#195 Missing In Action Is Here

Wishing You a Great 2023

Others might begin the new year with resolutions, but we prefer excuses. Last year, we wrote only 42 editions. There was much to do in the remaining ten weeks. There was the Football World Cup, a few time-offs, a couple of vacations, and of course, a lapdog ate our laptops. If these honourable reasons weren’t enough, we add another: we wrote a book!

Our book Missing in Action: Why You Should Care About Public Policy will be published on 23 January 2023. Like this newsletter, it is a 'pop' public policy book in which we explain concepts through stories rooted in the Indian context.

We couldn’t have asked for a more helpful and encouraging team than our friends at Penguin India, who got us over the line and in time for a Republic Day release. The book is ready for pre-order now. You will have to excuse us for a bit of promotion that we will do over the next month or so on these pages. 

So what’s the book about?

At the heart of the book is our belief in the core objective of public policy. It should increase the welfare of the citizens. Like the verse from Bhagavad Gita goes:

अनन्याश्चिन्तयन्तो मां ये जनाः पर्युपासते।तेषां नित्याभियुक्तानां योगक्षेमं वहाम्यहम्।।9.22।।

That word - Yogakshema - to preserve the prosperity and welfare of citizens is what public policy should be about. 

We write this newsletter with the hope that it will, in its small way, move the needle on discourse. The book is a logical extension of this hope. Hope, as Andy Dufresne taught us, ‘is a good thing; maybe the best of things’.

We are hopeful about the future of India, but not in a misguided nationalistic way. We believe we can make an impact, however small, on the demand side of the policy equation. That making people aware of policy choices and helping them anticipate the unintended will lead to a change in the supply side of politics. There are two preconditions for this to happen, which we assume hold true. One, people have time and mental space available for discussions that matter to their lives. Two, a belief we can arrive at what’s good for us through those debates and discussions.

In the book, we have taken the citizens as the point of reference and elaborated on their interactions with the state, the market and the society. Think of the book as a primer to understanding the fundamentals that underpin these interactions. We cover why we need a state or the markets, what is the role of society and how the three interplay among them. We go back to the foundational texts on political philosophy and economy in the book to explain the core concepts of public policy but in what we hope is an accessible fashion. We have tried to avoid jargon and approached all topics using first principles. Like the 16th century Bhakti poet, Nabha Dasa, who compiled the life of every saint from time immemorial in Bhaktamala, wrote:

"Jaat na puchhie saadhu ki, poochh leejie gyan,

mol karo kirpan ka, padi rahne do mian"

("Do not ask for the antecedents of a learned saint. Only seek their wisdom. The true worth is what’s within us and not what you see from outside.")

We have been ecumenical in our approach in this book.

The other thing you might find interesting in the book is our focus on finding examples in the Indian context to illuminate a point or to make a case for our arguments. This will contextualise a lot of the discussions in the book to our immediate environment, and we hope it will make our reasoning clearer to our readers. Further, we have tried to keep ourselves free of dogma in the book. We have strong faith in markets, but we understand their limitations and the critical role of the state and society. We have been open to knowledge from all sources and have challenged our premises and priors before stating our point of view. Lastly, the tone of the book is conversational, and it is filled with some of our usual groan-inducing Bollywood references. 

Special thanks to all of you for reading us and engaging with us. Without your encouragement, we wouldn’t have attempted a book. And now that we have said such good things go buy the book!

Truth be told, we are a tad nervous about how the book will be received. We hope you will enjoy reading it and recommending it to others. Show it some love, friends and order it now. 

Thanks

Pranay & RSJ

India Policy Watch: How Did I Do On My Predictions For 2022?

— RSJ 

Each year I start with a prediction post. But before I get down to my predictions for 2023 (which I will in the next edition), there’s the unfinished business of how I fared on the predictions that I made in 2022. So, here’s a look back at the year through the lens of my predictions at the start of the year.

Economy - Prediction #1 

This is what I wrote:

“we will be in the 5-5.5 per cent growth range (if you take the base of FY 21). Inflation (CPI) will be around 5 per cent with an occasional jump to 6 per cent during the year despite threatening to go out of control. Maybe three interest rate hikes (a total of 75 bps) during the year will keep a lid on it. Public markets will moderate a bit (around 10 percent upside).... China won’t attract it (foreign capital) as it will continue to go down the path of self-reliance and its notion of an equal society.”

