VOODOO ECONOMICS - DON'T ILLEGALISE THE BRIBE- TAX IT !

 Many years ago, more years than I care to remember, I was posted as a probationer under district training in Mandi district of Himachal. On two days every week I had to sit with the Deputy Commissioner (DC) in his court when he heard grievances and received petitions from the public. The purpose was to give me an idea of the issues which concerned the public and how to deal with them on a one to one basis. One day a distraught PWD contractor presented himself before the DC and wanted to know what the officially approved rate for a bribe was in the department! He explained that he could not balance his budget for various works with any predictability as different officers wanted different amounts as bribes. He requested the DC to give him a copy of the G.O ( Government Order) in which the rates were specified. The DC assured the poor chap that he would try to get the order but in the interim he should not pay any bribe to anyone.

That was 50 years ago and nothing has changed during this period, it would appear, except that now the rates have gone up manifold under the effect of demonetisation, GST, digitisation of all transactions and PayTM. It is an axiom of the financial underworld that, the more difficult governments make the process of bribery, the higher the rates. Especially if most of this undeclared wealth is sucked out of the system by one entity through sophisticated and sovereign instruments like Electoral bonds and PM Cares!

Who says there's no transparency in this government? Last year local papers published an alleged rate list of the prevailing "baksheesh" in one of the police stations of a western UP district. Now, this is exactly what that supplicant in Mandi wanted, as an important element of ease of doing business. In another reported case in our most progressive state, this year itself, the peon or "chaprasi" of a Naib Tehsildar wrote a letter to the District Magistrate complaining that he was not being given his fair share of the bribes received in that office! He stated that it was his job to extract/collect the bribes, for which the going rate for peons was Rs. 1000/ per day, but he was being paid only Rs.500/- He also demanded that the going rate should be enhanced to keep pace with inflation. Both legitimate grievances, to my mind, when even the Finance Minister cannot afford to eat onions. ( Predictably, the said minion denied that he had written such a letter).

Just last week the press was agog with reports that some thieves had stolen Rs. 65 crores from the house of a retired but still powerful IAS officer from U.P. in a north India hill station. Now, that is the quantum of alleged bribes which brought down Rajiv Gandhi's government, but it is a sign of the Ram Rajya times that it cannot now lay low even a bureaucrat. The officer has not filed any police complaint- he's not stupid, see, that's why he got into the IAS. But efforts are reportedly being made behind the scenes to get his hard earned money back; I would not be surprised if Mossad is roped in to do the job, once they have finished off killing what remains of the Hezbollah leadership, that is.

Bribery-both the giving and taking-is inbuilt into our DNA, even before we evolved from the apes. As definitive proof one just has to go to the monkey infested Jakhoo temple in Shimla. Nine out of ten visitors there will have their handbag or phone snatched by a monkey: the ape will promptly climb a tree and will return your item only after you have proffered a bribe of a banana or orange ( these days they insist on hamburgers or pizza slices.) So bribery is nothing to be ashamed of- it is an inherited evolutionary trait, like stupidity and the urge to beat up wives.

Which is why I strongly believe that the government should stop fighting it and legitimise it. Economists, as usual, cannot agree on whether corruption is good or bad for a country's economy. One group maintains that it lowers GDP growth rates by discouraging foreign and even domestic investments. The other lot differs-it opines that in a heavily regulated and policed economy (like India), corruption should be viewed as "virtuous bribery"- it acts as a deregulation instrument, greases the wheels of the economy, cuts red tape, promotes quick decision making. A third lot feels that there is something like a Laffer's curve in corruption, i.e. bribery is good for the economy up to a certain point, but beyond that it becomes extortion and its benefits to the economy start declining. The jury is still out on this, just like it is in the bail applications of Umar Khalid.

I tend to go with the second lot, after observing the phenomenon at close quarters (sometimes too close!) for 35 years. In our country, without this grease nothing would ever get done- no roads, no bridges, no recruitments, no projects, no welfare schemes. So (and I'm applying for a patent for this idea), why should the government not get a slice of this virtuous pie? According to Prof Bibek Debroy and Laveesh Bhandari in their seminal book, Corruption in India: the DNA and RNA, the total quantum of bribery in India could add up to 1.26% of India's GDP, and at current levels  would be 300 billion US dollars. My suggestion, arrived at after much burning of the single malt, is that the govt. should make bribery legal and impose GST on it. The GST rate would, of course, have to be 28% since bribery is a " sin goods". This would net the exchequer almost 90 billion dollars per annum ! More than enough to pay for the PM's planes, cars, foreign peregrinations, self-publicity, Central Vistas, statues and even the dreaded MSP. A win-win if ever there was one.

The collateral benefits would also be welcome- winding up of the Enforcement Directorate, down sizing the Election Commission and the CBI, a full stop to arresting opposition Chief Ministers, etc. And do spare a thought for that poor IAS chap deprived of his hard-earned 65 crores- he will finally be able to lodge an FIR- after paying a bribe, of course.

