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Hitchhikers Guide to 2019 elections, FDI, Revolutions and Indian Democracy

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My favourite quote from Hitchhiker’s Guide to Galaxy by Douglas Adams is 

Not unnaturally, many elevators imbued with intelligence and precognition became terribly frustrated with the mindless business of going up and down, up and down, experimented briefly with the notion of going sideways, as a sort of existential protest, demanded participation in the decision-making process and finally took to squatting in basements sulking.

An impoverished hitch-hiker visiting any planets in the Sirius star system these days can pick up easy money working as a counsellor for neurotic elevators.

Is Social Media the cradle of Revolutions in the 21st century?

We don’t have enough time nowadays to read good books and do a post-reading analysis with friends! Well! That’s the current reality of life and we have to embrace it. Maybe it could also be that we are in such a time where every gratification we want, can be found on Social media. Gratifiers come in this social order WhatsApp, facebook, twitter, youtube, google, StackOverflow, Snapchat? etc., But, there is much gratification online/vigilantism which is felt through #hashtag trends. Some psychiatrists observe that this could be because of the fear of moving away from real life. The growing comforts/solace of online gratification sometimes make many of us lose sight of the forest for the trees. BiggBoss trends? Sports Trends? Election Trends? All sounds too familiar isn’t it? How about #loveisland ones!

Are Revolutions a bad thing in a stable democracy?

Happy American Independence Day – 07/04/2018. We Indians celebrated American Independence day on 4th of July being Indians. We celebrate everything with everyone – the most (in)tolerant society! Indians love America, Americans and anything American – quite honestly where would we be without American sitcoms! I am not being cynical but I mean it positively. What was American Independence day all about? It started as a revolution but ended up in something else and later was declared as Independence Day. It’s too much to ask of people to go find out on Quora or Reddit about revolutions. I am sure there must be an app on playstore where one could swipe left/right to read about revolutions. But, what’s the point if one doesn’t go deep into Why’s of revolutions and if they are not asking why are they a bad thing in a stable democracy where there is a GDP surge and cost of pulses are reducing?

Arab spring/Revolution to bring down the Regimes (2010)

If the American Revolution is too ancient – yes it is. Definitely, We can’t relate to it. But, what about the Arab spring of 2010. It is fresh in the memories of people on Twitter at least. When most of us were new to social media and we hardly had 5 to 20 followers. We were following Rajdeep for Economic opinions whilst he dished out 2002 stories. Well it was in 2010 when people through out the world felt an opportunity. Social media was not just about uploading pics and getting likes but it could be used for bigger/better things, closer to real life things – like Revolutions! World got a taste of the power.

Am not ‘value judging’ whether it was a good/bad revolution.

The effects of the Tunisian Revolution spread strongly to five other countries: Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria and Bahrain, where either the regime was toppled or major uprisings and social violence occurred, including riots, civil wars or insurgencies. Sustained street demonstrations took place in Morocco, Iraq, Algeria, Iranian Khuzestan, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman and Sudan. Minor protests occurred in Djibouti, Mauritania, the Palestinian National Authority, Saudi Arabia, and the Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara. A major slogan of the demonstrators in the Arab world is ash-shaʻb yurīd isqāṭ an-niẓām (“the people want to bring down the regime”)

 

A quick and lazy search on google got me the following revolutions:

The Haitian Revolution
The Iranian Revolution
Cuban Revolution
Chinese Revolution(s)
Young Turk Revolution
Taiping Revolution/Rebellion
The October Revolution
The Glorious Revolution
The American Revolution

A Brazilian revolution caused military regime change to Democracy

The one which I was most interested in was the Brazilian Revolution which led to Democracy from the Military rule in 1985

Brazilian history since 1985 is the contemporary epoch in the history of Brazil, beginning when civilian government was restored after a 21-year-long military regime established after the 1964 coup d’etat. The negotiated transition to democracy reached its climax with the indirect election of Tancredo Neves PMDB by Congress. Neves belonged to Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, an opposition party that had always opposed the military regime. He was the first civilian president to be elected since 1964.

Human history since Renaissance is rife with stories of revolutions and mutiny. There has been transitions between Regimes to military governments via Coups to Democracies to Autocratic to Fascist to Colonial rules etc.,!

A revolution caused a regime change in India

Scams which were rampant in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014. India was fed up. India Against Corruption revolution happened. In parallel Gujarat model championed by Narendra Modi was seen as the automatic leader to take over the mantle of taking India forward. Hence, regime change happened.

It’s 2018 and it’s 71st year of Indian Independence! What’s changed and what led to 2014? Massive corruption by Government agencies led to a big victory to the ablest leader Narendra Modi. True to his words, Modi & his team has been constructing roads, Reforming tax structures, taking electricity to the last mile. Banking is at the forefront of all the schemes. Modi is running with development agenda and winning one election after the other. If one was to look at the history of humankind – a leader at any point in time would be known for only one thing. But, here we have a man called Narendra Modi who has achieved so much in such a short time and will be known for many things.

Perception of loss felt by parallel economy leading them to demand another regime change

In stock markets from wall street, New York to Hong Kong to Auckland, There is a thumb rule! “Buy in bear and Sell in the bull”. Be it the cinema industry, IT industry or whatever, everything is measured Quantitatively i.e. Difference between the amount earned and the amount spent in buying, operating, or producing something should always be Positive.

