamental requirements to curb the crimes of money laundering, which according to the bench is equal to or worse than acts of terrorism. This judgment has thus strengthened the authoritarianism of the government and made the judiciary culpable in “making the process itself a punishment”, leading to “hasty and indiscriminate arrests, and difficulty in obtaining bail” – which were identified by the CJI as the bane of the justice delivery system in India.

Much has been said and written about the disturbing consequences of the PMLA judgment and other recent judgments by benches led by Justice Khanwilkar, especially in the cases involving human rights activists like Teesta Setalvad and Himanshu Kumar. Suffice it to say that such judgments only raise serious suspicions, once again, about the institutional capacity of the Indian judiciary to safeguard the liberal values enshrined in the Indian constitution against authoritarian onslaught.

People hold placards during a protest against the arrest of activistTeesta Setalvad and former IPS officer R.B. Sreekumar, in New Delhi, June 27, 2022. Photo: PTI/Kamal Kishore

The judiciary’s views on welfarism and neoliberalism

This question also assumes more serious proportions when the economic rights of the people are involved.

While in the cases related to individual liberty, the judiciary is of late making dangerous exceptions to serve the political ideology of the ruling dispensation, in the economic domain, it is repositioning its constitutional role to privilege the interests of corporate capital over the welfare of the people.

The recent observation by a CJI-headed bench – dealing with a PIL asking the top court to restrain political parties from promising ‘freebies’ during the election – is one such dangerous development in that direction. The PIL was filed by a BJP advocate who was otherwise considered an irritant and admonished by the SC many times for wasting the court’s time by filing politically motivated PILs.

But this PIL, asking the SC to constrain the welfarist responsibilities of the state by portraying ‘freebies’ as an unethical influence on the voters – was filed following clues from Modi himself and institutions like the NITI Aayog and RBI. While the prime minister recently ignited a discussion on “revdi culture“, the NITI Aayog and RBI have advised state governments to contain their expenditure on welfare activities.

Thus, there was almost a consensus among the ruling elites to put a cap on the welfarist expenditure of the state and use these resources to create infrastructure to attract corporate investments. This policy itself is an outcome of the paradigm shift in development discourse which, in the neoliberal era, considers the enabling of unregulated capitalism as the only route to progress.

The Fiscal Responsibility and the Budget Management (FRBM) Act demands the state reduce and progressively shun all expenditure on subsidies – be it for food, fuel, fertiliser, electricity or education. This, despite the fact that these subsidies have become an important lifeline for large sections of society.

Fortunately, the compulsions of competitive electoral democracy and the sway of coalition governments till 2014 at the Centre did not permit successive governments from taking any decisive steps towards rigidly enforcing the FRBM Act. Even the Modi government, which considered the employment guarantee scheme – MGNREGA – a monumental failure of the welfarist policies pursued by the UPA government, could not shun the project.

Also Read: Once Derided by Modi, Boost to MGNREGS Shows it’s One of Rural India’s Few Safety Nets

Thus, the ‘freebies’ PIL itself seems to be a shortcut found by the Modi government to abandon all welfarist measures as part of a court directive – thus avoiding the political cost.

The CJI bench considered this particular PIL in all earnestness and has made path-breaking observations – overriding the judiciary’s traditional conservatism in interfering with matters of public policy and economic affairs.

The judiciary’s willingness to cross the ‘Lakshman rekha‘ on the question of welfarism is alarming if one contrasts its views on petitions challenging the policy of disinvestment and privatisation of public enterprises.

Several petitions have argued that the policy of privatisation was an affront to the constitutional responsibility of the state – which is obligated by the directive principles to equitable distribution of resources and avoid concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. But the SC refused to intervene, citing the constitutional division of powers between the organs of the state, where economic matters are designated as the prerogative of the executive. In the famous telecom case (1996), the SC refused to stop the privatisation of the telecom industry by stating:

“Privatisation is a fundamental concept underlying the questions about the power to make economic decisions… Courts have their limitations because these issues rest with the policy makers for the nation. No direction can be given or is expected from the courts unless while implementing such policies, there is violation or infringement of any of the constitutional or statutory provision.”

In 2001, dealing with a petition challenging the disinvestment of BALCO, the SC reiterated the same principle with some more clarity:

“In the sphere of economic policy or reforms the court is not the appropriate forum. Courts are not intended to and nor should they conduct the administration of the country.. In a democracy, it is the prerogative of each individual government to follow its own policy. It is not for the courts to consider relative merits of different economic policies and consider whether a wiser or better one can be evolved. For testing the correctness of a policy, the appropriate forum is Parliament and not courts.”

When dealing with the policy of privatisation, the SC has opined that parliament is the suitable forum to discuss these issues and did not find any violation of constitutional or statutory provisions in privatisation and disinvestment.

But in the so-called “freebies” case – a policy matter which is as much part of the prerogative of the executive as privatisation – the judiciary is showing a certain eagerness to cross its limitations. The CJI even went to the extent of saying that parliament may not be the proper forum to debate the issue!

However, in a welcome development on August 11, the CJI retreated a little. He acknowledged two overreaches by the judiciary in this case. First, that the judiciary should not intervene in matters which are the exclusive domain of the executive. Second, that a distinction between welfare and “freebies” be made. Although this is a positive development, the CJI continued with his efforts to offer the judiciary as a parallel platform to parliament and even asked the parties to assist him before his retirement – thus making his observation bereft of democratic content.

A signboard is seen outside the premises of Supreme Court in New Delhi, India, September 28, 2018. Photo: Reuters/Anushree Fadnavis

Even though the welfarist imperative is embedded into the constitutional scheme, it is not mandatory – unlike the right to liberty or the rights related to political democracy. The rights related to economic democracy and social democracy and substantial economic and social rights are part of the directive principles of state policy, which cannot be enforced by the judicial authority.

Right from the beginning, there has been a structural mismatch between the demands for profit and the welfare of the people In the early years of independence, the higher judiciary was inclined to safeguard the rights of the haves against the have-nots. For example, the courts privileged the rights of landlords as a part of the right to property and prohibited reservations through a superficial interpretation of the right to equality. It was only through peoples’ movements and political unrest that parliament was compelled to bring in constitutional amendments to overcome these judicial obstacles.

