Wikileaks portrayal of the joker Prakash Karat

Read this article in entirety if you need a long laugh. cHindu's editorialization of Karat's portrayal in wikileaks is incredible. They want to show the CPM buffoon as some kind of Superhero.

The Embassy, in a cable to Washington the same day (31968: confidential), described Mr. Karat as a “talented and skillful leader who is well-aware of his political importance.”

WTF! Karat as skillful? What election of importance did he win? Or for that matter an issue of importance that he has lead a debate on? Nothing. West Bengal or Kerala wins have been achieved by local leaders like Basu, Buddha, Achuthanandan etc.

Relatively young [at 57], he will be a powerful figure on the Indian political scene for years to come, and could play an increasingly important role in the formation of future Indian governments.”

Other than capitulating to the first UPA Government and help putting India further down the corrupt hellhole its in right now, Karat has little to provide.

The Marxist leader noted that land reform was the strength of the CPI (M) in West Bengal, “where it increased agricultural production, made the state into India's largest rice producer, and demonstrated that small farms can be productive.”

I'm sure the people who struggle for a single meal in West Bengal will feel happy to know how the CPM has solved World hunger at a single stroke.

CPI(M) on religious faith

Both the articles below are filed by "Special Correspondent". This correspondent could be a low-level reporter, or the editor or, more likely, a CPI(M) spokesperson. These reports follow a standard template. The first report giving Pinarayi's views does not give out the context clearly. It is not clear what was the issue that prompted Manoj's resignation. From this report it appears as if Manoj decided all of a sudden without any provocation that CPM was against his faith, Christianity. In fact, chindu, which reports on every little happening within the party, did not carry an article even in the Kerala news section about Manoj's resignation. We are forced to deduce this news from Pinarayi's press release. I had to search for this news on google to find out the background of this issue. In other words, there is a complete blackout in chindu of information which is not in CPM's interests.

The rectification document says that CPM party members should not take part in religious ceremonies. CPM was seeing its party base being eroded by Congress and PDP. So it decided to woo the religious communities and in this effort drafted Manoj into the party. With Manoj resigning citing religious grounds, it does send out a strong signal to the voters. So Karat comes in to do the damage control.

Karat comes out with an explanation in People's Democracy which is routinely copied in chindu. Interestingly, I can't find the Karat's article or the rectification and religion document on http://pd.cpim.org site. Karat says that CPI(M) intends to separate religion and state. Good. But the fundamental question still remains: can CPI(M) cadre attend religious ceremonies? The answer according to Karat's clarification is NO. You may practise your faith privately but CPI(M) party diktat says, don't display it in the public and don't attend any religious ceremonies. If only this message is sent across loud and clear to all the muslims and christians in Kerala. Don't bother about West Bengal, it is a lost bastion for the marxists.

The Hindu : Front Page : CPI(M) not against religion: Pinarayi

Mr. Vijayan said the party was not against religious faith and that this was something that Mr. Manoj knew well when he had agreed to be the party candidate. His sudden revelation that the CPI(M) was against religious faith was incomprehensible. Once he got elected to Parliament, he had settled down in Delhi instead of being in his constituency and it was for him to explain what had happened after that.

The Hindu : National : Karat: religious faith no bar for joining CPI(M)

Mr. Karat referred to the announcement by the former party MP, K.S. Manoj, that he was quitting the party since its rectification document directed CPI(M) members not to take part in religious ceremonies and as a firm believer, it went against his faith.

Karat's Sophistry

Prakash Karat argues in an op-ed today the gist of which is that financial deregulation caused the ongoing financial crisis in the US and the $700 billion contemplated to fix this problem is aimed at helping the 'fatcats and speculators recoup their losses'. Both claims are false. Read this to understand the issue, these articles (here, here and here) which explain why absence of regulation was not the cause of this crisis (not paucity but potentially bad regulation - see this and this)and this piece which summarizes briefly what the US treasury department has done and how it does not benefit the rich but the hoi polloi who otherwise stand to lose the most from the failure of these firms. The episode may potentially have lessons for India but it is premature to say what they are. The imperative to prevent liberalization is however definitely not one of them as Karat posits.

The Uproar Over Bush's Comments

Today's paper reported President Bush commenting on Indian food consumption as a cause for the growth in international prices. Here is what the Hindu reported.

At an interactive session on economy in Missouri, Mr. Bush argued that there were many factors for the present crisis, only one of which was investment in biofuels such as ethanol.

"Worldwide there is increasing demand. There turns out to be prosperity in developing world, which is good. It’s going to be good for you because you’ll be selling products in the countries, you know, big countries perhaps, and it’s hard to sell products to countries that aren’t prosperous. In other words, the more prosperous the world is, the more opportunity there is", he said.

