In the din of the mighty uproar over the Adarsh Housing Society scandal in Mumbai which forced the resignation of Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan, and has disgraced two former Indian Army chiefs and a naval chief besides a phalanx of bureaucrats, politicians and other notables, an issue which surfaced briefly but has since vanished completely, is why the defence services need to own thousands of acres of land in 62 urban cantonments across the country. According to a Times of India news report (November 4), the three major arms of the defence services (army, navy and air force) together own an estimated 1.7 million acres of land — equivalent in size to the area covered by Greater Delhi seven times over, countrywide.
In most of the country’s metros and mini-metros constituents of the defence services own huge reserved estates which have contributed heavily towards creating land shortages and driving up urban real estate prices which in contemporary India are way out of proportion with per capita and average middle class incomes. The world over and particularly in western democracies, army, air force and naval bases are usually sited well out of town in rural habitats, which offer better training and housing facilities.
Not so in this country, where the defence services top brass are too enamoured with bright city lights and soft urban lifestyles. Although it would be dangerous to confiscate surplus defence services cantonments, there is a strong argument in favour of the army, navy and air force moving their bases, particularly training establishments and engineering and maintenance corps to the countryside, and building a corpus out of the proceeds of urban land sales to meet rising pension, medical care and other miscellaneous expenses which the profligate Central government is increasingly unable to meet. In this context it is pertinent to note that China’s People Liberation Army is one of the largest business enterprises in our neighbouring country, generating a sizeable proportion of its own revenue.
The Adarsh and other scandals relating to the armed forces indicate it’s time to reconsider whether India which is a bottom-ranker in UNDP’s HDI (human development index) league table can afford large army, navy and air force establishments bivouacked in urban habitats.
Disgraced lordship
It’s painful to say so, but morality deficit seems to be a natural condition of the brightest and best the subcontinent has to offer. Three Indian-origin peers of Britain — Lord Swraj Paul, Lord Bhatia and Baronness Uddin — have been suspended from the upper house of the mother of all parliaments in Blighty, for fiddling house rent allowances. Although all three of them permanently reside in luxurious homes in London, they declared modest lodgings out in the sticks as their principal residences to avail generous allowances for the upkeep of their metropolitan establish-ments. These rich and commercially successful worthies saw nothing wrong in making fraudulent claims for relatively paltry amounts, with multi-millionaire Swraj Paul publicly stating that in the sub-continent this minor fiddle wouldn’t be regarded as a sin at all.
Your editor’s anguish about Paul’s fall from grace flows from an acquaintance with his now disgraced lordship. Way back in the early 1980s, I was among the first Indian journalists to have interviewed him in his capacity as promoter-chairman of the Caparo Group — then a fast-track cluster of engineering companies. At that time it was also widely rumoured that he was Mrs. Indira Gandhi’s banker in London and played a major role in her return to power in New Delhi in 1981.
Shortly thereafter Paul made a hostile takeover bid for DCM and Escorts, Delhi-based blue-chip companies, with Mrs. Gandhi’s tacit support. Businessworld, where I was editor at the time, was in the thick of the action reporting the country’s first — and abortive — hostile takeover, and gave ample space for his point of view. Yet when in its earlier difficult years, this publication sought modest advertising support from the flourishing Caparo Group and Paul, he failed to reply to all entreaties for supporting the cause of education, which he claims to champion. In typical style of the captains of Indian industry, he believes he is entitled to receive without giving. Now that he has been outed as petty chiseller, there are few ready to speak up for him. Your editor included.
Microfinance terminator
Ex facie there’s something not quite right about Vikram Akula, the promoter chief executive of SKS Microfinance Ltd who is now under a monsoon-size cloud for having rolled the reputation of SKS in the mud and given a bad odour to the high-potential microfinance business as a whole. Currently the equity share of SKS — the first microfinance company to go public in India last August and whose IPO was heavily over-subscribed — is quoted at Rs.721, way below its issue price of Rs.985 and its yearly high of Rs.1,491.
The precipitous drop in the company’s reputation and market value has a lot to do with the abrasive, bottom-line fixated personality of Akula, the self-described founder of the company. On the one occasion your editor met with him as co-panelist at a seminar on poverty alleviation, he came across as the arrogant and totally self-centred individual his estranged wife described him during their recent divorce proceedings. While he accepted compliments as his due, he was completely uninterested in the achievements or accomplishments of any of his co-panelists, with your editor who planned to interview him, airily dismissed with a visiting card and advice to e-mail for an appointment.
Little wonder that stories are now surfacing of usurious interest rates levied on poor rural borrowers by SKS, and strong-arm tactics employed to make loan recoveries. The mission of Bangladesh’s Nobel laureate Mohammad Yunus who established Grameen Bank — the world’s first microfinance enterprise —was that they should replace the traditional, rapacious moneylenders to help struggling individuals and communities access cheap credit.
Yunus repeatedly emphasised and demonstrated that care, compassion and adjustment are the essence of the micro-lending business, a lesson lost on Akula who evidently believes that sound banking practices and compassion are mutually exclusive.