Slowing economic growth, a bloated government deficit and a desperate need to boost investment. Such were the grim circumstances under which Finance Minister P Chidambaram stepped up in parliament on Thursday to deliver the last budget before general elections in 2014. The build-up was immense and expectations were running high. Although the Budget was never going to be a silver bullet making India’s economic woes magically disappear, it did present Mr Chidambaram with the perfect opportunity to set the scene for a healthier economy and convince financial markets that the government is committed to bringing India back on a sustainable path of growth. This was seeming all the more probable because of the bold and encouraging actions taken recently, like hiking rail fares for the first time in a decade and allowing companies to raise diesel prices in small monthly increments. But in the event, the Budget disappointed, with a long list of small policy measures, but no real efforts to address the broader problems plaguing the economy.

India’s fiscal deficit has widened considerably since 2010 and the sovereign credit rating is hovering just one notch above junk status. So the threat of a rating downgrade is one of the most imminent risks to the economic outlook at the moment. Being fully cognizant of this, Mr Chidambaram was careful to deliver a “responsible” Budget, with no obvious giveaways, despite the upcoming elections next year. But the policies announced to rein in the deficit lacked vision and appear to be aimed at short-term gains. For instance, there was an undue focus on cutting capital expenditure, which according to the government’s estimates has been slashed by INR 75,000 crore in 2012/13. While this may well have the desired effect of hitting the deficit target of 5.3% of GDP this fiscal year, it is an unsustainable strategy that risks hurting the economy’s supply potential in the medium- to long-term. In the same vein, while the 10% surcharge for people earning INR 1 crore or more per annum is likely to increase tax revenues in the short-term, its effectiveness is questionable in the long-term. Not only does it raise the risk of tax evasion, it could also discourage highly paid individuals from working in India, which would eventually hurt growth as well. These policies, while barely sufficient to prevent the sovereign credit rating from being downgraded to junk status, just don’t have what is required to get the economy back to its potential growth rate of around 8%.

Instead of resorting to these quick-fix measures for bringing down the budget deficit, Mr Chidambaram would have been better off focusing on cutting current expenditure, which is a more efficient and pro-growth approach. But in this regard, he fell short of expectations of spelling out further detail on reducing fuel subsidies – a process which had already begun in September 2012 when diesel prices were raised by 45 paise per litre.

Another pressing need of the hour is to enhance private sector investment. In this respect the Budget admittedly contained a number of encouraging measures. The 15% investment allowance for a company investing Rs. 100 crore or more on plant or machinery; increased spending on infrastructure investment; and the emphasis on expediting pending investment projects by setting up a special Cabinet Committee are all, in principle, very promising. But how efficiently these measures will be implemented is debateable. For instance, there is no credible basis to believe that the Cabinet Committee will indeed deliver on the promise of removing regulatory bottlenecks for planned investment projects, while spending on infrastructure projects could easily be subject to delays as well.

The dilapidated condition of the power sector also needs urgent attention. While the intention to reduce dependence on coal imports in the medium-term by enhancing coal production through public private partnerships is broadly sensible, there was no proper detail on how this would be achieved. By way of reassurance, Mr Chidambaram felt it sufficed to say that this was under “active consideration” with further details to be announced in “due course”.

All in all, the 2013 Budget was devoid of radical ideas and was a lost opportunity at a time when the nation is teetering on the brink of an economic crisis. While Mr Chidambaram made all the right noises with regard to the need for fiscal consolidation, inclusive growth, boosting investment and so on and so forth, he failed to follow them up with credible policy responses leaving a dark cloud of uncertainty still hanging over the economic outlook.

Let me first acknowledge that there is a lot of merit in what Nandy and Tejpal said at the Jaipur literature festival. India has indeed been, and continues to be a deeply hierarchical, unequal society with very little class mobility. And for a majority- who are on the brink of survival, it is nearly impossible to cross over to the fairer side of the green after even a lifetime of hard work and toil. But Nandy and Tejpal are not the first ones to have noticed that caste itself is a form of corruption. Fortunately, our founding fathers were acutely aware of this when they drafted the constitution, which is why they evolved various provisions for safeguarding basic rights for all citizens, and according special protection for those sections that had been suppressed for centuries. This is also why they injected the constitution with an extremely progressive and egalitarian soul in the form of the directive principles of state policy, which go so far as to say:

Article 38 (2): The State shall, in particular, strive to minimise the inequalities in income, and endeavour to eliminate inequalities in status, facilities and opportunities, not only amongst individuals but also amongst groups of people residing in different areas or engaged in different vocations.
Article 39 (b): that the ownership and control of the material resources of the community are so distributed as best to subserve the common good;
Article 39 (c) that the operation of the economic system does not result in the concentration of wealth and means of production to the common detriment;

In spite of these glorious ideals being enshrined in the supreme document of this country, policies that serve exactly the opposite purpose have been adopted in the name of ‘economic reforms’. Inequalities have actually increased, and poverty still remains alarmingly widespread after 65 years of independence. And the primary cause of this continued mockery of our constitution is the same entity that Tejpal calls a “class-equalizer”- i.e. corruption. Nandy, while giving the example of Sorabjee and himself engaging in an exchange of favours, was absolutely right in saying that our society has a very narrow definition of corruption, and does not recognize many institutionalized forms of the same. However, instead of elaborating on how these forms of corruption should be recognized as such and weeded out, Nandy conveniently assumed that they cannot (in fact, should not) be weeded out, and that to strive for a corruption-free society would be to strive for a dystopia. He then proceeded to sermonize on why corruption should instead be celebrated as a desirable imperfection in our society and how the ‘survival of this republic depends on it’.