"It also, however, increases demand … There are 350 million people in India who are classified as middle class. That’s bigger than America. Their middle class is larger than our entire population. And when you start getting wealth, you start demanding better nutrition and better food, and so demand is high, and that causes the price to go up", he said.

I see nothing objectionable here but for some reason that I do not comprehend, apparently, all political parties in India have gone ballistic about it. Several comments as reported are chronicled below.

Jairam Ramesh: It shows how wrong President Bush is in his understanding of economics — first he blamed India and China for spiralling oil prices and now he is blaming India for increased food prices. There should be limit to this kind of talk.

Prakash Karat: This is adding insult to injury. Mr. Bush is covering up the U.S. policy of subsidising and promoting bio-fuel out of crops like corn — the major reason for the shortages and spurt in food prices.

D.Raja: Ridiculous and smacking of an imperialist mindset. Probably Mr. Bush does not know about a vast majority of our people who do not even get enough food.

Congress (no name mentioned): how could anyone blame poor India for eating better and causing shortages when in fact it was a net exporter of food and self-sufficient for several decades?

Prakash Javadekar: [These remarks are] irrelevant. This is similar to Ministers blaming global prices for inflation in India, which is not dependent on imported food. The global population has not doubled overnight and it is the business of planners in India and the world to ensure that food supply remains secure. Perhaps Mr. Bush has his eye on his domestic constituents in an election year and [at] a time when the U.S. economy has slowed down.

M.A.Naqvi: The remarks are “unwarranted” since the majority of Indians need more nutrition not less.

Shakeel Ahmed: The U.S. is perhaps agitated that India has banned exports of some food items to check domestic inflation and ensure adequate supply.

Manish Tewari: Since the 70s India has been self-sufficient in food grains. The view that global food shortage is a result of enhanced consumption is erroneous.

Reading his comments, I certainly do not get the impression Bush is blaming anyone for the price rise. He is simply articulating the causes for it as facts. Are Indian leaders so hypersensitive that they take umbrage at even the most innocuous of comments? Or are they unable to distinguish between the two?

Contrary to Karat's claim, Bush did not say that diversion of foodgrains towards biofuel production is not a cause. As for the validity of the President's comments, read this post by Posner and this one by Gary Becker, two prominent economists at the University of Chicago (the latter is also a Nobel Laureate). Becker highlights how the price rise came about without a population growth and how the World Bank's index of food prices increased by 140 percent from January 2002 to the beginning of 2008, and a full 75 percent just since September 2006 - this phenomenon has been several years in the making and is not a sudden 2008-summer occurence both of which contradict Javadekar's implied notion of it happening overnight. As for whether rising incomes are responsible, here is what he says:

...[Rise in food prices] is only a little related to the rapid expansion in world incomes in recent years. Rather, the boom in petroleum prices and subsidies to ethanol and other biofuels are the most important forces explaining the recent increase in food prices.

...The Malthusian forces of population and income growth ontributed only a little to explaining the big increase in grain prices since 2002. The large rise of world food prices came after food prices had been either stable or declined for many years. Although incomes in China and India, countries that account for almost 40 percent of the world's population, did grow rapidly during this decade as well as during the 1990's, global consumption of corn, wheat, and rice grew more slowly since 2000 than during the five years earlier. To be sure, the slower growth in consumption is partly the result of the rapid increase in grain prices. However, if an unusually large increase in world wide demand for grains to use as feed for animals and for human consumption explained the rapid increase in these prices, consumption should have grown more rapidly during the later period, even after adjusting for any induced increase in grain prices.

Here is what Posner says:

The demand for agricultural products has grown, though not as a result of population growth; instead as a result of increased demand for ethanol and other biofuels, and for food that requires more agricultural acreage to produce. Today, besides people and pigs eating corn, our motor vehicles "eat" corn that has been converted into ethanol. And in China and India, which together contain a third of the world's population, increased wealth has led to an increased demand for meat, in China for beef. Cattle eat corn and other crops and are in turn eaten, but the amount of crops consumed in this process is several times greater than the amount that would be consumed if people ate the crops directly, rather than indirectly by eating vegetarian farm animals. China's consumption of beef, which has been growing rapidly for a number of years, is expected to grow 4 percent this year - yet it will still be only about 15 percent of U.S. beef consumption per capita.

It may be that the rising grain prices reflect in some measure greater meat consumption. While I find Becker's view that consumption trends do not justify the theory of higher incomes being responsible persuasive (that echoes the views of Indian leaders as well), the issue, at the very least, is debatable. The President's comments are plausible even if incorrect and and certainly not preposterous or even otherwise outside the realm of possibility. The political storm is therefore unwarranted.