The prime minister’s televised press conference of February 16, during which he fielded a volley of questions from editors of the country’s plethora of television news channels on the spate of scams involving defalcation of unprecedented sums — actual or accruing — from the public exchequer, failed to quell public appreh-ension about the tidal wave of corruption within government and industry which threatens to overwhelm public and government institutions within this benighted republic. His assurance that none guilty of wrong-doing would escape punishment was nullified by his statement that corruption is the price of politics in the era of coalition governments.
Unfortunately the dominant sentiment within the public seems to be — as surprisingly argued by legal eagle and Union HRD minister Kapil Sibal — that the financial loss suffered by the exchequer in the 2G spectrum allocation scandal is notional and hypothetical, particularly if funding never accrued to government. At best this is a marginally more sophisticated rationalisation of the popular belief that defalcation or misuse of government funds is harmless as money siphoned out of government coffers belongs to nobody in particular.
Such perverse rationalisation of corruption is the outcome of Left-inspired gobbledygook ‘Indian economics’ which continues to be taught and propagated in the country’s crumbling higher education institutions. In particular, this brand of suspect economics tends to be completely unaware of the concept of opportunity cost of resources. Following presentation of the Union Budget 2010-11 to the nation on February 26 last year in which finance minister Pranab Mukherjee allocated a measly Rs.42,036 crore as the Centre’s contribution to the education of India’s 450 million children — equivalent to 0.68 percent of GDP — on the invitation of EducationWorld, Dr. A.S. Seetharamu presented a detailed calculus estimating the cost of equipping every government elementary (primary and upper primary) school countrywide with lib-lab-lav (library, laboratory and lavatory) facilities, at Rs.99,908 crore. Against this, the loss of revenue estimated by the comptroller and accountant general of India from sale of underpriced 2G spectrum to suspect mobile telephony shell companies is Rs.176,000 crore — a sum large enough to have fulfilled the lib-lab-lav dream of over 150 million children enroled in decrepit government primaries. That’s a live example of the opportunity cost of (lost) capital.
Yet if the national debate on the causes, effects and cures of corruption is stuck in shallows and misery even as scams and scandals involving ever-increasing amounts multiply exponentially, the failure and neglect to rigorously teach ethics and morality in K-12 education is the root cause. Moreover it’s important that these subjects are taught rigorously, detailing the socio-economic causes and effects — including the opportunity cost of capital — of corruption.
There’s a direct connection between ballooning corruption in New Delhi and state capitals and 46 percent of India’s children under five years suffering severe malnutrition. This connection needs to be made plainly manifest.
Arab youth need political and religious freedom
The momentous ouster of Egypt’s dictator-president Hosni Mubarak from office on February 11 following an 18-day spontaneous people’s peaceful sit-in at Cairo’s Tahrir Square, marks a major turning point in global history, on a par with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 which led to disintegration of the Soviet Union and the liberation of Eastern Europe. Now there’s the distinct possibility the democracy movement which began in Tunisia in December will spread across the Middle East, and the stupendous oil wealth of OPEC (Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries), which has hitherto been frittered away by kings, princes and satraps on armaments and in race-tracks and gambling dens worldwide, will become available for the overdue education and socio-economic development of the 1.8 billion people of the Arab world, and youth in particular.
Yet it is important to note that only the first round of a great ideological battle for liberty, equality and fraternity in the Islamic world has been won in Cairo and Tunis. The nations of the Middle East have a long tradition of despotism and arbitrary rule starting with the pharaohs of ancient Egypt who built the pyramids and other architectural wonders of Egyptian civilisation on the backs of slave labour. This authoritarian tradition, which is the rule in the Arab and Muslim world, has been continuously endorsed by militant Islam which in alliance with political despotism has completely suppressed the intellectual and liberal traditions of Sufi Islam, recognised for its great contributions to the advancement of philosophy, mathematics and the sciences in the period 900-1400 AD.
Therefore future battles for freedom and democracy in the Islamic nations will have to be fought not only on political platforms but also within mosques and religious seminaries which have been complicit in the suppression of the freedom and creative genius of the Arab people for several centuries. Failure of Arab youth who have led the democracy movements in Tunis and Tahrir Square to fight for political and ecclesiastical freedom simultaneously, runs the danger of substantially more oppressive theocratic clerical dictatorships of the Iranian, Taliban and Muslim Brotherhood genre supplanting tyrannical dictators, monarchs and satraps.
At this critical time in the history of Arab countries, it’s important for the internet and new technologies savvy youth who have led the new Arab revolt of the 21st century and the hitherto quiescent intelligentsia of the Islamic world to become aware that the days of crude oil and petroleum as prime drivers of energy are numbered despite the best efforts of the Seven Sister oil companies to squelch non-petroleum driven energy innovations. An energy substitute for crude oil and petroleum is imminent, if not already innovated. If the intelligentsia and middle class of the Islamic world fails to urgently address the issue of reforming and upgrading its education systems and make them relevant to the secular needs of youth of the 21st century, there is real and present danger that the Arab world will be obliged to revert to the dominant nomadic pastoral lifestyle characteristic of the Middle East until the dawn of the 20th century.