Result: No one could see the Ukraine war coming back when I made the predictions. Notwithstanding that, I think I got the growth and the inflation prediction in the ballpark. The war threw the interest hike prediction off totally. Instead of a 75 bps hike over the year, we got a 225 bps increase. I think, on balance, the Indian economy did quite well in 2022, given the headwinds. Domestic consumption was strong; we weathered the peaking of oil and commodity rates quite well, the twin balance sheet problem is now behind us, and by the end of the year, we saw private Capex growing. Not a bad state of affairs. I would have taken this happily at the start of the year. 

Overall, I’d give a 6/10 on this prediction.

Economy - Prediction #2

“There won’t be much to write about reforms. Some attempts at piecemeal MSP reforms will be attempted to make up for the repealed farm laws. The National Monetisation Pipeline will get going but the progress will be modest. A couple of more disinvestment proposals of PSUs (including banks) will be taken up. But this will be for raising revenues rather than a planned strategy to make PSUs market competitive. The LIC IPO will just go over the line and that will be the big event to showcase reforms.”

Result: Got that pretty much spot on. Maybe an 8/10.

Politics - Prediction #1 & 2

Here’s what I wrote:

“BJP election machine will continue its winning run barring the odd defeats in Punjab and Goa. The big prize, UP, will be fought hard but BJP will win a safe majority. The bahujan vote of the depleted BSP will shift to it more than to SP and that will make all the difference.”

“There will be a split in the Congress. The party in its current form is untenable and beyond a point, there will be nothing to lose for those who split it. The key question is who will lead it - those who have a political base and think Congress leadership is a liability that cannot be carried along any further, or those without a political base but with strong ideological opposition to the BJP. My guess is it will be the latter. In any case, it won’t make much of a difference.”

Result: Punjab went the way I had guessed. Goa was close. Congress didn’t split but it lost senior leaders like Capt. Amarinder Singh and Ghulam Nabi Azad among others. And despite the Bharat Jodo Yatra, which has only been in the news because people cannot believe Rahul Gandhi has sustained it for so long, I don’t think Congress improved its election prospects dramatically this year.

Society - Prediction #1

“Expect love jihad and anti-conversion laws in various states, some kind of population control bill, a revival of CAA and a push for a uniform civil code during the year. There’s that early 20th century Europe playbook of stoking demographic anxiety that plays on a threat to the survival of a civilisation or a way of living. The pitch will be queered on this. Indian society is a fertile ground for it. This land can be shown to its people as a palimpsest. But it can, perhaps more easily, be shown as a glorious, ancient civilisation that’s been asphyxiated for centuries by ‘outsiders’. A true revival of it requires setting the past records straight and the right demographic arithmetic.”

Result: Well, there was the usual noise around a lot of these issues but, thankfully, we had a somewhat muted year on legislating these. This didn’t mean that the media mouthpieces and influential voices within and outside the government went slow on stirring the pot on these topics. We have reached a point where turning back on these issues will be difficult. It remains the one faultline that can derail our economic prospects that look surprisingly good at this moment. I will give myself a 7/10 as much as I want to score a zero here.   

Society - Prediction #2

“Politics is driven by the idea of having an enemy; the other. For much of the last decade, this was the left-liberal cabal (Lutyens, Khan market, NYT, Soros, Amnesty etc). Even when much of news and propaganda came to be dominated by the right-wing, there was a strawman of this all-powerful cabal of anti-nationals that was kept alive because the notion of an enemy is critical. But once you have decimated it, what do you do? You look for the enemy within.”

Result: I will be the first to admit that I am still amazed at how this prediction isn’t yet true. There are still imaginary left cabals to be fought against. It is a measure of both the enterprise of the propaganda machinery and the gullibility of ordinary voters that we are still drinking up all the kool-aid that we are being served on how anti-India interests are still the ‘establishment’ in India and globally. There's still a long way to go before finding the enemy within your camp to fight. I will give a 5/10 on this. 

Miscellaneous - Prediction #1

“There will be serious big tech regulations that will come into play in America. Others will follow suit. India will have a version of this along with dollops of atmanirbharta. This will mean some tough days for big consumer tech giants in India.”

