I don’t know the truth of this, but I certainly think it should apply to all of today’s politicians, with the proviso that the rope should be attached to a hook attached to their intestines. But for a change I’m not talking about politicians here, except unless the roles intersect.

No, I’m talking about those all-knowing, all-pervasive, incomprehensible, experts and masters of life and death, the economists.

Show me a guy who thinks he knows everything that matters, and I’ll show you an economist.

Show me a guy who thinks people don’t matter, only figures do, and I’ll show you an economist.

Show me a guy who thinks abstract and incomprehensible theories are more important than simple common sense, and I’ll show you an economist.

Show me a guy who lives at such disconnect from the facts that he might as well be on another planet, and I’ll show you an economist.

If an economist thinks that a particular economic policy will result in the poor becoming richer, for instance, he will insist that it is happening – even if right in front of him the people are getting poorer and poorer.

I think economists should be forced to stand up in public and explain their fancy theories in words of not more than two syllables. And then I think they should be forced to provide proof, right there in public, that the theories are working. If they don’t, they should be compulsorily made to ceremoniously and literally eat their words in the form of newsprint, CDs, and any other medium in which they have appeared, before being banished to work at digging ditches for a century.

What triggered this particular rant? I have always been contemptuous of economists, as those of you who remember my comments on Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar will recall, and generally I give the illiterate (in the facts of life) morons a wide berth, but today I began reading an article by one of the tribe on how to tackle rising prices. Since I’m not of the income bracket which can afford to ignore prices rising to the skies, I read the article, with my jaw hanging wider and wider open till it threatened to hit the floor.

This guy starts off with a standard enough idea: if the amount of available money in an economy increases, and the supplies of goods and services don’t keep up with the increase in available money, then larger and larger amounts of money will chase the finite supply of goods and services, so, basically, said goods/services will go to the highest bidder and all prices will shoot up. I don’t have to have ever touched an economics textbook to agree with that one.

Not that I have a great dispute with his follow-on idea either: that money that is neither regulated nor taxed, illegal money in all forms, is more easily acquired and hence more easily expended than regulated or legal money. This being one of the most corrupt countries in the world, there is an ocean of slush money out there. Fine.

So what does our economist suggest? Does he claim that the obvious solution is to try and crack down on corruption so as to cut the source of illegal money off at the roots? No. He’s much too brilliant for that.

No, what our genius suggests is worth the Nobel Prize in his discipline: he says the government should at once ban the circulation of the three highest denomination notes in circulation; the Rs 1000, Rs 500 and Rs 100 notes. According to him, this would force everyone to deposit their money in banks, where it could be taxed, or to buy tax free bonds from the government. Either way, the amount of money could be regulated.

Let’s see now. I go to the shops, let’s say, to buy a whole passel of stuff – like so many other people. Instead of carrying a few thousand and five hundred rupee notes with me I have to drag along a sack of fifty rupee notes, because the average Indian shop will – quite right too, in my none too humble opinion – refuse to accept cheques. I guess this character envisages a lot of applications for credit cards – and he may well be a vice president in some financial institution offering credit cards. But, unfortunately, the average Indian shop also doesn’t accept credit cards. And even the Great Indian Muddle Class, let alone the rural poor, neither understands nor uses credit cards. To say nothing of the recurring expenditure on them.

Brilliant, as I said.

All right now, let me help the whole thing by taking it to its logical conclusion. Since the eminent economist here wants the supply of money to be regulated, let’s regulate all, but all, money. Let’s demonetise fifty-rupee, twenty-rupee and ten-rupee notes as well, along with the coins and notes of five, two and one rupee value. Then let’s issue currency of denominations such as three rupees, seven rupees, nine rupees, and seventeen rupees. And see the prices drop like an express lift – as the eminent economist says should happen.

And when he wins the Nobel Prize, will he be so kind as to mention me in his acceptance speech at least?   

He leant upon his drilling rig
Counted his pocket change
That could feed a million mouths
This world is awful strange.

"A strange world indeed,"
Into his phone said he
"I don't know why all these people
So hate and envy me.

"So I bathe in Evian water
While they don't have a bean
But I worked for my success
So why can't I be clean?

