Bank Nationalization in Retrospect

Banks were nationalized by Mrs Indira Gandhi with much fanfare.  It was done with a view to replace the class banking practiced by the then private banks with mass banking.  Currently the term mass banking has been replaced by a more sophisticated one, that is, financial inclusion.  This was a laudable objective indeed and still remains laudable and only marginally fulfilled.  Else, why would there be such hue and cry about financial inclusion after more than 4 decades of bank nationalization?

Looking back, it seems very clear that this was a master stroke by the shrewd political class for helping crony capitalists drain the public exchequer.  All talk about mass banking was merely a facade.  The unfulfilled mass banking agenda is being now carried forward for setting up smaller banks with limited functionality like payment banks etc.

In a recent TV debate on the Mallya debacle, one of the speakers pointed out that it is generally believed that the global banking crisis a few years ago left India untouched.  While governments world over had to pump in huge amounts of money to rescue some of the banks, nothing of the sort had to be done in India.  He went on to say that this is fallacious.  According to him Indian public sector banks face this crisis every year because of large loans being written off and large sacrifices being made for corporate debt restructuring etc.  And they are rescued each year by the government by recapitalizing the banks.  Thus nationalization did not help the agriculturists or the poor common man so much as it helped corporates having good liaison with the politicians to milk the public exchequer.  To be fair it must be said that the banks merely served as a convenient conduit.  But has the conduit too been damaged in the process?  We may have to wait for some more time to find out.

This must be the reason why politicians of all hues, and not merely the leftists who control the trade unions in these banks, have no real interest in privatizing the banks.  Though, it must be said to their credit that they do occasionally make the right kind of noises in this matter.

The massive fraud, which perhaps overshadows all other mega scams thus far, has now been uncovered and the astronomical amounts involved are staring us in the face.  I do not know if the sums involved are giving the government a cold feet too.  Do they still have the capability to recapitalize the banks to the extent required?  Or is the ground being prepared for the depositors to take a haircut?

As a retired person living on his precious savings and interest thereon, the very thought gives me the shivers.

A debate between Zakir Naik and Srisri Ravishankar

Recently while wandering on the net I came across a video which showed a full program featuring a debate between Zakir Naik and Ravishankar.  The duration of the video was a little over two and a half hours.  Though the video was found on YouTube itself, it proclaimed "has been deleted from YouTube" alongside its title.  I watched the entire video with keen interest and mulled over it.  Later I tried to watch the video again, but failed to locate it.  I clicked the history item in the browser and YouTube, but to no avail.  During my repeated searches, I also came across a message on YouTube saying that the content has been removed.  It seems that someone had succeeded in reloading the video and I was lucky enough to watch it before it was removed again.  Fragments from this video are still available, but not the complete video that I had the opportunity to watch.  I feel truly sorry that I cannot give you an URL for watching this video.

I must say that the person entrusted with conducting the debate in an orderly manner did an excellent job.  Zakir Naik (ZN) - I am not prefixing Dr as he does not seem to be in that profession any more - came across as a seasoned speaker and debater.  RaviShankar (RS) - I am not prefixing SriSri as it sounds a bit too pretentious - surprisingly found the time allotted to him a little too long.  He also seemed to be ill at ease and a bit fidgety at times.  Once or twice he interjected too while ZN had the floor, which was perhaps against the format.  He got a bit provoked when ZN pointed out some errors in a book authored by him and admitted having made mistakes. But more about it later.

The speed at which ZN quotes book number, chapter number and verse number from a large number of scriptures from various religions, bears out an amazing memory and considerable breadth of his knowledge.  However he seems to be lacking in depth.  He repeatedly quoted from Vedas and Bhavishya Purana to make a point that the arrival of prophet Muhammad was foretold in these books.  Of course, I cannot recall the exact references that he gave.  He harped on three words, Muhammad, Nrishans and Mlechha, found in the Hindu scriptures.  He said that these pointed towards the prophet.  Mlechchha, according to him, merely meant a foreign origin, and Nrishans meant a Nar (man) worthy of adoration (Shansa being the tail end of Prashansa.)  This ignorance is shocking indeed.  Had he known the true meaning of the two words, he would refrain from using these words for the prophet: for it will be blasphemous to do so.  Nrishansa, as all students of Sanskrit and Hindi know, means merciless and cruel.  Making it out to be a combination of Nar and Shansa is far fetched indeed.  Similarly Mlechchha, though associated with persons of foreign origin in a sense, is a highly derogatory word that means impure or unclean.  The same applies to the word Mahaamad, which ZN takes to be Muhammad.  Mahaamad is a derogatory word that means a conceited person with an overarching ego and insolence.

