Reams of writings attempted to understand the Advaita of disinvestment as an economic policy instrument. For the last three decades, we are told that the disinvestment is a strategic weapon that governments deploy across the world to reduce the burdens on exchequer and realise the proceeds for larger public good. Anything that is government except the Government itself is approached with suspicion, be that is infrastructure, service, education, or even health.

Most of the vocal and otherwise thinking minds ate the fruit from Eden and started perceiving Satan in every public sector employee. A new breed of intellectuals made their careers with well oiled arguments defending the philosophy of disinvestment and joined chorus ‘business is not the business of the governments.’

The policy of disinvestment reached its pinnacle under the Modi dispensation. Modi’s oratory gimmick attributed an amazing ability to sort out the problems of governance to disinvestment. Given the way things are happening in India at present, it only shows that even the government of 56 inches chest has to prostrate before the market demigods. Whatever you may name it, the ultimate aim of policy prescription is to benefit the private capital at the expense of nation’s wealth. There are two examples before the country whose rationale cannot even defended by Adi Shankara, the demigod of Advaita philosophy. Let us consider those two examples.

Vodafone Idea, the third biggest cellular network in India reeling under Rs. 1.95 lakh crore debt burden, including Rs. 16,000 crores interest payable to government of India. Vadafone offered to allot 35 % equity share to government in lieu of interest burden. Central government is happy to do so. That too this happened when one of the country’s monopoly capitalist group Mahindra declared that he can’t set the Vodafone’s financial record straight and walked out of the joint venture.

The second case in question is Air India sale. As it is clear by now, the firm floated by Tata paid cash of Rs. 2,700 crores, to acquire full ownership of the nation’s premier flying company, Air India. The reserve price fixed for this sale is mere Rs. 12,906 crores for a firm that had 112 wide winged aircrafts, 24 narrow winged aircrafts, 4,400 domestic and 1,800 international flight landing and parking slots at various airports across the country. The central government wanted us to believe that only 7 companies thought of participating in bidding process, that too five were disqualified due to technical reasons. Only Tata’s business development team caught the imagination of policy makers and stood out as successful bidder! For this and for several other reasons, the Air India sale is filled with an air of suspicion. If one goes by reply dated July 21 to the Parliament by way of written reply, we have to believe that through this sale, the government realised full cost through this sale process. What is the cost of this deal to the nation’s exchequer, is the question. The nation was bombarded with commentary and even some editorials flayed the government for its failure to sell Air India.

On the completion of this sale, almost all the news makers commented that the prodigal son finally returned home. This is to remind the readers that the Air India was originally owned by JRD Tata and later it was nationalised in newly born independent India. Missing details in this narration is the fact that the Nehru government nationalised Air India only after paying due compensation to the promoters.

There are enough clues available in public domain that the central government, since 2018, consistently relaxed and revised the conditions of the sale to suit the interests of a selected bidder. Under whose behest these relaxations were granted is the core question the nation warrants transparent answers. Even before the commencement of sale process, while fixing the eligibility criteria, the committee of secretaries opined, as reported by Business Standard, that the government should not insist on negative net worth of bidders, if they are already in airlines business. It is noteworthy that all the airlines’ net worth, including Vistara owned by Tatas, was showing negative growth.

In 2018, the Air India’s outstanding debt was Rs. 33,392 crore. Surprisingly, within the span of a year and a half, the outstanding debt rose to Rs. 61,562 crores by August 2021! That means, Air India’s accumulated debt for about 68 years was only Rs. 33,392 crores and in just two years it accumulated additional debt burden of Rs. 28,170 crores! This single point itself proves who is best manager of the public assets. What the nation is told that, is that once the sale is effected, the government will realise handsome amount which will be useful to offset the debts at least, if not making profit from the sale. As on sale date, the outstanding debt stood at Rs, 61,562 crores by August 2021. Surprisingly, once the decision to sell is finalised, on the pretext of making the bid attractive for the prospective bidders, the government simply floated an Air India Asset Holding Company and transferred 50 % of Air India’s consolidated debt to this asset holding company. This simply reduced the amount to be realised from the sale deed to half of actual amount.  

When the sale process was initially conceived, it was decided by the Cabinet committee on Economic Affairs that the government will retain 26 % stake in the company and only 74 % is proposed to put up for sale. It was also decided that the successful bidder has to take over 70 % of Air India’s debt. Stating no bidder expressed interest, in the year the government altered the conditions of sale, the government took two contentious decisions. Firstly, government put up 100 % of the stake on sale. Secondly, it gave discretion to the bidder to chose to what extent it would take the quantum of debt! After giving these two key concessions, the qualified bidders are asked to present their financial plan. The government also got parliamentary nod to spend Rs. 62,057 crores to clear all outstanding dues and liabilities of the Air India. That means, the share at stake has gone up by 25 % but the cost of the bid stands same.