So my clothes are made in London
My shoes are from Rome
My suitcase is from Paris
My heart finds here its home.

"So they are starving, all of them
While I have access to food
But starvation's good for body and soul
I hope that's understood.

"Starvation's for the social good
Much moe than mere hunger is
For starving keeps the body healthy
And the mind in Nirvana bliss.

"Also important, the starving
Can't be made to rebel
Unlike the merely hungry
With rocket, shot and shell

"Really, starving saves such misery
They'd be grateful, you'd think
To be released from ceaseless want
In blessed numbness to sink.

"Starving's so good I'm envious
That they starve do and must
You'd think they'd get the message
And get down to eating dust.

"High prices are good for business
Full bank accounts feel so nice
So sad that some people moan
About ever higher price.

"If you sell something men must buy
If they want to live
High prices are a blessing
That will continue to give."

He bit into his ostrich stew
And licked his lips so light
Eyes shining with happiness
At  the poor peoples' plight.

"It helps if food gives way to fuel
To power vehicles too
For economic growth, 'bove all things
Must be sacred to you.

"Think on this, that economy
Is holier than the rest.
More than any human dupe
The market knows what's best."

He leant upon his SUV
And counted pocket change
While a million starving people
Snuffled as they came.    

If you’re Indian and you ever watch the news or read even the headlines in a newspaper, you couldn’t avoid knowing all about the Indian Professional League (IPL), the new cricket league in India where clubs were set up and auctioned to various film stars and industrialists, who then bid for and acquired players at auction.

While the auction aroused outrage in several quarters due to the obscene amounts involved (while millions go to sleep – one can’t say bed, most of them don’t have beds every night) and due to the fact that some new players sold for greater amounts than established “stars”, I’m strongly supportive of this whole circus.

This might seem to be a bit odd in view of the fact that I, as I’ve often mentioned, hate and detest cricket.

The reason is simple – I’m convinced that the Indian Professional League is the first step in the total destruction of cricket in all its forms.

Why?

Well, for one thing, the Indian Professional League is destined to fail, and fail catastrophically.

The reason for this is that Indians don’t watch cricket because they like or even have any interest in the pseudo-sport. They watch it because it’s a substitute for war; one of the very, very few things that India is halfway good at. (For the exact same reason they get a frisson of happiness at Indian stock indices climbing even though almost none of them own shares and many of them don’t even know what a share is.) Now take the nations out of it and substitute clubs, and expect them to retain any interest? Who thought that one up? Not someone who knows anything about India, I warrant.

Of course, because of the media hype, there will be an initial burst of interest in the League; that interest will last for exactly the length of the first month, and then taper off so dramatically the sponsors and organizers won’t know what hit them. There will be a second year; and after the catastrophic losses sink into the corporate consciousness, the IPL will sink like a lead duck. Take my word for it.

But before it sinks, it’s going to do all the damage one can hope for.

The first bit of damage it’s going to do is to the national teams. The “Indian team” (a private team chosen by the Board for the Control of Cricket in India, properly known as the BCCI XI) is already a mess of politics and rival camps. I can just see the daggers come out when certain players earn ten times what the others are getting.

Then, of course, the tourney is on the 20-over-a-side format (those of you who don’t know a thing about cricket, don’t worry, it’s just a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am version of the game). A 20-over a side thingy is the absolute best way of utterly and permanently destroying all skills suited to any longer version.

And since the IPL is the current pathway to riches, the young schoolboys who are the next generation will concentrate on that only, so that’s going to ruin them for the longer versions.

And, of course, the money floating around means that players and the parents of players will pay as much as necessary in bribes to ensure their children make it to the team. Once talent goes out of the window, you can ensure that’s the very final nail in the coffin.

So I’m far from enraged by the selling and buying of cricketers. Let them go on the auction slab by all means. It’s the fastest route to rendering them all extinct.

And then – and then, at last, we might have real sports given a smidgen of importance in this here nation.   

This morning (I’m in Delhi right now and using a shared computer in an Internet café) I went down to the newsstand to buy a newspaper. The headlines were all the same, in type so big it occupied half the page…”Stock Market Crashes”,  “Nightmare in Dalal Street”, or even, Jesus wept, “Bloodbath on the Bourses”. I thought that last one had died with the dinosaurs.