Result: Some big tech regulations have come into play in the US, and the collapse of FTX will lead to further clamping down. India came down heavily on Chinese apps and made life difficult for consumer-facing tech giants like Amazon, Meta and Alphabet. I expect this to continue. I guess a 7/10 on here will be about right. 

Miscellaneous - Prediction #2

“China will struggle for growth. Demographics, debt and delusion have come together in China in a way that will make it difficult for it to sustain growth. China-Russia relationship will get stronger with their support for each other and for other authoritarian regimes around the world.”

Result: Even without the Ukraine war, I thought this was how it was going to play out. It only became stronger with the war. I think I got a 9/10 there. 

Miscellaneous - Prediction #3

“Meta, Crypto, Decentralisation, NFT (and everything else pumped up by the Valley tech bros) will see their hype abate (about 25-30 percent drop in asset value). When John Terry starts buying Bored Ape NFTs, you know the whole thing has jumped the shark. About time too.”

Result: I should have followed my gut more and doubled down on this last year. I could sense a big correction, and a large-ish collapse was in the offing in this space. But I stopped short of calling a mini meltdown in this space. But that’s how it turned out by the end of the year. An 8/10 here.

So, there we are with how I fared on last year’s predictions. I will come back next week with a few specific and somewhat contrarian predictions for 2023. 

Not(PolicyWTF): Making Education Profitable

This section looks at surprisingly sane policies

- Pranay Kotasthane

The University Grants Commission (UGC) released draft regulations earlier this week, permitting foreign universities to set up Indian campuses. While the draft needs some much-needed improvements, this reform is in the right direction. For the moment, keep the programmatic part of the policy aside. It’s the politics of this move that caught my attention.

Ritika Chopra in the Indian Express reminds us that the first such attempt was made in 1995. Another one in 2005-06 never made it past the cabinet. Then in 2010, the UPA government brought in another bill. The Foreign Educational Institutions (Regulation of Entry and Operations) Bill, 2010 was introduced in the Lok Sabha, a Standing Committee gave some suggestions, the government sat on it for three years, and it was tabled again in 2013. By 2014, the UPA was voted out, and the bill lapsed.

It’s interesting to observe how the Overton Window has changed on this issue. The 2010 bill was far less radical than the draft UGC regulations being proposed now. That bill disallowed foreign universities from repatriating any money abroad, it mandated that interested entities have a corpus fund of at least Rs 50 crores, and it allowed only entities that had operated for at least 20 years. Despite these unreasonable restrictions, the Left and the BJP still found the bill too permissive and buried it.

The Left had a far greater influence on the matter as it was a part of the ruling coalition. I went back to check the best form of arguments put forward by the Left. True to form, they argued that this bill would encourage “commercialisation” of education. The CPM said it would open the ‘floodgates for weakening and dismantling the public education system in higher education. And India could be atmanirbhar in developing a higher education system; we need no help from anyone.

Shouldn’t we reflect on how much this ideological opposition cost us? What was the number of people who went ahead to get quality education in other countries, including in risky countries like Ukraine and Kazakhstan? Blocking foreign educational institutes for equity reasons is akin to banning people from eating Sushi just because India still has a large poor population. Forget the fact that a former General Secretary of the CPM is himself an alumnus of a British university.

The BJP’s objection predictably was that the courses offered could ‘adversely affect the sovereignty and integrity of India’. That insecurity hasn’t subsided, and the new draft regulations have an explicit clause forbidding such courses.

We can interpret the new draft regulations as an example of the Overton Window stretching on this issue. On some counts, it has extended the boundaries of freedom by allowing people to have more options within India while allowing foreign universities to repatriate money back home. It’s a hesitant acknowledgement that profit-making in education is not bad. On the other hand, the Window has also stretched toward “lesser freedom” with clauses banning certain types of courses, effectively implying that non-controversial “technology” universities might receive preference over liberal arts universities.

Real-life policymaking is often a search for the second-best option. So I’ll take the door left ajar, rather than it remaining closed altogether.

HomeWork

Reading and listening recommendations on public policy matters

* [Podcast] Some predictions for 2023 by the Puliyabaazi team

* [Book] Optimally Irrational: Good Reasons Why We Behave The Way We Do is promising.

* [Article] Many editions ago, we wrote about the EU ban on chargers, warning that it could come to India as well. That ban is here though, and we again reiterate why it is counterproductive.

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