This brings us full circle. First government reduced the cost of the bid by half, thereby imposing a burden of about Rs. 30,000 crores on the exchequer. On the other hand, instead of repaying the outstanding dues from sale proceeds, government cleared all dues by spending Rs. 62,057 crores from exchequer. If we add both these, to off load the Air India to Tata, government had holes in its finances to the tune of staggering Rs. 92,000 crores! The story does not end here. The Tata’s got commitment from the public sector banks consortium, a loan of approximately Rs. 33,000 crores at the interest rate of mere 4 -5 percent. One must remember that Air India till now paid 9 % interest rate on its outstanding debts. But the public sector banks are willing to grant loan at the servicing charge half what they charged from the public sector undertaking. Thus, the series of concessions offered to the successful bidder is nothing short of scam which needs to be thoroughly and impartially looked into by nothing short of a Joint Parliamentary Committee.

*Author is freelance writer, former member, central working committee, All India Agricultural Workers Union

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Recently the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaram issued a long statement in an attempt to defend the indefensible. At the end of the statement, she made it categorically clear that reducing prices of petroleum products is not possible till 2026.

I don’t know whether it is a commitment to reduce prices after that. The key question that comes up from her statement is whether collecting nearly Rs. 22 lakhs crores to repay just Rs. 2.38 lakhs crore dues, is justified?

Let us collate the data presented to the Parliament over the years by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, and juxtapose the same with the FM’s assertions.

She presented several fallacious arguments changing the goal post continuously, in tune with the tradition of BJP beginning from depositing Rs. 15 lakhs into bank accounts of each Indian. Her statement is primarily motivated by the fact that the public at large is grudging against the perennial price rise, which is reflected in the latest edition of Mood of The Nation Survey by India Today. But it is motivated by Amit Malviya, head of BJP’s IT cell, the churning house of fake news and also social media postings Hindutva brigade coated with sweat and lemon. I am surprised to know the fact that BJP’s IT cell is more knowledgeable about the public finances than the finance minister.

Way back in 2018, a similar statement was issued by the then minister for petroleum and natural gas, Dharmendra Pradhan, who argued that the constant increase of petro prices is inevitable as the government wants funds to subsidise food security. This contention is also false as the expenditure on account of food security is reduced from Rs. 1,39,419 crores in financial year 2015-16 to Rs. 1,08,688 crores by 2019-20. Moreover, the central government saved a good amount of money from subsidies on petroleum products. The central government subsidy on petrol stood at Rs 85,378 crores in FY 2013-14 whereas it came down to Rs. 24,460 by 2018-19, amounting to a saving of nearly Rs. 60,000 crores. Same as the case with the savings from reduced subsidies on kerosene supplied through the Public Distribution System (PDS) and LPG. Central government subsidies on kerosene supplied through public distribution shops stood at Rs. 31,255 crores in 2013-14 FY whereas it came down to Rs. 6,067 crores in 2018-19 FY. A point-by-point comparison reveals that about Rs. 25,000 crores were saved by cutting subsidies on kerosene. Similarly, an amount of Rs. 30,000 crores saved by cutting down subsidy on LPG. Put together The BJP government over the last six years saved an amount Rs. 1.15 lakh crore by constantly reducing the subsidies on petro products.

Another important reason to continue with price rise is the ‘under recoveries’ argument. An under recovery for a petroleum products marketing company is the gap between final cost of finished product and the actual amount it realised in sales. The decades of 1990s and 2000s when the international oil prices were highly volatile and surging ahead due to America’s war on West Asian countries. As the governments of the day here are little more sensitive to the concerns of the public, they used to refrain from increasing petro prices the way it is happening now. Sensitivity to the public mood or the public concern is the key difference between the previous governments and the current one headed by Modi. This argument was prevalent in the last decade but no one is paying heed to it now. The reason behind this is a reality. The reported under-recoveries in the financial year 2012-13 stood at Rs. 1,61,029 crores and it came down to Rs. 28,249 crores in 2017-18 FY. We could not see any amount mentioned against this head in the latest annual reports of the ministry of petroleum and natural gas. That means over the period, the petroleum companies recovered their dues in full. Thus, an additional amount of Rs. 1.40 lakhs crore has been mobilised through day-to-day price manipulation of petro products. This could only be possible when the constantly increased prices of petro products factors a percent of price towards this end.