Anyway, to get to the point. The stock market is the perfect example of unbridled greed. People invest in it to earn something for nothing. You can’t do that forever, just as you can’t pull yourself up by the bootstraps. About time some people learned this.

So, you know, when I read of “6 trillion – or whatever – rupees lost in sixty seconds” my reaction is of polite disbelief. What lost in sixty seconds? Nobody had ever seen any of this money. It never had any but theoretical form, in random bits floating through the internet. Losing it meant just knocking some theoretical zeroes off a theoretical figure that never existed in the first place.

Also it seems a bit rich to me that when the stock market’s climbing the skies investors don’t seem to have any problem with the government leaving them alone; in fact they decry any sort of governmental oversight. While as soon as the market falls they scream for action – any action – from the government to bail them out. Seems to be a contradiction of capitalism, really.

Also the really big stockholders, the big financial institutions that theoretically have the most to lose, won’t hurt at all, of course. They will simply buy up stocks when the market falls enough to make it profitable.

In any case, maybe I’m out of sync with the times, but I don’t see how this stock market fall has anything to do with the more than 95% of the population who do not invest in shares. As for the rest, if they were greedy enough to invest, let them take their chances. I don’t think any of them is going to be rendered homeless, in any case. And if they are, it’s their own fault for being so greedy.

And a note to the papers: find some less clichéd headlines while you are about it.

    

The cheapest car in the world’s just been launched.

Or has it?

Permit me a moment of doubt.

Today, Tata Motors of India launched its long awaited ultra cheap car, the Nano (OK, enough with the jokes about the name already). It was supposed to cost Rs 100,000 (that is a little less than US$2500 at current exchange rates). And the media are going ape over it, as you can see here.

For a car in that price range, the features are pretty basic (click on this link for details), but that’s not really my point. Nor is my point the little fact that the 100,000 rupee price tag doesn’t include taxes and transport charges, all of which are (as trade rivals had predicted) going to increase the costs by up to 20%. No, it’s a bit more than that…

There are many reasons why this car is far from being the cheapest in the world. Let’s take a few.

This car is being manufactured in a half-completed factory constructed on farmland forcibly seized (at farcical rates of compensation) from farmers in Singur, West Bengal, and handed over by the West Bengal government to Tata Motors at a pittance. In terms of the pain of being forcibly dispossessed of one’s means of livelihood, this is not a car that comes cheap.

This car is going to emerge into a country crowded with cars of all shapes and sizes jamming the streets, polluting the air, causing immense losses in terms of health costs, energy wastage, and not less than a hundred thousand dead in traffic accidents alone, every year. This car is going to attract (because of its being pitched as the “cheap car”) even more people to buy it – even if they don’t need a car at all and don’t have roads on which to drive it, or any training in how to drive it without crashing. Endless traffic jams that contribute to brown haze, cause lung cancer, and raise fuel costs sky high seem to be rather a high price to pay for a cheap car.

The existence of a “cheap” car (loudly praised by the Indian government) means we can say goodbye to any chances of genuine safe and affordable public transport systems becoming a reality in the future. Instead, we can anticipate further, and accelerated, degradation of the public transport that we have. As I said before, discouraging public transport seems to be a part of government policy these days. In terms of social costs of pubic versus private transport, this is as far from being a cheap car as you can get.

And of course, lest I forget, in terms of a percentage of annual income, this is far from a cheap car. If one were to make an honest comparison with the average income of those who would be expected to buy it, one should calculate how many days one would need to work to earn the money to buy one (or pay off the bank loan one takes to buy one). It might throw up a few surprises in terms of how much it actually costs. This is the reason, I suspect, that no one has chosen to bring up that point. 

Cheapest car? Maybe. But if only human life is considered even cheaper. 

The first was of the rape and murder of a call centre worker – a 22 year old woman on her last night on the job – by the driver of the vehicle sent to pick her up and a friend of his. They, contrary to regulations, picked her up first (female staff aren’t supposed to be picked up first or dropped off last under the regulations just in order to prevent this sort of thing happening). The call centre just said they hadn’t expected her to turn up at all and hadn’t thought about it again.