Now in the neoliberal era, where the polity itself has shifted towards the right and people’s pressure via formidable movements is dwindling, the courts are adopting an interpretation of the constitution which will only boost the   authoritarian impulses of the executive.

Shivasundar is a columnist and activist in Karnataka.

Privatisation of PSBs Will Deal a Blow to Reservation, Government’s Coffers

Reports suggest that an amendment will be moved in the next session of parliament to smoothen the government’s complete exit from the public sector banks that are being put up for sale.

The contentious issue of bank privatisation has once again come to the fore after business newspapers reported that the Union government is keen on introducing an amendment in the upcoming monsoon session of parliament to smoothen the path for the government to make a complete exit from the public sector banks (PSBs) that are being put up for sale. 

Under the Banking Companies (Acquisition and Transfer of Undertakings) Act, 1970, the Union government is required to hold at least a 51% stake in PSBs. Earlier, the government line on this subject was that the Union government would ideally retain a 26% stake in the PSBs even during privatisation, which could subsequently be scaled down.

Reportedly, the finance ministry is currently in talks with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) over resolving issues of ownership and controlling stakes. These developments assume greater importance when seen in the context of the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management conducting road shows in the US to sell IDBI Bank.

PSBs employ around 8.26 lakh people, including those who belong to Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST), Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and the Economically Weaker Section (EWSs). They implement reservation policy strictly.

Employees who benefit from reservations will be hit worst by privatisation. In addition, the government seems intent on privatisation despite the dismal past experience, not to mention the disastrous listing and subsequent share price collapse of the insurance behemoth LIC.

A note released by the People’s Commission on Public Sector and Services said, “A significant portion of [SC, ST and OBC employees] occupy managerial positions in those banks. Reservations in employment need to be viewed, not merely from the point of view of the creation of employment opportunities alone but, more importantly, from the larger socio-economic benefit of empowering and uplifting them.”

The note said that privatisation of even a single PSU bank would not only create uncertainty regarding the conditions of service of the existing SC, ST and OBC employees (as also similar uncertainty in the future of all other employees) but also “permanently close the constitution-given opportunity for new recruitments to that extent”.

Employees of bank unions in a strike. Photo: PTI/Shashank Parade

The People’s Commission on Public Sector and Services also pointed out that the private promoters of the much-touted Global Trust Bank had let down the bank’s unfortunate depositors, and the RBI and the government were forced to direct a PSU bank in 2004 to rescue whatever had been left of that errant private bank. “The recent Yes Bank fiasco,” the note continues, “is another example where a PSU bank had to save a failing, mismanaged private bank.”

Going back in history, when private banks were first nationalised, the government had consciously stated in parliament that the purpose of this move was to “sever the link” between the banks and the industrial groups to whom they give credit. Privatising a PSU bank, the commission contends, would amount to restoring such an egregious link, which involves a clear conflict of interest. The commission argues that the way the government has so far gone about privatising the CPSEs points to the absence of any due diligence.

In the meanwhile, PSBs’ position stands weakened because of the long list of corporate houses that are heavily indebted to these banks. To this day, the names of a number of large loan defaulters have not been made public while PSBs continue to suffer the consequences of the fraud perpetrated on them by private parties. Despite the assault of fraudulent businessmen and corporates on the balance sheets of the PSBs, the operating profit of 12 private sector banks – excluding IDBI Bank and regional rural banks – stood at a whopping Rs 2.08 lakh crore in March 2022. Additionally, their net profit, which doubled in the course of a year, stood at Rs 66,541 crore. The government’s privatisation bid becomes all the more inscrutable given the huge dividends and taxes that it receives from the banks.

“LIC has invested 51% share in IDBI at the cost of Rs 61 per share and has turned around the failing bank. Laws should be amended if needed to allow LIC to own the bank permanently, as banks have been allowed to run insurance companies. The government cannot discriminate. Selling IDBI Bank to foreign investors through road shows is against the declared policy of self-reliance. Hence, we appeal to the government not to bring the bill to Parliament and not to privatise public banks. We also appeal to the government to allow LIC to run IDBI successfully,” the note states. 

For May Day 2022, the Labour Movement Needs to Desperately Forge a New Core Agenda

The movement risks spreading itself too thin. Minimum wages, a safe workplace and social security should become part of a new core agenda.

May Day reminds us – so relevantly now – of the bloody and sustained battles waged by the working class over the centuries. It is an occasion not only to sound the warning horns of the challenges faced by the working-class movement, but also to reaffirm working-class solidarity.

It is also an occasion to frame the agenda. While trade unions are grudgingly accepted by the society at large, legally and in industrial relations, there is always an attempt to continually erode hard-won labour rights. Indeed, labour rights are not bounties of capitalism, rather they are outcomes that are won through democratic protest and negotiation.

At the same time, there is also a need to stitch a balance between idealism and pragmatism.

Depending on how one looks at it, between 1991 and 2022, the Indian trade union movement has either splintered or unified over the last 20 years. In the process, it conducted around 20 country-wide strikes and various other struggles over a ‘charter of demands’ (CoD).

The most recent strike was sponsored by ten out of 12 government-recognised central trade unions (CTUs) and other allied workers’ organisations on March 28-29, 2022 over 12 demands. Over the years, the movement’s demands have shrunk or widened – with a few issues receding into the background and a few new ones added. The 12 specific demands broadly protest against labour codes, privatisation, contract labour system. They also call for an urban employment guarantee system, increased investment in social infrastructure like education, health, etc. Recently, the demands of India’s farmers were also added as a measure of solidarity.

As an academic who has studied this issue, it is my opinion that the demands being made are too many – with a few existing for too long – while some are better left to the political classes. A few, like the question of contract labour, could also be addressed at a micro or regional level.

Also read: For May Day, a Call to Defeat Gender, Class and Caste Divisions Among Workers of South Asia

While the wider CoDs aim to project the working-class movement as encompassing and socially sensitive, the core aim of CTUs must be to win demands or at least force a sense of compromise, which is the essence behind strikes or negotiations. The CTUs would reap more benefits if they aligned with the political classes either in a cooperative or confrontationist manner –  depending on their political allies in power – to secure social and political demands like an urban employment guarantee programme, increase in investment in agriculture or health and education. Why increase the transaction costs of strikes when more efficient agencies are available to take the struggle for these issues?