As it is well known by now, a whopping Rs. 18.11 lakhs crores were accrued to the central government under Modi’s rule by way of central excise tax, reflecting a 400 percent increase from 2014-15 to 2020-21. This is the only index that shows constant progression apart from stock market indices Approximately another Rs. 12 lakhs crores accrued to the states. Cumulatively the state and central governments made a hole in the people’s purse to the tune of Rs 32.66 lakhs crores of which Rs. 20.66 lakhs crores went directly to the central government! The reason for this, according to the BJP’s IT cell and our beloved finance minister, is to repay the oil bonds raised by the UPA government.

As I mentioned above, the UPA government, due to coalition compulsions, was more sensitive to the public mood and amenable to criticism and people’s struggles. This core aspect of governance is missing from current dispensation. The issuance of oil bonds was also the resultant policy framework adopted by then finance ministers. UPA wanted to reduce the burden of under recoveries to the oil marketing companies while reducing the price burden on the common man. With this dual goal the then central government issued oil bonds. Accordingly, consumers were able to get the petro products at artificially reduced prices. That is a fact which no one can deny. But the UPA government was compelled to do so due to the reasons beyond its control over international oil prices.

There is no such international compulsion on today’s BJP government in terms of international oil price pressures. But despite that it went on constantly increasing the prices. The cost of oil bonds issued by UPA government costs to the exchequer at Rs. 2.38 between 2014 to 2026. If the pace of central excise duties continues till 2026 FY, the accruals to the exchequer would be to the tune somewhere between 40 – 50 lakhs crores. That means, the central government designed a method that enables credit of an amount 200 times higher than it is supposed to pay without any formal policy announcement, concerns to the pitiable conditions on the part of common man or even without any parliamentary oversight. This is the loot that was happening in broad daylight over the last seven years. To justify this broad day loot of hard-earned money from the public, the finance minister roped in a fallacious logic which can’t stand bare minimal scrutiny.

This is where we need to look at recent American experience on deflecting the public attention. The US government spent about Rs. 750 lakhs (Two trillion dollars) on the so-called Afghan war code named Operation Enduring Freedom. The successive governments went away with imposing unbearable burden on the world economy only by flagging up false comparisons, suppressing real facts, popping up artificial and customised arguments so that the public would not question the ground reality. This came to light only when the US appointed a special investigation authority to look into what went wrong in its Afghan operations. What is happening in India at this moment is nothing short of what happened in the US in the case of the Afghan war, wantonly misleading the public attention, structuring artificial reasons, creating fake situations to deceit the people about the original intent of the rulers. From the repeated expositions about the fallacies constructed before the nation, it is on the part of ordinary Indians whether to consume the false arguments or take on those who are constantly deflecting the nation’s attention from real issues.

*The author is a former CWC member of All India Agricultural Workers Union. Views expressed are his own.

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For more than over a month since last week of April, when the Supreme Court took suo moto cognisance of the Covid 19 situation, the apex court is seeking a detailed road map to fight Covid 19 from the central government. In its May second week affidavit the central government defending its stand, told the Supreme Court, “In the context of a global pandemic where the response and strategy of the nation is completely driven by expert medical and scientific opinion, there is not even a little room for judicial interference.”

The central government went to the extent that the Supreme Court does not have competence when the affidavit says  “ Any overzealous, though well meaning judicial intervention may lead to unforeseen and unintended consequences, in absence of any expert advice or administrative experience, leaving the doctors, scientists, experts and executive very little room to find innovative solutions on the go”. It is obvious that the Supreme Court is not amused by the contentions of the government. The June 2, 2021 directive of the Supreme Court giving a months’ time to the central government to clarify how Rs. 35,000 crores earmarked for procuring the vaccine have been spent so far compels us to take a fresh look at the budget papers once again.

Nirmala Sitaraman, right from her days as spokesperson of BJP is known for her oratory skills. Through her 2021-22 budget speech, the central government bolstered its image by informing the House, “Today, India has two vaccines available, and has begun medically safeguarding not only her own citizens against COVID-19, but also those of 100 or more countries.” amidst the cheers of the usual drum beaters. She also told Parliament, “38. I have provided `35,000 crores for Covid-19 vaccine in BE 2021-22. I am committed to provide further funds if required.”

