On Mainstream’s Golden Jubilee

It is an occasion both of rejoicing and introspection for a person like me who has been associated without interruption with the Mainstream since its birth and during all the years of ups and downs. In fact, it was Nikhil Babu who taught me the skills and intricacies of journalistic writing. His associates, C.N. Chitta Ranjan, D.R. Goyal and Saral Patra, always encouraged me to continue my association.

To refresh the memory, the Mainstream came into being when India was facing a grim scenario in the wake of the Chinese invasion. The US Government, international organisations like the World Bank and IMF, and its allies both inside and outside the Indian National Congress had begun pressurising the government for accepting the American dictates. In spite of all the pressures, Nehru and the Congress refused to yield. During those days, NAM and the Soviet Union stood by India. Inside the country, a section of progressive people felt the urgency to rebuff the pressures coming from imperialist quarters and their Indian allies. One may recall that academics like K.N. Raj, Tapan Raychaudhury, Bipan Chandra and others from Delhi University not only issued statements but also staged a march in support of Nehru.

In view of the urgency demanded by the situation, Nikhil Babu started the Mainstream whose objective was to defend the ideological legacy of the national movement and Nehruvian policies such as the nonaligned foreign policy and economic policies aimed at building a modern industrialised economy which could do away with regional imbalances and socio-economic inequalities in order to strengthen integrity and unity of the country. Planning and the Industrial Policy Resolution of 1956 were to be the two important pillars of this endeavour. The Mainstream regularly explained and emphasised the salient features of the Nehruvian thinking. One may recall that it brought out a collection of relevant writings of Nehru. One of the articles included in it had rejected what is known as the “trickle-down” approach to income and wealth distribution now touted by Montek Singh Ahluwalia. It became a platform for uniting patriotic and Leftist forces.

In spite of its meagre resources, the Mainstream became a powerful force among the intelligentsia and its voice was listened to in political circles. It has always defended the ideas and values of the national movement and interests of the people at large. Even during difficulties it has not compromised. In this connection, one may recall the Emergency days when Nikhil Babu preferred to suspend the publication to yielding to the dictates of censorship. This is the reason why the journal has survived despite all the difficulties and odds and it still maintains its popularity while many other journals have come and vanished into thin air.

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Since the 1990s, the country has not only discarded the Nehruvian thinking and the path of socio-economic development charted by the national movement. It has accepted the neoliberal dispensation. Market forces with minimum of control and regulation are propelling the economy. The emphasis is on privatisation, the “trickle down” strategy of distribution and globalisation. Nobody seems to be bothered about regional disparities, social and economic inequalities and unrestrained exploitation of natural resources. As a result, what Chrystia Freeland terms in her recent book, The Plutocrats, the first gilded age with its robber barons has dawned in India when the second gilded age has been going on in America and the nexus of the two is sure to prove deadly to our country.

The Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India, Raghuram G. Rajan, some time back told the Bombay Chambers of Commerce that most of the billionaires in India lacked real entrepreneurial zeal and dynamism. They are, in fact, rentiers in character, exploiting natural resources and creating their oligopolistic position with the help of politicians. A recent paper by Aditi Gandhi and Michael Walton (EPW, October 6, 2012) lends support to this basic assertion by Rajan. They have asked whether the increasing number of billionaires in India indicates dynamism or oligarchy.

Chrystia Freeland indicates the emergence of two completely different nations in India though it formally remains one country. She points out that a distance of just a few kilometres separates the luxurious mansion of Mukesh Ambani from the slums of Dharavi but it seems they are situated in two different planets! During the Victorian era, Benjamin Disraeli in his novel Sybil referred to this phenomenon.
An article by James Crabtree, “India’s bllio-naires club” (Financial Times, November 16, 2012), describes the life-styles of these noveau riche. One of them, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, began some years ago his activities with just $100 but now has assets worth $ 1.25 billion. His every night begins “over a $ 450 bottle of whisky, on the 15th floor terrace outside his office in the heart of downtown Mumbai”. He, known as “India’s Warren Buffett”, declares with a generous glass of Johnnie Walker Blue in hand: “I like my freedom, boss. I don’t want to be answerable to anyone….That is why I can say what I want.”

Another billionaire (who is in the news these days) is Subhash Chandra, worth $ 2.9 billion. This 23rd richest Indian opines: “Our country has come through 400 or 500 years of slavery, right from the Moguls to the Portuguese, then to the British…. Our people were suppressed for maybe 80 years. That is changing.”

James Crabtree quotes Prof Ashutosh Varshney’s following opinion: “It really is a remarkable change, which has happened mostly over the last 10 years or so.” Further, “Any economy that grows as quickly as India’s has is bound to generate enormous human temptations. These very rich people have started buying politics, and the great churning in India you see against corruption is essentially against the purchase of politics by the wealthy.”

The proliferation of farmhouses is the result of the neoliberal dispensation. There are as many as 300 farmhouses in and around Delhi where each party costs not lakhs but crores of rupees. The murders of Ponty Chadha and his brother in a Delhi farm house and that of model Laila Khan in a Mumbai farmhouse indicate their ugly aspect. A report in Economic Times (November 25, 2012) has this to say: “Twenty years ago, farmhouses were palatial bungalows set up in distant rural areas by the wealthiest few in India. But in the past decade, hundreds of millionaires across the country who have seen their wealth multiply have set up farm houses on the outskirts of the city where they reside.”

Now, it is the duty of the Mainstream to bring to the attention of the intelligentsia in general and its own readers in particular the various aspects of the ongoing neoliberal dispensation. It has to aid those who are interested in working out a viable alternative rather than engaging in mere slogan-shouting. The task is onerous and very few people seem to undertake this.

The author, a well-known economist, used to teach Economics at Kirorimal College, University of Delhi, before his retirement a few years ago. He can be contacted at: gmishra@girishmishra.com