Let us take the demand for the repeal of labour codes, which is a repeat of the repeal of farmers’ laws. While farmers could leave their fields for months and fight in a sustained manner, the industrial working class could not do so for obvious reasons. Is this demand winnable by direct action alone? The CTUs need to ponder over this important strategic issue. Legal action is possible. They need to exploit the constitutional grounds on which the Codes can be challenged and for that, they need brilliant legal minds which are available abundantly. Political action is also possible if the opposition parties give up their unproductive walk-outs.

Three items that must be on the table

Over the years, the CTUs became inclusive by fighting for rights of unorganised workers and employment guarantee for the unemployed. Some labour market aspirations remain unfulfilled since Independence – minimum wages, safe workplaces, and universal social security and social protection.

To be sure, various governments at the Centre and the states have taken several measures to provide for these but the coverage is pitiably lower even now. 

The Wage Code abolishes “scheduled employments” to universalise minimum wages, which is admirable. But what are the probabilities that the last worker standing will in fact secure minimum wages? It is one thing to provide statutory pronouncements and another to ensure its effective and universal implementation which is utterly lacking. 

According to the government of Maharashtra, “…the total number of (non-agricultural) establishments covered under the various scheduled employments in respect of which minimum rates of wages have been fixed/revised so far, are approximately [in] 2009-6,01,137” in the state. The total number of inspectors under the Minimum Wages Act (MWA) was 131 in 2009. Thus, each inspector gets on an average 4,589 establishments for enforcement of MW in the non-agricultural sector alone. They are also enforcement officers under other labour laws. This eloquently depicts the utter inadequacy of the implementation machinery. The new inspector-cum-facilitator and the randomised inspections system will substantially weaken the realisation of the basic dream of the workers. Universal and realisable minimum wages must be a firm demand of CTUs.

Also read: Seventy-Five Years Since Independence, Industrial Working Class Still Struggles for Rights

The Unorganised Workers’ Social Security Act, 2008 was a mess in a number of ways.  The new Social Security Code legally segments the workers. It offers formally written and formally enshrined rights like EPF, medical insurance, gratuity, and maternity benefits to the 6-7% workers and makes vague promises of Schemes to the 400+ million unorganised workers with no concrete legislated plans of funding. Even for the organised workers the historic exclusions continue as the thresholds remain unchanged for all of them. Universal social security including unemployment allowance (which is missing in SSC) must be a strong demand of CTUs. This can take care of unemployment arising out of retrenchments/closures.

The OSH (Occupational Safety, Health And Working Conditions) Code makes some positive notes by incorporating employers’ duties of which OSH is one. But unlike the Factories Act, 1948, all the factories engaged in hazardous processes need not compulsorily constitute a ‘safety committee’. It is only by executive notification. It creates thresholds for safety officers even for hazardous factories which is hugely questionable. A safety committee bipartite in nature is a form of social dialogue.

Walter Dagmar, ILO Chief, New Delhi, has argued that this will promote safe workplaces. However, we see in most cases that neither the government nor the employers are wiling to engage with trade unions or even workers’ representatives even on crucial issues like worker or plant safety. 

The ‘Safe in India’ reports of CRUSHED (2019-2022) portray a dismal picture on the OSH front, even in workspaces that get the most media attention like the auto ecosystem. The government does not have an adequate statistical system concerning OSH and occupational injuries. It is therefore bizarre that safe working places as a fundamental right has not figured as a demand in the struggles of CTUs. In fact, many including the ITUC is pressing for inclusion of OSH as a part of core ILO Conventions and it is quite likely that this year’s International Labour Conference of ILO will discuss the same.

Can anyone – including the pinkest press – dispute that minimum wages, a safe workplace, and universal social security will become a major cost factor for Big Business? These three issues must become the core struggle agenda of the working-class movement. Effective implementation machinery as per the ILO norms for developing countries must be added to the struggle agenda. 

K.R. Shyam Sundar is a Visiting Professor, XLRI, Xavier School of Management, Jamshedpur

Other PSU Sales Are Postponed, So Why Should Top Brand LIC Play on Losing Wicket?

Should the primary savings vehicle of the Indian people be sold in such a hurry?

A version of this article first appeared in The India Cable – a subscribers-only newsletter published by The Wire and Galileo Ideas. You can subscribe to The India Cable by clicking here.

Recently, the Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) was declared the world’s 10th largest insurance brand. In Asia, it would easily be among the top 2-3 valued insurance companies. However, this is not reflected in the arbitrary manner in which the government is trying to sell its stake in LIC, when global financial markets are in turmoil due to the Ukraine war and the US Federal Reserve is fast-tracking interest rate hikes to withdraw excess liquidity and cool global inflation. The government has announced a much-truncated sale next week of 3.5% stake in LIC at a valuation less than half of the February estimate. It will fetch only Rs 21,000 crore. The sharp reduction in the estimated value of the company is a direct result of changed global market conditions in just over two months.

There can’t be a more inopportune time for the government to sell shares of its most valued company. The LIC offer has received a very lukewarm response because of current global market conditions. The government had initially committed to sell 10% stake via an initial public offering. The market value of the company was then estimated to be Rs 12-14 lakh crore. Seeing that global conditions were worsening, the government halved the size of the stake sale from 10% to 5%, which would be easily absorbed by global markets and fetch about Rs 65,000 crore if the company was valued at Rs 13 lakh crore, as estimated initially.

However, after doing extensive roadshows abroad to market LIC to big pension funds and sovereign wealth funds, the government realised there wasn’t enough appetite for even a reduced 5% stake sale. Financial markets were clearly signalling that the timing was off, and it was then decided to trim the stake sale further to 3.5%. Then the government got into a regulatory problem because SEBI does not permit a sale of less than 5%. A special waiver was required.

By this time, the market value of the company was also halved, from the Rs 12-14 lakh crore estimated in February to Rs 6 lakh crore. The Modi government will have a hard time explaining how the estimated market value of the company was brought down so dramatically when the stock market hasn’t fallen so much. Shares of much less valued private insurance companies have also not shown any sharp decline in the last two and half months. What changed in two months to force the government to allow LIC’s market value to be halved, as per its own assessment?

