The philosophy of self-aggrandisement defies social logic. Seven leading banks in the United States of America had last year incurred an aggregate loss of $82 billion; the chief executive officers of these banks nonetheless claimed and collected annual bonus to the extent of $38 billion. The economy might lie in ruins; that did not distract sharks from zooming in on their prey.

Our corporate sector has shaped itself in the image of the goings-on in Wall Street. It is therefore only natural for it to feel peeved at the genteel suggestion emanating from official quarters that the grossly bloated emoluments industrial tycoons have been bestowing upon themselves be scaled down. Righteous indignation is boiling over, and, alongside, there is a note of righteous exasperation: why does not the government understand that the animal spirit the tycoons have been exhibiting would be badly affected by such silly suggestions? Is it not a free economy, is not profit-making the only criterion by which things are to be judged? If a firm is willing to pay its executive officers astronomical sums, there is a reason for it: the enormous profit the firm is registering is on account of the talent and capability of its top brass. Whittling down the size of the compensation package is as good as imposing a moratorium on initiative. What will then happen to the country’s rate of industrial growth — or to the rate of the gross domestic product growth? What face will the prime minister then show at the next G-8 or G-20 meet?

The corporate sector is getting het up for nothing. It is in the Congress’s tradition — almost its cultural heritage — to be occasionally bitten by the conscience bug and propose a number of so-called ‘austerity’ measures. The party does not, however, mean any harm; it merely goes through the motions of a ritual. Once the season for rituals is announced, circulars are issued, for instance, directing ministers and senior civil servants to fly only economy class. It is a joke from the very beginning, for even if it is an economy class ticket the minister or senior civil servant is carrying, the airline will take care to ‘upgrade’ the ticket so that the eminent person travels comfortably in the executive or business class. Give or take a couple of months, the contents of the circular are quietly forgotten and life resumes flowing along normal channels. The Congress has always revelled in such hypocrisies, even in the pre-Independence days. There is a hugely hilarious story about how Bhulabhai Desai, the top Bombay barrister and Congress satrap, smuggled a carton of Old Grandad whisky in his bed roll at the party’s Haripura session in 1938. To be a primary member of the Congress, Desai had to sign the pledge not to touch alcohol. So what; it is all in the game.

The current season of austerity too will soon be over and pastimes like passing a summer night in a Dalit tenement or requesting tycoons to trim their take-home pay will also come to a surcease. Ruling politicians in their heart of hearts cannot even conceive of a cut in corporate salaries; one of these days, one of their offspring will seek a cushy employment in the private sector.

Even so, the hectoring manner in which corporate sector spokesmen responded to the government proposal carries a message of its own. In the post-liberalization era, the centre of gravity in mutual bargaining has shifted decisively in favour of the corporate sector and against the government of the day. Corporate bosses can now afford to treat with contempt homilies from politicians. They know the ins and outs of the life and times of that tribe: how the politicians make their pile, where they stash it, and other such sleazy details. Besides, most political parties are sustained by financial contributions the corporate bosses arrange for them. Such contributions have been generally under-the-table; with climate change, over-the-counter contributions too are now proposed to be made tax-free. Birds of the same feather are in any event supposed to flock together. Money lying in the vaults of Swiss banks has been paid in as much by business tycoons as by politicians, along with remittances from other specimens. Each species knows fairly well what amount which of the other species has stacked up in Mauritius or Cayman Islands or Zurich; some judges too have of late joined the fraternity.

Things were not always so smooth. During the first few decades following Independence, the economy was semi-controlled, and the corporate sector was somewhat in awe of politicians. One needed a licence to start an industry or business of corporate proportions. The minister was a godlike figure who decided an industrialist’s or businessman’s fate. Even if this or that politician would, for rendering a favour, accept money from this or that business tycoon, no tycoon would dare to tell tales; his licence could get cancelled on the flimsiest pretext. Reigning politicians still carried around their personae the halo that got lit during the freedom movement. A stray Birla or a Bajaj apart, few among the tycoons could aspire to bridge the social distance separating them from the ministers. Politicians, it will be wise to remember, had the other, equally lucrative milch cow: the public sector was flourishing. Come election season, a minister would summon heads of the public undertakings controlled by his ministry and inform them how much they were expected to contribute to the party’s election kitty; how they showed these in the account books was their headache, not the minister’s.

Some senior civil servants presiding over the distribution of licences, however, had the private sector constantly in mind. A few among them, with an adequate lack of scruple, would not even bother to be subtle. One of these gentlemen had a sculptress wife; every time she would hold an exhibition, the husband would post himself outside the exhibition hall, tycoons would dutifully troop in, the sculptures would be sold out in a jiffy.

Those pastoral days are long gone. It is now an altogether different landscape. The size of industrial and economic activity has expanded several times. The public sector is in cold storage. The government is in a contrite mood, it has confessed what a big folly it was on its part to enter the sphere of industry and commerce or to patronize the barbaric licensing system. It has apologized and pledged total surrender to the private sector. The ‘advisories’ from the government have therefore not even a symbolic significance. Official pronouncements on the issue of austerity are as fake as the anger formally registered by industry barons in response. The government has, in effect, ceased to be the decision-making authority in economic matters; principals of the private sector constitute the actual authority. That is what neo-liberalism is all about.

On paper it is a multi-party democracy and political parties supposedly reflect the sovereign will of the people. In practice, almost all parties run on funds supplied by the corporate sector. It is very nearly in the nature of a straightforward business transaction. Politicians heading the parties have to survive. Their survival is also a necessity for the tycoons since they seek a front. Politicians provide the facade of a throbbing, living democracy where representatives of the people are assumed to take the crucial decisions. This is the de jure framework; the actual decisions are the handiwork of the tycoons.

In the meantime, India has slipped down to 134th position in the human development index put out by the United Nations. That datum can be taken in stride, for the GDP growth rate is what counts at the G-8 concourse. The Maoists flex their occasional muscle, but, overall, it is a well-managed system. Even without the prime minister informing them about it, people know that, now that the aman harvest is imminent, prices are to decline, even if marginally. They will be grateful for this little mercy. Ordinary men and women are generally full of good behaviour; they let politicians let their tycoon friends — whom they hold in awe — make killing profits.

Text By: Ashok Mitra, TOI, Kolkata.

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