The Unclear Nuclear Act and the clear side effects

I love the Hyde act. Honestly I don't know the specific details of the whole deal and possibly we could have negotiated more aggressively and got a better deal. But apart from the directly intended pro's and cos of the deal, its greatest contribution to the nation would be destabilizing an impotent government at the centre. A government that can only watch and express regret as the flesh of its citizens gets ripped apart by powerful bombs in one city after another.

Congress for its part is doing the right thing by pushing for the deal and the left doing a "right"er thing by threatening the coalition in power. Their major difference being that the Left doesn't want India to get closer to the US because of their ideological repulsion with the World's most capitalistic country. They do claim that they will not support any move that will threaten the sovereignty of the nation. (It is a completely different thing that when the Chinese attacked the Indian troops back in 1962. I assume it was a friendly game of age of empires, and not a threat to the sovereignty. )

The act itself seems to be fairly complex with each of our noble parliamentarians understanding it differently. I'd assume about 90% of them don't know any more about it than common newspaper educated folks like us. While our law makers find it very easy to reach a consensus on popular measures like extending reservations to OBCs, not many of them really bother themselves with understanding the fine print in international policy. I think the Hyde act would have rolled out much more smoothly without many people noticing it, if not for a very aggressive statement by The Prime Minister in an interview with the media. Out of the blue, chumma to make the proceedings more interesting for common folk, our man challenged the left parties to withdraw support. The left parties very kindly seem all set to oblige. Would the left have gone all the way, if not for that remark? I guess not.

Apart from the unclear Nuclear benefits, I see the huge potential strategic and economic advantage of teaming up with the lone current super power in the world. US over its brief history has been loyal only to itself and its assets. If the American firms start investing and tarding with India big time, thus putting big stakes in the region, the US govt would never dare do anything that would destabilize the nation. They will probably even send the Marines to fight our war against terrorists, so that the friendly customer service representative of Dell in Hyderabad gets to help the US customer whose laptop is overheating, without getting blown up by bombs on his way. So yes, assuming the Indian diplomats weren't very stupid to pen down something that terribly jeopardizes our ability to develop our own nuclear technology, I think we should go ahead and sign on it. It is definitely NPV positive in the foreseeable long term. And once we get close to US, we can flaunt all the rules. The selective treatment of the American foreign policy is very well known. They have always treated their friends very differently from their enemies, the rogue states. The trade takes precedence over all the democratic values it preaches. They will turn a blind eye as long as it is good for the shareholder wealth. The obvious advantage of increased trade with US is that the world's strongest military force will want India to be secure.

The leftists continue to live in their ideal world and quite rightly interpret the Hyde act as India's leaning away from Nehruvian socialism and non-alignment, both of which have impeded the growth of independent India for a long time. And therefore they are not very happy about this "right" turn by the govt. and are seriously considering withdrawing their support. This I think is the best part of the whole deal. Its like a bumper bonus to the voters of the nation. Most of us have been brainwashed from our childhood that the elections are very costly for the nation and we need stable 5 yr governments in the office. I think its pure bullshit. It is an outdated medieval concept fired at gullible modern minds.

I am a great fan of the med-term polls. Indeed I believe its high time we update our constitution to make them a regular feature in our annual calendars. They are like the appraisals we have in the corporate world. They help keep the government on its feet without getting too comfortable and taking things for granted. It also ensures that they go back to the people every year and be answerable to them. In the current system, every politician begs the party leadership for a ticket starting about 6 months before the election, and once he gets it, goes to the constituency and begs for the votes for 1-2 months before the election. In the meantime they make ridiculous promises like free power, free food, free housing etc... There is also a huge correlation between Vijay Mallya's net worth and the Indian elections. The few big brewing companies in India must be makeing huge profits in the election season, given the amount of booze that flows around. All this is the investment our prospective candidates are very willing to make to ensure a place in the electoral office. Now once he is done with the investment phase and gets elected, its time to reap the benefits and he has full 5 years to accomplish it. Lots of these politicians grow their net worth by the order of 100 over this 5 years.

With such good a Return On Investment, it is not surprising to see why anybody who is somebody wants to get into the political bandwagon. We see film stars, cricketers, intellectuals, rowdies, factionists and even businessmen trying to get into the game. And since so many ruthless people with very high ambitions are in the fray with very high stakes, they could potentially go to extreme measures to ensure a victory. This makes it absolutely necessary to have high security to ensure free and fair elections. And that makes the elections costly.

Now if we reduce the term to one year, the ROI comes down drastically, since the candidates have much lesser time to reap their benefits and have to come face the voter and spend much more often. This should make it almost unfeasible for them to spend extravagantly on their campaigns every year and thereby reduces their stakes in the election. Ideally the NPV should go down so low that the candidates would realize that there are more profits to be made by selling pani puri on the Tank Bund than by holding the public office for one year. And then that should lead a good number of respectable greedy people to choose more lucrative careers in other fields leaving the public offices for more dedicated and relatively honest individuals. Given the lower stakes and the not so greedy contestants, the spending on ensuring a free and fair election can be cut down drastically.

Now we all know that elections are costly. Really? for whom? It costed Election Commission an estimated 13 billion to hold the general elections in 04. ref And a good chunk of it was spent on the introduction of new electronic voting machines, Voter IDs and educating the people about these things. our annual budget is of the order of 7000 billion. so the election expense is like 0.18% of the annual budget. That must be lower than the error in the estimation of the annual budget. It must also be lower than the money we as a nation spend on watching soft porn movies from bollywood packaged as wholesome family entertainers.

Back in the late 40's when the constituition was written, things were slow. What the initial governments could do in 5 years, we can do in 5 months now. For better or worse, the world has become faster and there is no denying it. (Even the 5 day cricket has given way to 1 day version and now to the half day version.) But probably India is not yet ready for this paradigm shift in its political sphere. And obviously none of the political parties ( which spent about 55 billion in the 04 elections) will like it either. But I strongly believe that sometime in the future , we will get there. Maybe 50 years maybe 100 maybe 1000, but eventually the timelines for the public offices have to shrink. And when the day comes, I hope somebody unearths this page of my blog, fossilized on a primitive information network.