Now this made a big stir because this sort of thing had happened before and there are regulations in place to stop this sort of thing from happening. But those regulations are hardly ever followed because they would increase operating costs (like having security guards in each vehicle and using women drivers for woman workers – because of the nature of their jobs, these women are generally picked up and dropped off in the late hours of the night) and because of general sloppiness. However, since call centre operators are a privileged species as far as the media are concerned (and never mind what sort of stressed out lives they actually lead) it made a big enough stir that for a few weeks they might actually put some security in place. It will only be a few weeks, of course, before the cost-cutting kicks in and things go back to the same old place.

The second bit of news also concerns call centres. Apparently the rate of attrition of workers (who have to be trained and accustomed to the work, abuse, accents, faux American identities and all, don’t forget) is so high the companies are now offering them MBA courses to make it worth their staying on.

Now, of course, MBA courses cost money, and this must come out of the call centre’s profits. Which makes one wonder just how much they take in that they can afford to give away MBA courses and yet can’t afford to let their employees form unions or have a minimum level of security.

Now, of course, call centres are outsourcing operations. Which means you hire someone abroad to do jobs for you that your own workers would charge more to do. The problem here is, of course, that the people you outsource to must manage to keep their workforce cheap enough to make it attractive for you to send them work. Capitalism works on the basis of profit maximisation and is, in its pure form, completely amoral. So, slavery or quasi-slavery (and such cost saving measures as the use of child labour) makes perfect capitalistic sense, while paying proper wages will have the effect of reducing the profit margin so much that the company will either have to set its rates higher or settle for sharply reduced profits. So, ultimately, the company will either price itself out of the market or else it will reduce its profits so much that it will no longer be an attractive business operation – unless it cuts costs in every way possible, worker safety, environment, and so on. Or else (and this is not mutually exclusive to what I just mentioned) it exploits the workers in every way possible, such as the sweatshops companies like Adidas and Nike use all over South East Asia on the plea that the locals are at least earning more than they otherwise would.

Now that last has an interesting corollary. Suppose that outsourcing actually improved the living conditions of the local workforce so much that their lifestyles included enough consumption to make it necessary for them to spend more, so they move on to better jobs. Ultimately, the people employing the call centre or whatever will find cheaper venues in other countries that will do the job cheaper, and will move there. Which means that the cycle begins again in the third country and on, in a constant search for even cheaper options in order to drive one’s own profits up and up. And this is another important reason for employers to keep their own staff as underpaid as possible. If staff are paid only just enough for them to hesitate to change jobs, and no more, or if one has some kind of hold over them, they can be used indefinitely and the foreign sources of business won’t move on. If you can’t do that, if your workforce is too highly educated to be kept under slave wage conditions, then you cut down on “nonessentials” like security and so on.

Expect more murders and more useless media hullabaloo.    

                                        SECRET AND CONFIDENTIAL                  

To

H E Artless

Secretary, Grand Shopping Mall

Superabad

India

Sub: Marketing strategies for your new mall.

Sir,

As per your commission, my firm has conducted a study of how to pitch your mall towards maximising the returns from your target market. Appended is our detailed report for your perusal. However, in this letter, I would like the opportunity to sum up the salient points for your benefit.

First, I suggest that you must make your mall look exclusive. It’s in any case true that the mall will only cater to the rich – the upper middle and upper classes. So, it would be foolish and unproductive to throw your gates open to those who cannot buy anything and will just increase your cleaning bills and your wear and tear.

Therefore, we suggest that you restrict entry to your mall to those demonstrably capable of purchasing your merchandise. The easiest way of doing this is by making it compulsory to show one’s credit card at the entrance. Only those with credit cards should be allowed access. If it could be managed, it would be very good if you could make it compulsory for all purchases to be paid for with credit cards, but as far as I know this is probably against government regulations. Still, as we know, the current government is friendly towards progressive business interests and credit card companies could be asked to lobby hard to allow such regulations at least for malls catering to the empowered sections.

We are aware that this strategy (restricting entry to credit card holders) was tried before and did not work, because of objections from certain sections of the population and from left-wing anti-national elements it would be pointless to name. But in our opinion the failure of that brave and farsighted attempt was more due to incorrect marketing strategy than anything else.