Global market conditions have changed quite significantly, attested to by the dramatic net foreign institutional funds outflows of over $16 billion from the Indian stock markets since January. FII ownership of NSE 500 stocks are at a three-year low. This is clearly a fallout of the potentially worsening liquidity conditions globally, accentuated by the geopolitical risks following the Ukraine crisis.

The best course for the government would have been to postpone the LIC stake sale. The secretary in charge of public sector divestment has said on the record that the government will not sell its stake in blue-chip PSUs if market conditions are bad. It is on this very ground that the government has slowed down when it comes to the strategic sale of profitable companies like BPCL, Concor etc. If this is established policy, why is LIC, the most valued insurance company, being treated differently? Should the primary savings vehicle of the Indian people be sold in such a hurry? The government has no convincing answers.

Bharat Bandh Against ‘Govt’s Anti-People Policies’ Takes Off; Power, Banking Likely to Be Hit

Twenty crore workers from 10 central trade unions are expected to participate in the two-day strike. The Mamata Banerjee government in Bengal said that no employee of government offices would be granted personal or casual leave on these days.

New Delhi: The two-day Bharat Bandh called by a joint forum of central trade unions with the alleged support of nearly 20 crore workers in the country, began on Monday, March 28, from 6 am.

The strike is expected to impact the functioning of numerous sectors all over the country, including banking, power, transportation, and more.

The decision to call the nationwide strike came after a meeting of the joint forum in Delhi on March 22. According to a statement issued by the joint platform then, the protest is against the “anti-worker, anti-farmer, anti-people and anti-national policies” of the Union government.

According to Amarjeet Kaur, general-secretary of the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), 20 crore workers from 10 central trade unions are expected to participate in the strike. 

Apart from the AITUC, these include the Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC), Hind Mazdoor Sabha (HMS), Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), All India United Trade Union Centre (AIUTUC), Trade Union Coordination Centre (TUCC), Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU), Labour Progressive Federation (LPF) and United Trade Union Congress (UTUC).

Besides, organisations such as the All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) and farmers body the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) have also extended support to the movement. 

The Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), which has affiliations to the Hindu organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), said that it will not participate in the strike, calling it “politically motivated”.

Support for the bandh has come from many states across the country. According to Kaur, the entire coal mining belt of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh are participating, and that there has been a “good response” from the industrial areas of Assam, Haryana, Delhi, West Bengal, Telangana, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Bihar, Punjab, Rajasthan, Goa and Odisha.

Their demands include the scrapping of the labour codes, no privatisation of any form, scrapping of the National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP), increased allocation of wages under MNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act) and regularisation of contract workers, among others.

Watch | Explained: What Is the National Monetisation Pipeline?

Ahead of the bandh, the power ministry issued an advisory to all state governments and electricity authorities to prepare for the disruption and ensure that all grids function normally, around the clock on March 28 and 29. It also asked all regional and state control rooms to remain on high alert during the protest period.

Banking services were impacted in several regions due to the strike, given the involvement of AIBEA employees in the bandh. However, according to an Economic Times report, this effects were limited to public sector banks and were felt more prominently in the eastern regions of the country.

Some banks, such as the State Bank of India (SBI), had warned customers of disruptions before the bandh began.

Bank unions are reportedly protesting against the Union government’s decision to privatise two more public sector banks, as announced in the Union Budget 2022. Apart from the AIBEA, the Bank Employees Federation of India (BEFI) and All India Bank Officers’ Association (AIBOA) are also part of the two-day strike.

West Bengal

Protestors in West Bengal were seen putting up rail and road blockades in the state to stop vehicles from plying. At the Jadavpur Railway Station, members of the opposition Left Front alliance were seen gathering in large numbers to block the tracks.

Meanwhile, at Kulgachhia station, two Left Front workers were reportedly injured after a narrow escape while trying to stop a moving train. The train was reportedly moving in order to get the protestors off the tracks.

However, when the bandh was announced, the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) state  government declared in a memorandum that all state government offices would remain open through March 28 and 29.

It also noted that no employee of these offices would be granted personal or casual leave on these days.

The government’s decision drew flak from trade union leaders for not supporting their cause. Anand Sahu, the Bengal chief of the CITU told news agency PTI that, “The dispensation (of the TMC) is showing its true colours by opposing the strike which has been called to protest against the Narendra Modi regime’s policies against workers, farmers and general people.”

Kerala

Government offices remained closed across Kerala on the first day of the protest and the state was characterised by empty streets. This was not just restricted to public transport as reports came in of protestors stopping private vehicles from plying as well.

State-run KSRTC buses did not operate while taxis, auto-rickshaws and private buses kept away from the roads across the state. Commercial vehicles including trucks and lorries are also not plying, in solidarity with the strike.

Emergency services, however, were exempt from the bandh, which included hospital and ambulance services, as well as the delivery of milk, newspapers, and so on. State police also arranged for transport facilities for those who have reached the Thiruvananthapuram Central Railway station to travel to the Regional Cancer Centre.

Protestors, however, tried to prevent employees of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) from entering the office premises in Kochi. The Kerala high court on Friday had prevented employees from five trade unions in the company from participating in the protest.

Tamil Nadu

Similarly in Tamil Nadu, public transport has seen considerable disruptions with only 20% of buses reportedly plying. The LPF, one of the trade unions part of the joint committee which called the strike, is affiliated with the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) party in the state.

Trade union workers and members of Left parties were also seen protesting and blocking road and rail traffic in Vijaywada in Andhra Pradesh, Bhubaneswar in Odisha, among other parts of the country.

(With PTI inputs)

Modi’s Portrayal of Netaji as a Hindu Militarist Does the Secular, Socialist Bose a Disservice

By highlighting the military aspect of Bose’s personality and his Hindu credentials, the Hindu right-wing is projecting him to be in the leadership mould of the prime minister himself.

To commemorate the 125th birth anniversary of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, the Union government declared that January 23 will henceforth be observed as ‘Parakram Diwas’ or ‘Day of Valour’. This year, it came with a new plan to start the Republic Day celebrations from Bose’s birth anniversary on January 23. These developments have taken place amid long-standing demands to declare the day as ‘Desh Prem Diwas’ or ‘Day of Patriotism’, and it was being celebrated in West Bengal, Bose’s home state, as such since 2011.