But this was not the only statement that one of the most prominent sociologists of India made without any shred of empirical evidence. He started with his now infamous statement claiming that “most people caught for corruption are from the backward classes”, he denied the ‘myth’ of dynastic politics in India, celebrated the rise of Madhu Koda, Mayawati, and even Mrs. Indira Gandhi by describing how they had fought their way to the top. He also said that the amassing of wealth by Mulayam Singh, Mayawati, etc is only borne out of the noble intentions of defending their families from the desperation that their ancestors have faced. For some inexplicable reason, Nandy then claimed that Singapore is the only corruption-free country in the world (even though Denmark, Sweden, Finland and New Zealand all rank above it in the 2011 and 2012 corruption perception index released by Transparency International), and went on to say that “Singapore is a Draconian society” and that he would not like to live there. Well, with all due respect Mr. Nandy, perhaps you would prefer to live in a society that gives the elite (i.e. people like you) a natural advantage over everyone else, but shall we ask the other 90% whether they would prefer to live in the ‘imperfect utopia of India’ (as you call it), or the dystopia of a Singapore or a Sweden or a Finland?

Since Nandy and Tejpal have graciously accepted that their statements were not based on any facts or research, and were simply ‘ideas’ (how can you expect facts at a literary festival, folks!), I have just one simple question for both. Do they really think that the impoverished, oppressed masses of India think of corruption as an equalizing force? The farmer on the brink of a suicide after being denied a loan by a bribe-seeking bank official, the street vendor forced to pay a hafta to the policeman to avoid being beaten, the tribal forced out of his/her land due to a politician-mining nexus, and the Dalit who has to pay a bribe to register an FIR after the rape of his daughter by upper-caste goons. Do Mr. Nandy and Mr. Tejpal seriously think that all these people celebrate corruption, and think of it as an instrument for achieving equality?? Corruption is the abuse of power, and it will always favor the person with deeper pockets. Hence to argue that the powerless are beneficiaries of corruption, rather than victims, is to add insult to the injuries inflicted by centuries of injustice.

The essence of Nandy and Tejpal’s argument is very simple: The status quo suits us (the upper classes), and although we recognize that it is a form of corruption, we will not change it. So you (the lower classes) should stop complaining about corruption, and learn how to work the system. There is of course a clear reason why clever people like Nandy and Tejpal have chosen to advance such a specious argument- the fact that you need to take controversial and contrarian positions in order to stand out in the ‘intellectual’ community in India and abroad. And for them, this statement has served its purpose. They will be invited to more talks, discussions and literary festivals, and there will be endless discussions on television about them. But we would not be serving any purpose if we chose to buy into such baseless rhetoric. A spade needs to be called a spade, and the Nandy-Tejpal argument needs to be called self-serving and completely irrational.

Running a positive story on Jindal may not get you high TRPs, but could ensure a sweet advertising deal. Similarly, as P Sainath noted in one of his lectures, running a half page story on the rapper Eminem in a Hindi newspaper (as was done by Dainik Bhaskar) may be totally meaningless for the readers, but will create an advertising space for certain consumer products. However, high TRPs usually guarantee a high advertising rate, and this is where Arnab Goswami’s success, and our abject failure comes in.

The most frightening aspect of the Caravan biopic on Mr. Goswami is not the unflattering light in which his own personality has been painted. It is the fact that we, the viewers, have validated his confrontational, jingoistic style of reporting by rewarding TimesNow with unprecedented TRPs. What is even more disturbing is how other channels have been forced or tempted into following suit. This is why we are subjected to ‘sound-byte’ panel discussions featuring the same 8 or 10 people trying to shout over each other every night for at least half an hour on issues that they know very little about. Of course, in other departments, such as putting tabloid news on the front page (or the home page of the website), other channels such as NDTV have left even TimesNow far behind. So if you were surprised by how prominently NDTV features celebrity stories in general, and the ‘Kingfisher Calendar hunt’ in particular, then it should come as no further surprise to know that one of the NDTV channels is partly owned by the UB group (which also owns Kingfisher). However, to single out reporters and channels is to miss the wood for the trees. The basic point is that there is something rotten in the state of Indian news, and the fact that people have started looking back at the Doordarshan days with a sense of warm nostalgia is a cause for alarm.