ZN's ignorance could be excused but for the delight he and his followers take in his rattling off references to verses in various scriptures and then presenting their translation with an air of absolute authority.  However what really surprises me is the fact that neither RaviShankar nor anyone from the huge audience pointed out these errors nor did anyone stop ZN from making blasphemous references to the prophet.

Another favorite argument of ZN, one that he presented in this debate too, is that Vedas and Upnishads all say that God is one and formless.  And this is precisely what the Quran teaches. He takes Vedas and Upnishads to be the counterparts of Quran in Hinduism. Then he concludes that we should be worshipping God, the creator, and not the created.  But Hinduism is not restricted to such a single linear strand of thought.  It is more like a container of objects rather than an object itself; maybe a Pandora's box.  It also has in its kitty the Samkhya which maintains that there is no God.   It maintains that there are just multiple Purushas (consciousness principles,) each interacting with Prakriti.  Vedanta chooses not only to combines all these Purushas in one ParamPurusha but also merges the Prakriti with it.  Dualism and non-dualism both exist as valid philosophies and the debate goes on.  For the non-dualists, nothing exists but the God.  There is no distinction between the Creator and the Created.  The Creator, the Creation and the Created are all one.  The differentiation is just Maya and that too is an aspect of the only reality, the Godhead.  So in this container of Hinduism, monotheism, atheism and pantheism, dualism and non-dualism all co-exist and it sees no problem with such co-existence.

Thus any religion on the face of this earth could find parallels in one object or the other in the box called Hinduism.  And yet, any religion that wants to build bridges with Hinduism need not demonstrate any similarities.  Just a willingness to reside in the container is enough.  When you meet someone holding a view that is diagrammatically opposite to yours, don't scowl and growl, just wink and smile.  Yes, I understand and I am sure so do you.  Just accept the diversity and be at ease with it. It is this ability to wink and smile, rather than your belief system, that makes you a Hindu, or Hindustani, if you please.

Having said that, I must add that all is not hunky-dory in this container.  This container also has, for example, the most divisive and discriminatory caste system.  This single anomaly is beating down at the walls of the container to break it down.  There are many others too.  If a confluence of different and differing belief systems inside the container could join hands to cast away the toxic contents in the box, there indeed would be an utopia in this wonderful container.

PS: If you can find the deleted video on the internet, please post the URL as a remark to help other interested readers watch it.

Why Interrogate Bankers Alone?

By now the number of times the name Mallya has been spoken or written must be running into millions.  It is there in the media - print, electronic and social - as well as serious debating platforms like the parliament.

The name appears in conjunction with banks, previous Congress government (CG) and the current BJP government (BG.)  Though I have not carried out a statistical analysis myself, I suspect that if you were to do so, you will find the number of times it is associated with CG or BG exceeds the number of times it is associated with banks.  In the debate in the parliament, charges were traded between Congress and BJP as to who was in power at those points in time when the loan was sanctioned, renewed and finally the borrower allowed to flee.

Neither CG nor BG tried to make a point that banks are autonomous and the government does not try to influence their commercial decisions.  I wonder if this tantamounts to a confession by both of the top two political parties of India.  And if it is so, two questions arise.  Does it seem likely that anyone in IDBI or any other bank could demand a gratification if a directive was received from the party in power?  And the second, why is ED not calling FM officials too for questioning?

Banker friends may like to comment on this.

BSNL's contempt for DND

I have a prepaid mobile number that was ported to BSNL quite some time back.  It was under DND with the earlier operator and I had registered it under DND soon with BSNL too after porting.  As unsolicited messages kept pouring in, I called the BSNL customer care number and complained.  I was told that my number is already under DND and was advised to register it once again.  Since then I have sent the START 0 message two times and each time the response told me that START0 was already active. Just in case you are wondering about the zero, you are allowed to choose from 7 alternatives and of these 0 means stop ALL.

The messages that I continue to get are messages whose senders' names are prefixed with BP, BT, AD, DM, MD, IM, BW, VK, BH, MM, BZ, DZ etc.  Occasionally there is a broadcast flash giving a number and enquiring whether I would be interested in friendship.

As normal channels for voicing my complaint had been tried out, I wrote to the Ministry for Communication and IT.  They promptly forwarded my complaint to CMD of BSNL and also DOT for immediate resolution.  As nothing happened for a week, I wrote to all the three parties again - MCIT, BSNL and DOT.  MCIT has again promptly forwarded it to the other two parties who are yet to wake up.  I have also written to TRAI in the matter today.

If you too have a BSNL number, I would like to know whether this suffering is universal for DND lovers or peculiar to my case.  If it is universal, how do we seek rectification?  I may add that DND is working wonderfully on my Airtel number.  It is surprising to find that private players are more ethical / rule-compliant than a public sector counterpart.