The budget speech had not stopped here. It went on to state, “39. The Budget outlay for Health and Wellbeing is `2,23,846 crores in BE 2021-22 as against this year’s BE of `94,452 crores, an increase of 137 percentage. The details of the same are at Annexure I of the Speech.” The said Annexure 1 clearly mentioned Rs. 35000 crores for vaccination. But surprisingly the same is not reflected in the final budget documents. A detailed presentation of allocation for the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare is given at pages 155 to 172 in the expenditure budget volume. The summarised table given below is drafted from the budget papers itself where we cannot find a single mention about the allotment against vaccine procurement.

But under the Central Sector Schemes/ projects subheading, there was a new entry titled COVID -19 Emergency Response and Health System Preparedness Package – EAC we find three entries in the revised budget 2020-21. An amount of 11756.97 crores under three components (Rs. 95 crores for National Institute of Communicable Deceases, Rs. 4724 crores against Central Procurement of Supplies and Materials for Covid 19 and another Rs. 6937.36 diverted from National Rural Health Mission grants to meet the requirements of Covid 19 Emergency Response Package. Surprisingly, the same was prematurely discontinued in the 2021-22 budget estimates, which clearly indicates the mood in the establishment that India had not only reined in Covid 19 and developed sufficient protective walls but was also supplying vaccine for more than 100 countries ! In such a situation where will the supposedly allocated Rs. 35,000 crores for vaccine procurement comes from? This can only explained by believers of Advaita philosophy which can be summarised Gajam Midhya – Palayanam Midya (There is no elephant and hence there is no question of attempting to escape).

The Centre’s great numbers game does not stop here. In the annexure to the budget speech the Finance Minister had stated on the floor of the house that other than the allocations for department of Health and Family welfare, the allocations for vaccination are presented as two separate entries which totals 1.06 lakhs crores ! In a post budget interview the secretary for department of Expenditure stated that this allocation is sufficient for vaccinating 50 crores population for free. But the same is not reflected in the Demands for Grants budget.

Even after the central government was caught red handed for faking budget allocations, this bluffing has not been stopped. The Union government resorted to a blatant lie to cover-up its disingenuous unethical practice of spreading fake news. In such an attempt, responding to the criticism about zero allocations for vaccine procurement, the ministry of finance stated that the said amount is mentioned under the subhead ‘Transfers to States’. Moreover the statement says, “Firstly, because expenditure on vaccine is one-off expenditure outside the normal Centrally Sponsored Schemes of the Health Ministry, separate funding ensures easy monitoring and management of these funds. Also, this grant is exempted from the quarterly expenditure control restrictions applicable to other demands. This helps to ensure that there is no hindrance in the vaccination programme,”

The transfers to state governments were present in previous budgets as well. Even the budget documents for 2021-22 have clearly mentioned about the Transfers to States allocations that the allocations which earlier used to be known as Grants in Aids to States / UTs have not been changed to Transfers to State/UTs as per the recommendations of Finance Commission. This is not a new subhead opened up under the Modi regime.

The fact is that to comply with the Supreme Court directives and submit the details of expenditure of Rs. 35,000 crores, the government appears to be indulging in “file notings” and other back end exercises to “make good” its unethical budgetary practices.

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Recently a column titled “How Karl Marx’s grandson fought for Savarkar against British in International Court of Justice” was shared widely. It was written by Arun Anand, a believer of RSS ideology, heading VicharVinimay Kendra for The Print web edition. The title of the article itself is mischievously phrased in such a manner to raise doubts in the minds of people who follow rational thinking in general and in particular the followers of the Left.

Sum and substance of the argument presented in that article is that the grandson of Karl Marx who follows Marx ideology himself supported Savarkar, considered him as India’s freedom fighter and his ideology whereas the Marxists in India are dead against his ideology. The argument presented here is intended to achieve two goals. Firstly, RSS’s think tanks endeavour to transform a deeply contentious and divisive ideologue into a world scale leader who was and has been accepted and revered by all, cutting across the political or ideological differences. Secondly to seed doubts over the staunch opposition of Left in India in general and Marxists in particular to Savarkar’s idea of Hindu Rashtra i.e Hindutva.

Let us look into facts of Marx’s grandson’s alleged endorsement of Savarkar and his ideology.