It appears that the present Union government wishes to highlight Netaji’s contributions only as the head of the Indian National Army challenging the British government with arms. This goes in line with some other announcements around Netaji by the government including Moirang Day – April 14, INA Raising Day – October 21, the day Netaji went to Andaman and unfurled the flag – December 30 etc.

Bose was one of the most important leaders of the freedom movement whose popularity among the masses was perhaps second only to Gandhi. In India, where politics often gathers around larger than life figures, and history is contested not only in universities but also in political rallies, how the ruling regime is trying to portray one of the tallest leaders of the Indian freedom movement assumes importance.

In 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a speech to commemorate Netaji’s 124th birth anniversary in front of the Victoria Memorial Hall in Kolkata. It is important to read between the lines of the prime minister’s speech, since he himself, his government and his party, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), are trying to establish that the previously neglected Netaji is getting a canonical space in the freedom movement through their efforts only.

In that event, the prime minister said that on January 23, 1897, “India’s new military prowess was born.” He focused on the INA and how Netaji organised it taking great “risks” and making “sacrifices”. His emphasis was that Netaji had shown that the British “could be defeated by the brave soldiers of India on the battlefield”. The prime minister narrated how Netaji escaped from his Elgin Road house to flee the country but not before sending “his niece Ila to Dakshineswar temple to seek the mother’s blessings”. At the end, the prime minister also attributed a copy of the Bhagwad Gita (a Hindu religious text) to Bose which he kept with him and that inspired him in “flowing against the stream”.

The image that follows from the Prime Minister Modi’s description of Subhash Chandra Bose is of one austere Hindu militarist with no ideological leanings other than his own conviction in the “sacred goal”. This image contrasts sharply with the well-read, ICS qualified statesman Subhas Chandra Bose who presided over the Congress twice, represented his country at the highest of platforms and brought significant ideological energies to the Congress and the national movement.

It appears that Bose’s long political life, starting with his college days to the Kolkata Corporation to the national scene, has little (read no) relevance to the ruling dispensation and only his raising the INA and fighting the British militarily are noteworthy achievements. This image of an austere Hindu militarist, unconcerned about the means but focused solely on the end, fits the bill for the prime minister’s parent organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its aggressive Hindu nationalist rhetoric. However, Bose’s life was much more complex and these attempts at placing him in the Hindu nationalist canon can only be called crude reductionist distortions to Netaji’s legacy and his place in the freedom struggle.

It would be beneficial in this context to examine Subhas Chandra Bose’s personality and work in some detail to better appreciate what he intended for his country he so greatly loved.

Also read: Modi’s Aim Isn’t to Pay Tribute to Netaji and the Ina but to Put Mahatma Gandhi in His Place

Unity among all Indians

When Bose was young, he spent much of his time wandering to find the ‘truth’. Visits to seers and Sadhus were a regular affair along with extensive debates on the spiritual and philosophical subjects among a group of friends. He dived deep into the works of Swami Vivekananda and such was the impact that he “was thrilled to the marrow”.

For further studies, his parents sent him to the burgeoning city of Calcutta and it was here that Bose started realising the futility of founding ‘the truth’. It was impossible for the young and sensitive Bose to remain aloof to the racial discrimination practised on the streets and trams of Calcutta. Conflicts of an inter-racial nature between Britishers and Indians were a ‘rude shock’ to him. 

In July 1914, reports of the Great War filled newspapers and Bose started feeling “disillusioned about Yogis and ascetics”. Gradually, it started dawning on Subhas that “for spiritual development social service was necessary… which included the service of one’s country”. Glancing at his adolescence days in his autobiography, The Indian Pilgrim, Bose approvingly quoted Vivekananda saying “salvation will come through football and not through the Gita.” He went to Cambridge and cleared the ICS exam in 1920 but could not reconcile himself to the “principle of serving an alien bureaucracy” and resigned consequently.

His eagerness to serve the country was such that he went to see Mahatma Gandhi in Bombay the same afternoon he landed from England. Here, it should be noted that while most of his fellow-travellers in the Grand Old Party were awed by the charisma of Gandhi, “Mahatma had failed to cast his hypnotic spell on Subhas.” Cast in a different mold than his Congress brethren, Bose was the protégé of Chittaranjan Das, popularly called Deshbandhu, an esteemed lawyer, nationalist and leader of the Swaraj Party. It was C.R. Das who boldly announced as the president of the 1925 session of the All India Trade Union Congress that the Swaraj he wanted is for the ‘98%’.

Das’s work was remarkable on the front of Hindu-Muslim unity as well. Following the footsteps of Das, Bose also tried to solidify Hindu-Muslim unity, going far ahead from some of his compatriots in working to assuage the fears of the minority community. Though forming the plurality in Bengal, Muslims were far behind Hindus in the newly emerging professions, education and services. To rectify this, Das “proposed a pact between Hindus and Muslims for an equitable sharing of power and positions acquired by nationalists from the British” which the Bengal Provincial Congress Committee adopted.

When Bose became the chief executive officer of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation, he appointed a disproportionate number of Muslims in the corporation to break the Hindu monopoly. He was vehemently criticised for this but he remained firm behind the ‘just-claims’ of Muslims, Christians, and members of the depressed classes even at the cost of ‘heart-burning’ among the conservative Hindu sections. This act won him applauds from Das and Gandhi himself. Bose’s work on the Hindu-Muslim unity was such that it frustrated Vinayak Savarkar, the founder of Hindutva, who said that “Bose did not differ very much from Mahatma Gandhi, except that he went further to woo the Muslims.”

The socialist thrust was evident in Bose when he started attracting nationwide attention. It was evident after the Madras session of the Congress that Bose along with Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru were capturing the imagination of the nation’s youth and “they could see themselves as confreres in the left wing of the Congress”. 

Subhas Chandra Bose, Jawaharlal Nehru and others proceeding to the AICC meeting from 1, Woodburn Park on October 1937. Photo: Unknown photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Mass appeal of these young leaders enabled them to broaden the Congress programme to include the demand of ‘complete independence’ instead of dominion status as demanded in the All-Party Nehru Report (1928). The Hindu-Muslim issue was becoming central to the future of the country with radical appeals from both the Hindu and Muslim side becoming shriller. To tackle the drift, Bose advocated “the dawn of economic consciousness [which] spells the death of fanaticism. There is much more in common between a Hindu peasant and a Muslim peasant than between a Muslim peasant and a Muslim Zamindar.”