The reason that countries like the UK and Germany have adopted forms of public-sponsored, not-for-profit news is that they feel that there are grave dangers of a news industry that functions only for profit. And these dangers are presenting themselves in all sorts of sinister ways in the world’s largest democracy. Before the horrific Delhi gang rape, one of the previous cases to be reported was that of a woman raped in her flat in Bombay. However, what struck me the most about the reporting of this ghastly crime were the kind of irrelevant and totally inexplicable details that had been provided in the stories covering it on ALL the channels, including NDTV and Times of India. Now if I repeated the details mentioned in the news stories above, I would be guilty of the same crime that I accuse our news channels of- voyeurism of the ugliest kind. Now voyeurism is nothing new, and appeals to the most base of the human instincts, but this kind of voyeurism- of using the details of a rape crime to further your own ends (read advertising revenues), and garbing it as ‘news’ is enough to make one feel sick to the stomach. One look at all the advertisements featured on the Times of India page illustrates this point beautifully: three advertisements for weight loss and one for a dating website, four links showing scantily clad women, of which one points to an article telling you about the ‘five best positions to get pregnant.

Of course, no one bats an eyelid, because everyone is so accustomed to the script. And no one bats an eyelid when, at the other extreme, the gang rape of a Dalit woman is presented as only a caste-issue, where violence against women is merely incidental. There is absolutely no doubt that the rape of a Dalit woman is a caste issue, and in some ways this makes it even worse than other cases. However, we need to understand the motivations of the media by closely examining the vastly different lenses that they use to examine different circumstances surrounding the same crime. The gang rape in Delhi evoked such a public reaction because people could identify with the victim, because they felt that she is ‘one of us’. On the other hand, the detached language and liberal infusion of the word ‘Dalit’ in a story of a woman’s rape in Haryana is designed to create a boundary between the middle-class consumer of news and the lower-caste victim.

After all of this, when the entire country is up in arms protesting about violence against women, our TV news anchors have the gall to sit and preach to the advertising industry, the film industry and everybody on the streets about how they should be conscious about the misogynistic attitudes that they perpetuate and how they should not be selling sex. Yes they should, and yes we should and most importantly- so should you. During the same panel discussion, the cameraman repeatedly picks out and focusses on only the attractive women sitting in the audience. The panel discussion is followed by an attractive model reporting on cricket, and then the ‘news’ switches to the latest scandals from the bollywood gossip industry.

The problem of gender equality and violence against women is so deep-rooted and disgusting, that we need a plethora of changes to make things better. Changes in laws, the police, the judiciary, the legislature, the film industry, the advertisers, the neta and the junta- we all need to change, and quickly. But something desperately needs to be done about the news industry as well. A news industry that has no qualms about using rapes for voyeuristic purposes and beating the drums of war should not even be tolerated, let alone rewarded with higher advertising revenues.

The phone-hacking scandal in the UK and their own crisis involving the news industry finally resulted in a Leveson Inquiry report, which recommended the establishment of an independent regulator (a media ‘Lokpal’) with punitive powers to monitor the media. However, like so many commission reports in India, this report has almost been consigned to the public dustbin in the UK. Thus, what I suggest is not a new law or commission of inquiry- although in a utopian scenario where laws would actually be passed and then not misused, that would be most welcome. I suggest that instead of cursing the rapacious capitalism that has brought us to this juncture, we exercise the only power that it gives us- our power as consumers. If the boycott of foreign cloth could be organized at a time when there were few alternatives, and if it could become a vital part of an independence struggle, there is no reason why a week-long boycott of a news channel cannot result in some drastic changes to its policy, or established (but obnoxious) anchors being replaced by saner faces. In an age where there are unlimited (well, at least 182 other) choices, and where the channel depends more on our TRPs than we do on any one of them, we hold enormous, albeit unrealized power.

In fact, why restrict ourselves to news channels, why should we not boycott misogynistic songs (as was done in the case of the Yo Yo Honey Singh concert), films and consumer-products such as vagina-fairness creams? The relatively short history of the word ‘boycott’ is itself testimony to its power and the all-important distinction between a boycott and a ban imposed by government (or violent organizations such as the Shiv Sena). While the former is a voluntary expression by individuals of their fundamental rights, the latter is a curtailment of the same rights by a bully, and must not be accorded any space in a democratic society. Just as free-speech is a right, so is the right to boycott an organization peacefully, and the judicious use of this right could go a long way in sending a strong message to the powers that shape our society (usually for the worse). However, such a form of collective action is easier said than done, and the first prerequisite is for all the stakeholders to sit at the same table and decide on a suitable first target. Admittedly, the first target may seem to be a scapegoat (as some may view Yo Yo Honey Singh as well), but a strong message needs to be sent, and a start needs to be made somewhere.

One of the only positives of the last two years in India has been the spontaneous outpouring of people on the streets protesting against issues like corruption and gender-inequality, which affect all strata of society. Whatever the criticisms of this middle-class awakening may be, it is undeniable that the protests are linked to a feeling amongst the middle classes that going out onto the streets may make a difference, that their voices could matter. This realization that “collective action” is not just a meaningless phrase, but an instrument of real power, needs to be taken further and used to repair the crumbling fourth pillar of our democracy. For if we don’t act now, we may soon find that the roof has fallen upon our heads.