Commentary/ Mani Shankar Aiyar

The business of business will henceforth be the business of the nation

Economist Deepak Nayyar of the Jawaharlal Nehru University has drawn attention to a little-noticed fact of public life -- that the Second Republic is already upon us.

We now have a tricameral legislature: the Lok Sabha, the Rajya Sabha and the Confederation of Indian Industry. So it was entirely proper for Inder Kumar Gujral to have sought a vote of confidence from the CII before submitting himself to the House of the People. He was merely acknowledging the growing role of the business lobby in determining the nation's destiny.

The business politicos (or boliticos, if I may coin a term), like their counterparts in the real game of politics, are a divided lot. They hide their identity behind a welter of acronyms leaving the layman (that is, you and me, dear reader) a little perplexed about who they are, what they stand for, and what distinguishes the one from the other.

There are three main business lobbies: CII, ASSOCHAM and FICCI. You know what CII stands for. ASSOCHAM is the Associated Chambers of Commerce, and FICCI is the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

What distinguishes one from the other is not that one is a confederation, the other no more than a federation, and the third a mere association. The rift runs deeper. CII speaks English, ASSOCHAM Indish while FICCI speaks Marwari. (ASSOCHAM also speaks ZEEndi).

CII went to Harvard; ASSOCHAM stayed at home; FICCI believes degrees are superfluous since accounts are to be carried not digitally but in the head.

CII uses state-of-the-art computers; ASSOCHAM uses state-of-the-mart typewriters; FICCI makes do with khatas.

CII wears designer suits; ASSOCHAM wears patriotic bandgalas; FICCI wears dhotis, tucking most of it, like their accounts, out of sight.

FICCI is Indian in origin. ASSOCHAM was British until the Brits went away. And CII has completed the voyage begun by Christopher Columbus in 1492. Five hundred years late, the Americans have found, through the CII, the route to India -- or, at least, the route to CII.

As a 60s socialist, I learned to see the CIA's hand in everything. As a 90s socialist, I am learning to see the CII's hand in everything. CIA stands for Central Intelligence Agency. CII stands for Chidambaram's India Inc.

What unites all three is that they believe the business of business is the business of the nation. CII is downright ashamed of the state of the nation. FICCI funded the freedom struggle and is vaguely proud of it. ASSOCHAM is still making up its mind.

Therefore, it is the CII which is the favoured son of the first finance minister we have ever had who is ashamed of his nation. Our twice-born finance minister chose the very month in which India should have been (but was not) celebrating the first Asian Relations Conference convention in New Delhi (March, 1947) to announce his life ambition of making India Asian!

Hacks being hacks, and as such made up, for the most part, of chaps who failed to get clerical jobs at FICCI, perhaps misheard ASEAN as Asian -- I don't know. At any rate, CII applauds the finance minister's decision to make India Asian or ASEAN, whatever, so long as he does not persist with the foolishness of keeping India Indian. They have no use for 5,000 years of identity. What they are looking for is cash in the till. And they have got themselves a finance minister who says he's gonna give it to them.

Oh! he will, attaboy, he will. For, after all, he went to Harvard.

"And how will he?" you, as a non-member of CII, ask.

Naive you! He will get it by reading memoranda from the CII, rather than submissions by under-secretaries. His precedents will be from Singapore and Korea (Seoul), not some dreadful cyclostyled circular from the Planning Commission. Dreams will be manufactured in Taipei, not Tollygunge. Visions will be conjured up in Beijing, not Bombay.

Deepak Nayyar had better watch out. Jawaharlal Nehru University might still be renamed after Lee Kwan Yew. And maths will henceforth be math. Even as the 'u' is gouged out of 'labour' before everything else is gouged out of labour as well.

The business of business will henceforth be the business of the nation.

At least, so long as Chidambaram is FM and Gujral knows which shrine it is at which he is required to pay obeisance.

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