The 1930s were the high point of Left unity in and out of the Congress. The Congress Socialist Party was formed in 1934 and Bose was in agreement with “its general principles and policy from the very beginning” and added that he sees it “desirable for the Leftist elements to be consolidated into one party.” 

Bose worked a great deal to realise the unity of the Left – socialists, communists and the Royists – in the Congress. He believed that “without Left consolidation I do not see how we can arrive at real national unity.” He presided over the All India Trade Union Congress’ (AITUC) Calcutta session at a crucial juncture when the conflict between Leftists and Rightists was intensifying in the AITUC. He declared there that “I have no doubt in mind that the salvation of India, as of the world, depends on socialism.” When the clouds of the second World War were gathering and Bose was getting impatient with the Gandhi-led Congress’s lack of “revolutionary impulse”, he was firm that the “INC should be organised on the broadest anti-imperialist front, and should have the two-fold objective of winning political freedom and the establishment of a socialist regime.”

The undemocratic fiat exercised in the princely states was many a times ignored by Gandhian stalwarts due to several reasons like the personally cordial relations between some Gandhian leaders and many Princes and representation of the land-owning class. Bose’s stand was uncompromising here as he wanted the INC to guide the “popular movements in the States for civil liberty and responsible government.”

Watch: If Netaji Were Alive, He’d Attack Modi’s Attitude to Muslims; He Wanted Jinnah as India’s 1st PM

What Bose meant by socialism

It should be underlined here that socialism for Bose was not some vague ideal fancy. On many occasions he discussed what he means by socialism at length and had charted out programmes to achieve that goal. He wanted organisation of peasants and workers on socialistic lines, organisation of youth as Volunteer Corps, abolition of the caste system and organisation of women’s association to achieve freedom.

He clarified what he meant by socialism further as the president of the Congress Session at Haripura (1938). “If after the capture of political power national reconstruction takes place on socialistic lines – as I have no doubt it will – it is the ‘have nots’ who will benefit at the expense of the ‘haves’.” Eradication of India’s endemic poverty was the first item on his agenda for national reconstruction. For that, he wanted “radical reform of our land system, including the abolition of landlordism.”

The Congress’s approach to the question of the abolition of landlordism has been lacklustre and as Congress president, Bose gave it a definite, progressive direction. Many in the Congress right-wing represented the interests of the landed classes but more than them, Bose’s roaring call to abolish Zamindari sent chills to the Muslim League, the Hindu Mahasabha and the RSS since these organisations primarily depended on the reactionary class of Zamindars for their coffers.

Moving from agriculture, the next item on his socialist agenda was “comprehensive scheme of industrial development under state ownership and state control.” To that end, Bose advocated a Planning Commission for “gradually socialising our entire agricultural and industrial system in the sphere of both production and distribution.” Bose eventually formed a National Planning Committee to chart the future course of Indian society and economy. His Leftist comrade Nehru was made chairman of this body. It’s clear as day that the programme of Bose was diametrically opposed to the practices of incumbent Modi regime which has abolished the Planning Commission Bose established. The BJP government is pursuing rampant privatisation and selling national resources to a few cronies while Bose wanted the ‘have-nots’ to benefit at the expense of the ‘haves’.

At Haripura itself he explained that “there is an inseparable connection between the capitalist ruling classes in Great Britain and the colonies abroad. As Lenin pointed out long ago, reaction in Great Britain is strengthened and fed by the enslavement of a number of nations. The British aristocracy and bourgeoisie exist primarily because there are colonies and overseas dependencies to exploit. The emancipation of the latter will undoubtedly strike at the very existence of the capitalist ruling classes in Great Britain and precipitate the establishment of a socialist regime in that country.”

Bose thundered further, “We who are fighting for the political freedom of India and other enslaved countries of the British Empire are incidentally fighting for the economic emancipation of the British people as well.” This excerpt makes it apparent that Bose had a deep understanding of the functioning of colonialism and was connecting the people of colonies to those of the metropolis in a united struggle against capitalism. He unequivocally declared that he “stands for socialism – full-blooded socialism” with a significant qualifier that “India should evolve her own form of socialism as well as her own methods.”

Meanwhile, communal sectarianism was raising its ugly heads and fanatics from both the Hindu and Muslims sides were consolidating the conservative sections of both the communities behind their respective banners. Earlier, as president of the Congress, Bose had banned the membership of the Congress to those who are members of communal organisations like the Hindu Mahasabha and the Muslim League.

The League under M.A. Jinnah had already passed the Lahore Resolution demanding Pakistan in March 1940. The reigns of the Hindu Mahasabha were in the hands of Vinayak Savarkar who also believed that Hindus and Muslims constitute two separate nations and was trying to organise Hindus against Muslims in North India and Bengal. “Subhas Chandra Bose did not seem to have been entirely persuaded by the mainstream Congress discourse on a singular nationalism exemplified by Jawaharlal Nehru.” He was for greater flexibility in the matters of religion but communal fanaticism was absolutely intolerable for him. He noted that Savarkar “was only thinking how Hindus could secure military training by entering Britain’s army in India” and “Jinnah was then thinking only of how to realize his plan of Pakistan (division of India) with the help of the British.”

Bose came to the “conclusion that nothing could be expected from either the Muslim League or the Hindu Mahasabha” for Indian independence. 

File picture of Nehru, Mountbatten and Jinnah. Photo: Wikipedia Commons, public domain

The secular leadership

Around the same time, in Bose’s home province of Bengal, the Hindu Mahasabha was trying to polarise society and make headway among Hindus in the leadership of Syama Prasad Mookerjee, the founder of Jana Sangh and an icon of the Hindu right-wing. About that atmosphere, Bose wrote with concern that “thanks to the Hindu Mahasabha and to papers like the Amrita Bazar Patrika that have suddenly developed a rabid communalism, communal venon is being emitted from day to day, with a view to poisoning the minds of the Hindus in Bengal and elsewhere.” It appears that Syama Prasad and the Hindu Mahasabha came in conflict with Bose in the initial period itself.