As it is part of history now, Savarkar tried to escape from British mercantile ship SS Morea while transporting him from London to Mumbai to face court proceedings pending against him at the then Bombay. On being pursued by British police authorities escorting him on SS Morea, the French police personnel caught Savarkar and handed over to British authorities. This was considered as an affront on the right to political asylum in France, the opposition parties, particularly the socialists took it up as a civil rights issue of subjects of the French territory. Most of the socialists in Europe rallied behind the French Socialists. Finally yielding under the pressure from public opinion, French government filed a case of arbitration whose verdict sided with British authority to take Savarkar back into their custody. (Source: https://legal.un.org/riaa/cases/vol_XI/243-255.pdf.)

We should be careful about this fact. The case before the International Court of Justice was the principle “Once alyssum is refused is returned to the native authority cannot be extradited back as asylum holder.” (Source: https://lawhelpbd.com/case/savarkar-case-1911/) But not in the case of Savarkar and his ideology or his role in India’s freedom movement. It was also a case about territorial rights and respecting the international treaties between France and Great Britain. The author mischievously presented this as a case in which Jean Longuet, socialist leader and grandson of Karl Marx became a vocal supporter of Savarkar and his cause. This kind of false proposition can be made out only by undercutting the specific context of the issue in discussion. This is not a new phenomenon for Sangh ideologues. They intend to give a completely different picture by reordering the sequence, changing the phrases used, picking a selected vocabulary out of context and placing it in today’s political context to make their case genuine for laymen. 

In his commitment to civil rights in general and political asylum rights in particular, as leading intellectual of the French socialist movement of the day, Jean Longuet questioned the authority of British over a subject landed on French territory. While doing so Longuet in his affidavit filed before the International Court of Justice used the word Hindu on several occasions which was a prevalent phenomenon of European writings to use this word to refer to India and Indians. This usage is deliberately being used to showcase as if Longuet endorsed Savarkar’s ideology of Hindutva. This can be seen from the fact that Longuet while referring to Tilak, the towering political personality of the times, and noted freedom fighter as leader of Hindu nationalist party.

Let us quote two sources to establish our contention. Longuet in his commentary in the socialist newsweekly that he edited, L’Humanite , on 12 July wherein he states, “ But it is quite impossible that the matter can be allowed to rest there. In delivering up a political refugee the Marseilles authorities admitting that they had acted on their own initiative have committed an outrage of which account will most assuredly be demanded and in respect of which the sanction of the state itself is necessary.” The Daily Press which is allegedly pro-establishment in its contemptuous comment stated that it was because of Savarkar’s compatriot who lobbied with the French Socialists to take up the cause of right to political asylum. The French newspaper Petit Provincial, a detailed article published titling The Odyssey of a Revolutionary Hindu argued that the arrest of Savarkar and attempt to hush up will be negation of French character and any defence of individual liberty. Petit clearly informed that the Indians (Hindu colony) in Paris, requested Jaurès and Cadenat to intercede into the matter.

Jean Longuet, after reconstructing the sequence of events, concluded his arguments by exposing the Britains double standards of claiming to have been a safe refuge for revolutionaries of other countries in the past, but doing quite the opposite with a revolutionary who challenged their power, “As for violent means, if their employment were sufficient to qualify as murderers or those who advocate anarchist means, England would never have boasted of being in the last century, the  mother of exiles’, the haven of Mazzini, Kossuth, Karl Marx, Garibaldi, refugees from the Commune or the Russian Revolution, as well as French monarchists and dethroned sovereigns after the revolutions of 1830, 1848, and 1870.” (Source: Savarkar: Echoes from A Forgotten Past, page 305). Nowhere in his articles written in this context and in his pleading before ICJ, Longuet endorsed the Hindutva ideology professed by Savarkar at his later part of the life.

(Source: https://savarkar.org/en/pdfs/L_Humanite_translation.pdf)

The international court of justice adjudicated in favour of Britain. There was a huge cry in Europe’s progressive media over the ICJ judgement. The Morning Post decried it as something that had reduced the right to asylum and the international law to farce.

Thus, the whole episode construing Marx grandson’s advocacy for Savarkar’s right to political asylum as his support to ideology professed by Savarkar is the best example how Sangh Parivar constructs its own history out of vacuum in a deceitful manner. The Hindutva ideology was construed by Savarkar during his times at Andaman’s Cellular jail but not during his previous avatar as freedom fighter nor during his days of stay at Gray’s Inn, London. But the Parivar think tanks are bent upon to prove the fact that Savarkar was an avowed Hindutva ideologist from his initial days. This is nothing but hagiography of Sangh’s mark. Nor Longuet was wrong in standing in defence of the right to political asylum and standing for the independence movements of third world countries, which was and is the tradition of Communist and Socialist parties since Marx.

*The author is a scholar in the field of Dalit and Minorities studies.

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