" SLOW LIVING" AND THE BOB DYLAN PARAPROSDOKIAN

 At about this time last year my elder son quit his very well paying job as a senior executive in a multi-national: he had had enough of the El Dorado mirage sold by the IIMs and IITs. He had been working 14 hour days non-stop for 16 years, paying Rs. 65000 a month for a flat in Gurgaon where he just went to sleep, lunched and dined exclusively on Zomato and Food Panda, could never find the time to relax in our Purani Koti retreat near Shimla, his liver was beginning to get pickled in Blender's Pride. In short, he was on the verge of a burn out, maybe a couple of puffs away from being stubbed out like a cigarette. One day he saw the light, ignored Mr. Narayan Murthy's exhortation to work 70 hour weeks, regarding with justified suspicion Ms Sitharaman's pious advice to fight work pressure through "inner strength by reaching out to God." His decision to ignore her too was made easier, he told me later, by the possibility that by "God" she meant Mr. Modi, and since he himself "worked" 18 hours, reaching out to him would be futile (as Kangana Ranaut has recently discovered).                                                                                                                                      So, one fine foggy morning in Gurgaon he pinged his boss that he was quitting (that's how they do the hiring, firing and resigning these days, no "Dear sir, it is with profound regret that ..." letters as in our days), packed his suitcase and pooch in his car and joined us in Purani Koti. He now lives off his savings, work-from-home consultancy projects, articles on the auto world, and "revdis" from my pension whenever the state govt. periodically emerges from bankruptcy and doles it out to me. He now has the time to indulge in his passion for photography and gardening, and is currently trying to grow bananas and "peepul" trees at 7000 feet in an area which gets three feet of snow every winter! I'm personally sceptical of that last bit, but who knows- after all, they laughed at Satyanand Stokes when he brought apple plants from the USA, didn't they? And today Himachal is an apple state. If my son succeeds we may yet be a banana republic soon.

Welcome to the world of "Slow Living", the latest concept that is catching on with Gen X (or Gen Z) across the world. More and more of them are just chucking the rat race with its slave-driving, toxic work culture and sweat shop values which just last month took the lives of Anna Sebastian in Mangalore and Sadaf Fatima in Lucknow. These bright youngsters prefer to return back to nature, renewing relationships with family and friends, and doing what they WANT to do- not what neo-capitalism, voodoo economics and the Sanjiv Sanyals of the world expect them to do. Slow Living is the next best thing to a govt. job where you can effectively retire the day you join and nobody will even notice even as Pay Commissions keep hiking your salary and pension with predictable regularity. He has my full support: it is this generation which can perhaps save our once blue planet since my generation has completely abdicated its responsibility. 

This choice of life-style, however, is not all fun and games: it requires the making of responsible choices- in consumption, expenditure, manner of living- since one's income levels drop substantially. It forces one to make an inventory of the important things in life and discard the redundant, superfluous and the wasteful materialism inherent in the "keeping up with the Junejas " South Delhi mentality. It goes hand-in-hand with another trend being increasingly embraced by planet conscious Gen X- Minimalism.

Minimalism is simply "living with less" by decluttering one's physical spaces, reducing unnecessary consumption, seeking quality over quantity, travelling less, curation of possessions to have only the essentials, focusing on personal values rather than reacting to competitive pressures. This is what Slow Living is in essence, and I am now witnessing more and more youngsters consciously opting for this life style and minimalist framework. Just to cite examples of how this works: there is the "sniff test" for clothes- do your clothes need to be washed so frequently, consuming more water, soap, power? Sniff the clothes for malodorous smells- this will probably tell you that you could wear them for another couple of days before consigning them to the washing machine. (A single washing machine discharges 480 kgs of green house gases every year). Then there's the "one in, one out" principle: don't keep adding to your possessions unnecessarily- buy an item only as a replacement, not as an addition, discard the first before buying the second. "Tiny living" is another idea that is gaining traction- small homes (why do you need five bedrooms when it's just you and your wife and maybe one kid?), away from the congestion and pollution of metros, off-grid as regards power and water, self sufficient with solar and rain water harvesting.

A  minimalist life style is good for mother Earth too- the culture of over-consumption, so assiduously promoted by economists, governments and big corporates, has led to the depletion of natural resources and ravaging of forests, rivers, lakes and mountains. Reducing this demand for goods and products and minimising possessions lowers the strain on the natural environment, reduces waste, cuts down on carbon emissions. It is a far more sustainable model of life than the blind GDP growth driven models being foisted on us; in fact, I would go further and say that it is the ONLY life style choice which can save us and the planet from another extinction.

And here's the final, clinching argument which has eluded us but has been instinctively grasped by the younger generation- you are happier as a person when you have minimised your needs. This has been scientifically captured now in a concept which is known as the Easterlin Paradox. This states that happiness does not increase with more money. Happiness is directly proportionate to money up to a certain point, but once your basic needs are met more money does not mean more happiness. After this point happiness is defined, not by money, but by meaning of life, purpose, relationships, contribution to society. (The reader is probably reminded here of Maslow's theory of Hierarchy of Needs). In fact, without the latter components, after that point more money means more worries, tensions, fears and even depression. Bob Dylan put it in a much simpler, easy-to-understand language six decades ago when he sang: "When you ain't got nothing, you've got nothing to lose...."

I'm glad our sons and daughters are beginning to hear this music.