Also read: Despite Appropriating Netaji, the BJP Continues to Disregard His Secular, Pluralist Worldview n

Syama Prasad recorded in his diary that “when we started organising ourselves [Hindu Mahasabha], Subhas once warned me in a friendly spirit, adding significantly, that if we proceeded to create a rival political body in Bengal he would see to it (by force if need be) that it was broken before it was really born.” It appears that Syama Prasad’s fear were not for nothing as he alleges that a public meeting they organised was “broken up by the hired agents of Subhas.” Syama Prasad’s contempt for the secular leadership Bose was giving to Bengal is visible in his slanderous accusations that Netaji was “scheming performances for keeping the [Calcutta] Corporation under his thumb”, and was lucky to get arrested in the Holwell monument case.

When Bose was organising the Left and working to bridge the widening communal chasm, Savarkar expressed contempt that Bose and his group is “obsessed with this mirage of Hindu-Muslim unity.” It is ironic and showcases the ideological bankruptcy of the Hindu right that the heirs of Syama Prasad and Savarkar are trying to pull Bose in their camp who so vehemently opposed their organisation and communal operations from the very beginning.

His escape from his Elgin Road house and reaching Germany is part of nationalist legends now. Subhas Chandra Bose taking Hitler’s assistance in his efforts to free India was perhaps the only act in his long public life that has some semblance with the RSS and the Hindu right. Here also, some evidence has emerged suggesting that before reaching Berlin, Netaji wanted to receive Soviet Union’s assistance with the support of the Communist Party of India. He tasked his nephew Amiya Bose to carry a secret letter to London to pursue that end.

During deliberation on this course of action, Netaji reportedly said “Soviet Russia could be trusted not to take advantage and occupy the country”. This plan did not work out as intended and Bose had to land in the company of Hitler. On the other hand, admiration for Hitler and his methods has been a constant theme in Sangh circles. However, they thought their energies are spent best in organising Hindus against Muslims and did nothing for Indian independence, with or without Hitler. Due to Bose operating from Fascist territory “there seemed no love lost between Subhas” and Leftist factions in and out of the Congress in India.

With great difficulty, Subhas managed to set a ‘Azad Hindustan’ radio. He raised the India Legion in Berlin numbering around 4,000 men with the springing tiger of Tipu Sultan – much despised by the Hindu right – adorning the Legion’s banner. Bose was fully aware of the international notoriety of the Hitler and his allies. He was seeking an intervention in the form of an endorsement of India’s independence from Germany, Italy and Japan but understood the ramifications of associating with these totalitarian ideologies. He distanced himself from the ideological programmes of Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo in a rare act of courage. He declared in a broadcast from Berlin that “my allegiance and my loyalty has ever been and will ever be to India and India alone, no matter in which part of the world I may live at any given time.” He was conscious as to not act as “an apologist of the Tripartite Powers” and stated in clear terms that he is not the person to defend their actions.

Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose with members of the Azad Hind Fauj, circa 1940. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Netaji taking command of the INA and making East and South Asia his theater of war is well recorded in military history. While leading the army, Subhas was also trying to make common cause with the ongoing struggles in the country. The first division of the INA under Mohammad Zaman Kiani was divided into brigades and “named after Gandhi, Nehru, and Azad in a deliberate effort”. The motto of his Azad Hind provisional government (Arzi Hukumat-e-Azad-Hind) was in Hindustani bordering Urdu: Ittehad, Itmad aur Qurbani (Unity, Faith and Sacrifice).

Back home, neither the Congress nor the Left were making efforts for enlistment in the British army. While most of the Congress leadership was in jail, the communists were soon to engage in relief work in Bengal. However, Savarkar was bent on making the most of the war for his organisation, the Hindu Mahasabha. He noted that “Japan’s entry into the war has exposed us directly and immediately to the attack by Britain’s enemies… Hindu Mahasabhaits must, therefore, rouse Hindus especially in the provinces of Bengal and Assam as effectively as possible to enter the military forces of all arms without losing a single minute.”  

It’s clear from this position of Savarkar that he was most keen on recruiting ‘Hindus’ for the British, primarily in the areas Netaji intended to liberate with his INA. The Hindu right-wing’s politics has thoroughly remained one of contempt to Netaji, his mission and his ideology.

The glorious victory in defeat for Netaji and his INA was felt all over India when the INA men were tried in the famous Red Fort trials. During the course of these public trials, newspapers columns were filled with the stories of the brave men and women of the INA and their Netaji. Congress formed a defense committee for the INA which included Bhulabhai Desai, Asaf Ali and Jawaharlal Nehru. Congress and communists publicised the details of trials and the bravery of the Indian prisoners of war under Bose.

At this time, Nehru noted that apart from the legalities, this was “a trial of strength between the will of the Indian people and the will of those who hold power in India.” The communist leadership “without shifting an iota from their inflexible anti-Fascist stand…regretted sincerely certain epithets used about Netaji.” In fact, it were the communists with the Forward Bloc who carried forward Netaji’s work whether through the Calcutta strikes (November 1945 – February 1946) or through their unflinching support and call of huge general strike in supporting the strike of the naval ratings during the Royal Indian Navy mutiny (February 1946) in Bombay.

Netaji’s personal life

This analysis of the life and work of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and his contemporaries leaves no doubt in mind that Bose was made of a different steel, incompatible with the claims of the incumbent Hindu right-wing. He was a spiritual person but abhorred communalism of any shade and termed the Hindu Mahasabha “a counterblast to the All-India Moslem League” with both trying to mobilise the conservative sections of their respective communities. He doubted their nationalist credentials many a times and believed that infighting between Hindus and Muslims is only going to strengthen the British.

Contrary to the belief and propaganda of the current Hindu nationalist dispensation which dubs the Mughals as Muslim invaders bent on destroying the Hindu culture, Bose wrote that under Mughal rule India “reached the pinnacle of progress and prosperity”. Praising Akbar, he wrote that the “state machinery which he built up was also based on the whole-hearted cooperation of the Hindu and Mohammedan communities”. Netaji also tried to achieve this cooperation in his own political life and in the functioning of the Indian National Army under very different circumstances. The RSS is infamous for not allowing women members and Savarkar, the high-priest of Hindutva advocated ‘rape as a political tool’. These go directly in opposition to Netaji’s belief in building women’s organisations and their liberation from servitude. In his Indian National Army, he made a women’s brigade under Captain Lakshmi Sehgal named after the Rani of Jhansi.