Indian parallel economy is going through a survive battle. Shadow, parallel economies refusing to join mainstream businesses are gazing towards an oblivion. They have scuttled and taken a severe beating. Scams which were rampant in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 seems to have vanished. How? It points to watertight policies from the top. It seems like the pace of the reforms and lack of time to ‘Gamify’  the reforms/policies have caused more frustration!

How to stop Modi and effect a regime change? Politically not improbable but difficult. So, the Right wing who worship and back Modi looks for two things – Economic reforms(GST, co-operative federalism etc.)  and Hinduism reforms(UCC, Ram Mandir, RTE etc.). Any dent to these will definitely hurt modi. So, It appears like the opposition is going to adopt a Denting model which 30% effort on Religious reforms and 70% effort on Economic reforms ably backed up by MSM, lobby groups etc., [PS: 30%, 70% is just a feeling – not some concrete number.]

The opposition is out of power except in Punjab, Karnataka, Bengal – how will Denting Model work?

It’s not easy to dent an Economy of a country as big as India. Especially when the interested groups are sitting in opposition benches with hardly any state governments under the opposition control. The only way to effect any dent is to let businesses outside of India with a strong Indian presence to pull out! Why would a business pull out of Indian economy which is enjoying a GDP surge? India is one of the three emerging nations(China, Brazil, India) where all the Asset management companies are putting their bet on Financial assets, infrastructure assets and Enterprise assets.

Emerging world seems to hold the potential and is a hot cake for all seasoned investors. There are lot of youtube videos of panel discussions where people have spoken openly of the opportunities begging to be picked up. One such set of numbers are below. They need emerging markets because that’s how the “Investment portfolios” of developed countries can show some growth rate. They collect money in developed countries as premiums, they will have a set period of time to make a profit on the pile of cash. How they do it is the problem of Asset Management companies. But, emerging countries like India, China, Brazil seem to be in the story of their growth model.

Growth markets suggest :

60% of global GDP growth comes from Emerging Markets which was just 50% just a decade ago.

Emerging markets have 85% of world’s population.

By 2030, 90% of Middle class population growth.

By 2030, 90% Middle class spending growth.

In developed world average age is 46 years.

In emerging world it’s 26 years.

By 2030 – 1.7 Million workforce will get added per week!

Just one wildfire is all it takes – Possibilities – looks like all they need

Global investors have many parameters but the most important one being Government policies vs how people perceive it. Government policies are quite hard for a common man to understand be it good for short term/long term, bad for the middle class in short-term and such. For every policy change/amendment – Opposition loves to critique in a negative way(sans objectivity) and use repeated lies and orchestrated uprisings against every policy good for the nation. It’s an attempt to cause perception damage. The impact of perception damage if it’s only economic it would not be effective but it seems the success of these perception damage lies in Social impact. If one was to observe from 2014 to 2018 there has been an alarming increase in inorganic skirmishes throughout the country between castes, communities and religions.

There is a 1/10th rule in Sales/Marketing. If one was to approach 1000 customers only 10% i.e. 100 might come back. So, the opposition seems to encourage covertly all the uprisings. After all, this is in their best interests. Even the military is not spared. One might wonder if OROP was not put in place – the social uprisings would have caused a social wildfire. Even unfortunate Rape incidents are somehow linked to regions, caste and religions. From orchestrated uprisings to genuine people reactions resulting in movements -everything seems to lead to Can Government survive this social unrest and hunger strikes?

Can Government stand the onslaught of people perception and still continue to hold on to policies?

The moment Government gives in or gets threatened by these freelancer revolutionists – FDI, Asset management, Hedge funds to all FII will consider it as Early signs of Weakening Government control on policies. They will slowly pull out and the market will dry up, bringing the economy it’s knees! Just one wild fire is all it takes for the opposition to create a crack and enter the power corridors again.

If opposition wants to come back why would businesses be interested in this futile exercise of pulling out of Bullish Indian Economy? Yes! Businesses keep looking for opportunities to invest and get lands in return or any other favours or an easy passage to start a business against their competitors. It’s an investment for these external businesses to invest in Revolutions! The ROI is usually so high that they are always motivated to cause Mutiny, Uprisings, Revolutions to topple the existing arrangements and start fresh!

Cycle of Regime Changes – Revolutions goes on and on and on

 

 

 

The above image which I put together to explain what I think is happening since Aeons. At the centre of our world – there are Economic Empires (could be countries or lobbies) they know what’s good for them. For any given country – The Blue ovals imply different types of Governments from a Military rule, democracy, colonial Rule, autocracy or theocracy. There is always oscillations between blue ovals. The transitions are always accompanied by revolutions supported by external, internal opposition. The Red arrow with investment signifies that ‘Economic powers’ invest in Revolutions. When the blue oval moves to next stage – They reap the benefits through high ROI (Return on investments).

So, basically, no revolution at national scale can happen without someone somewhere investing into it! 

There is a theory which states that if anyone ever discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.

There is another theory which states that this has already happened

Conclusion:

We as a country should stop getting kicked around by external economic/business interest lobbies and try to grow as a developed economy and accept the next set of challenges. The opposition should stop investing on Revolutions for Political/Economical ROI and rather focus on Quantitative/Qualitative participation!

PS: This is just my opinion and definitely not intended to point at any party/individual. Apologies in order if there is any co-incidence.

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