In our opinion, the correct strategy should have been pitched differently for the targeted crowd and the general populace. While the targeted population should be reassured of its exclusiveness, to be made to feel that the mall’s throwing open its doors to them is a statement of faith in their financial security and a reward for their financial success, the rest of the people shouldn’t be made to feel excluded. The rich should be told that there is no need for them to rub shoulders with the dirty, untidy common folk, that this is theirs, a consumer’s paradise, just for them and for people like them. The rest, though, even though they may not have a hope in hell of ever being able to enter through the gates, must not be made to feel neglected. You can always claim that this is actually a good thing for the others – it gives them a goal to aspire to. If the only way to enter the portals of your shopper’s paradise is to acquire the credit cards that are your entry ticket, it makes sense for people to work hard enough and earn enough to afford credit cards. So, excluding non-card holders makes it a positive thing for the economy. It promotes long term economic growth.

We hardly need to point out that the words “economic growth” are engraved in gold on the hearts of the current government, and anything that professes to promote economic growth will resonate well with them. And since the media can be easily co-opted with the same slogan, the media will also back any such move by you. A few discreetly bribed editors should do the trick.

It may be that some unregenerate left-wing pinkos may ask the question of where the poor are supposed to shop until they can afford the credit cards they must aspire to. If they do, we suggest that you point out that a branch of Wal-Mart is supposed to open in this city at some time in the future. The poor, you may suggest, can go to the Wal.

Secondly, the importance of proper packaging can’t be overemphasized. The issue of government support must be kept in mind. This government will support anything that backs up its policies. Since the thrust of this government’s current policy is to force through the Nuclear Deal, and since the rationale is increased demand for power, you should emphasise the extremely high power consumed by malls like yours and how such drivers of the economy demand high amounts of power. The government will readily uphold you as an example of why the Nuclear Deal is necessary.

As a part of this strategy, high energy consumption is essential; please ensure large, power-intensive displays and billboards that consume the maximum amount of electricity that can be managed. Economy in electricity is not the right way to go about this. Please don’t be concerned about high electricity bills. You do not have to pay them at all, if the government is on your side. And with the strategy we are outlining, it will be.

Thirdly, we are sure you must be aware that there will be resistance from reactionary left wing elements to the mall. This must be handled in two ways. First, media sources must be paid off so as to belittle the opponents as anti-nationals and Luddites who oppose economic development. Please do not skimp the fund meant to “educate” editors and journalists. Also, please ensure low level menial jobs to local families who might otherwise join in protests against the mall. These jobs will break up the unity of the opposition, and after the mall is established the concerned individuals can be quietly dismissed. We are, naturally, assuming that you have no intention of allowing any sort of effective employees’ union to come into existence.  

Fourthly, since the Tata Group is the reigning economic power behind the current throne, we would advise you to invite Mr Ratan Tata to formally inaugurate the mall. Anything Mr Tata does is automatically news. His influence on the media is so great that even his blunders and his bending of laws and ethics double are treated as immense personal triumphs. If he either inaugurates the mall or makes a symbolic purchase, you would get immediate media attention.

Fifthly, America resonates with your targeted demographic. We would suggest you design the mall round the US as a theme, with American flags prominently displayed and US resident George W Bush’s portrait with India’s current Prime Minister on as many walls as possible. This will also garner further government support.     

With all these actions, as discussed in greater detail in the main report attached, we can be reasonably sure that you can market the mall to your target group and gain sympathetic media attention and government support at the same time.

We would, of course, draw your attention to our bill, also attached. It may seem to you high, but as per the terms of your brief we believe, not excessive. After all, you are going to fleece the population and the economy, and we don’t see why you shouldn’t pass on a fraction of that to us.

                                                                              Yours sincerely

                                                                              S. Liz Ball

                                                                              Chairperson

                                                                              Moneybags and Associates

                                                                              Marketing Consultants.

There is a limit to how badly I’m willing to be rooked, and I do admit I have let things go unpunished earlier. But you bastards have crossed the limits.

How so? Well, after a mere week of using this brand, I suddenly find the (badly overpriced) bottle is more than half empty. How so? Easy. Because each time I take shampoo from it, I can’t take a small amount. The mouth is so constructed that I get half a palmful at each squeeze – like it or not.