On a different question regarding the personal life of Bose, it would be interesting to see the reactions of the Hindu right since it has routinely ridiculed and insulted Rajiv Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi for their foreign connections. Their nationalist credentials have been questioned by the Hindu right solely on the basis of Sonia’s foreign origins and Rahul’s half foreign ancestry. Netaji married an Austrian woman, Emilie Schenkl whom he loved deeply. Not only Bose’s secularism, socialism and patriotism, his personal life is also hard to digest for the Hindu right and their narrow worldview.

To conclude, in trying to appropriate and laud Bose “the RSS motive is certainly not to praise Subhas but to denigrate Nehru”. Independent India is built on the solid secular, democratic foundations of the freedom struggle. Having no part in that fight against the British, the empty benches of the Hindu right in the pantheon of freedom fighters perennially haunt them. The crisis of legitimacy and lack of association with independence movement forces the RSS to look for icons on the other side of the political spectrum and try to appropriate them by reducing their image and work to fit the Hindu nationalist sectarian framework. They are doing this with Congress stalwarts like Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Madan Mohan Malviya and with the revolutionary Bhagat Singh.

Highlighting the military aspect of Bose’s personality, his Hindu credentials and spiritual drive to further the undemocratic agenda of aggressive Hindu nationalism and gaining a foothold in Bengal is fracturing and insulting the legacy of the secular, socialist and democratic Subhas Chandra Bose. Netaji Subhas was nothing like the aggressive Hindu militarist the Hindu right-wing is projecting him to be in the leadership of the prime minister himself. Reducing Netaji to mere slogans of ‘Khoon’ and ‘Azaadi’ and using his tactical disagreements with other leaders of the freedom movement to further the RSS agenda is misrepresenting and discrediting his life’s work. It needs to be said that when the statue of Subhas Chandra Bose – in full military uniform with a sword by his side – will be unveiled replacing Amar Jawan Jyoti by a right-wing regime, India would move further away from the teachings and message of our beloved Netaji.

The ‘Prince among Patriots’ was a fighter for the working classes, the peasants, the youth, the students and the women of this country. He was a crusader for communal harmony and Hindu-Muslim unity. All of these sections stand threatened today because of the aggressive, monolithic right-wing Hindu assault. It is opportune that we move by the “philosophy of activism” of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and the love he had for the men and women of his country in claiming the republic back and try build the “full-blooded socialism” he envisioned. 

Vivek Sharma is a student at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He tweets @imVivekSh

Tata Sons Win Bid for Air India: All You Need to Know About the Privatisation Process

The divestment process has taken decades to go through.

This analysis, originally published on October 8, 2021, has been republished on January 27, 2022, the day the airline was handed over to Tata Sons.

New Delhi: The decades-long process to divest government control of Air India has finally come to an end.

The winner is Tata Sons, the holding company of the Tata Group, the Narendra Modi government confirmed on Friday afternoon, confirming multiple media reports that came out last week.

A panel of ministers accepted a proposal from bureaucrats, who recommended the Tata Group’s bid of Rs 18,000 crore over an offer from a consortium led by entrepreneur and Spicejet boss Ajay Singh. In a press conference, DIPAM secretary Tuhin Pandey said that a letter of intent would be issued now and the transaction could be closed by December 2021.

Over the last 15 years, the loss-making, cash-strapped Air India has been viewed less a symbol of national pride and more an icon of the Indian government’s inability to follow through with the privatisation of a white elephant.

For Modi, the move will come as a key victory on his quest to engage with privatisation of loss-making state units as a means of plugging India’s widening budget deficit.

Source: Finance ministry

Why is this sale such a big deal? Why did it take so long? And what does the future hold for the airline under its new owner? The Wire explains.

When did the Centre try to start divesting its stake in Air India?

With the entry of private carriers in the 1990s, and then a rush of low-cost competition in the mid-2000s, Air India lost its edge in both domestic and international markets. The Maharaja not only stopped being the only option for flying overseas, but it started acquiring a reputation for poor service and hospitality.

Attempts to start selling the Union government’s stake started way back in May 2000, under the Vajpayee government, when the Cabinet decided to sell 60% of government’s shares in the carrier. However, the process collapsed within two years for a number of reasons.

In the years after that, the UPA government desperately tried to keep the airlines alive through a series of measures — a merger of Indian Airlines and Air India (2007) and a Rs 30,000 crore bailout package (2012) being the more prominent steps.

However, none of this really worked, with the airline continuing to bleed money. At the time, then-civil aviation minister Ajit Singh sparked controversy by saying that “privatisation was the only way to save Air India”.

An already rocky UPA-II government – under fire for a number of other issues – didn’t take things further though.

Then the Modi government tried to sell it, right?

Yes, but this is its second attempt in the last seven years. The first divestment initiative kicked off in 2017-18, but the government failed to receive even a single bid.

This complete lack of interest was because of a number of reasons, but two of the major factors were that the Modi government wanted to retain a minority stake in the airlines and that it wanted bidders to assume a greater portion of Air India’s debt.

So, what changed this time around?

Firstly, the Union government is offloading 100% of its stake in Air India, compared with the 76% that it had put on the block back in 2018. Supporters of the 76% move say the government had good reasons for retaining a part of its shareholding, but ultimately, no private player including the Tatas would want the government lurking in the shadows.

Secondly, the buyer will only take a little over Rs 23,000 crore of debt out of a total of Rs 60,074 crore. In the 2018 attempt, the Centre wanted the buyer to take on Rs 33,392 crore of debt.

The rest of the debt, as per the divestment plan, will be transferred to a special purpose vehicle called Air India Assets Holding Ltd (AIAHL).

For the Tatas this is a little like life coming full circle right?

Yes, J.R.D. Tata founded the airline back in 1932. It was called Tata Airlines then. In 1946, the aviation division of Tata Sons was listed as Air India and two years later, Air India International was launched with flights to Europe.

The international service was among the first public-private partnerships in India, with the government holding 49 per cent, the Tatas keeping 25 per cent and the public owning the rest.

In 1953, Air India was nationalised.

Now, after nearly seven decades, the carrier is all set to return to its original owners. Air India’s recovery though isn’t a sure thing though, and it certainly won’t be straightforward.

The Tata Group’s other two aviation investments – Vistara and Air Asia India – both are in the red.