Forget about my hair or lack thereof – even a woman with hair down to her waist will have a difficult time using all that at one go.

Since with other brands (like Clinic All Clear, for instance) I can take as much or as little as I wish, I can only conclude that you characters are doing it with malice aforethought. I’m not hopeful that my boycotting you will make any difference in your modus operandi. No, my worry is a bit different from that.

I wonder how long it’s going to be till the other shampoo brands catch on and begin doing the same damn thing.   

Those must have been the days…

Water parting to floats in sheets of spray, the drone of engines overhead snatching in gulps of air, lifting off over a wrinkled sheet of blue.

Sounds romantic, doesn’t it?

And it’s not just romantic…it’s sensible.

I keep hearing how modern science, allied to capitalism, is efficient and pragmatic. I don’t think.

Just look at the kind of aircraft called the flying boat, for example.

The other day I was reading an article about how it’s so difficult to expand the area of the airport in Mumbai because of lack of land, and I was thinking…

If you look at it logically, why on earth would any city on the coast or built on a river of any size want to lock up large areas of land in airports that are good for nothing else except allowing large metal birds to get down, load up, and take off again? It would make infinitely more sense to use those stretches of easily available open water, wouldn’t it? Your plane could come down right in the middle of the city; no need for long trips to airports situated so far away you spend longer getting there sometimes than you do on the plane. You can build your hangers and facilities right out on the river, and use ordinary multi-purpose launches (with slight modifications) to embark and disembark luggage and passengers/crew. When the planes aren’t landing or taking off, you can use the river or sea for whatever else you want, or just let it be.

And – of course – today’s technology can easily make flying boats amphibious (the few flying today are virtually all amphibious anyway) so they wouldn’t even be necessarily dependent on water to land and take off.

So why is it that – apart from Russia and Japan – the world seems to have turned its back on this type of aircraft? Your guess is as good as mine. I can just think of three reasons:

First, fashion. Flying boats are nowhere near as sexy looking as Airbus A380 Superjumbos or Boeing 747s, even if – given unlimited space over water – they can be much larger if the designer so chooses.

Second, money. Capitalism being all about the profit motive, airports can make more money for more people than landing aeroplanes on nice free rivers and seas. This is also among the self-defeating features of capitalism, because the land freed from airports could be used for better purpose.

Third, speed. Those ungainly flying boats were “slow”. Er, I’d say this is the least convincing reason. Commercial aeroplanes have about reached their optimum speed; they aren’t getting any faster, and the Concorde’s gone out of service. I don’t think flying boats built with modern technology could be significantly slower.

So, again, thinking about science and capitalism and efficiency, I still wonder why they don’t build them no more.

And they talk of the devaluation of childhood.

The premises next to my clinic are rented out to a shop selling clothes and accessories for women. The same premises were earlier rented out to a car showroom, which collapsed after widespread customer dissatisfaction. Actually, the same people who owned the car showroom own the clothing emporium as well. They are a family that owns many businesses in Guwahati, 100 kilometres north of here, including hotels and another car dealership. (I’m not naming them here, though I could, since I don’t want any legal hassles.)

Now why am I talking about this?

Well, when they had this car showroom, they would pull a trick repeatedly. They would hire staff, pay them for a few months, and then stop paying them. The staff would work on in the hope of getting their pay, then quit after a few months. And then they would simply hire new staff again.

Of course this is, in terms of a car dealership, self-destructive. This is because in order to sell cars you have to know something about cars, and you also need skilled mechanics to service them and repair them. As it was the cars they were selling were Fiats, and Fiat has a reputation for having among the worst support services of all brands in India. In any case the word soon got around and they ran out of staff they could hire. Ultimately they closed the showroom and remodelled it as a woman’s clothing emporium. During the remodelling, too, they stopped paying rent on the premises for so long the building management cut off their electricity and threatened to take legal action.

Remember that they are extremely rich people with thriving businesses in Guwahati.

Now, the woman’s clothing business is different from a car dealership in that you don’t have to know much about anything in order to work there. What you need to know you can learn from a couple of days of on-the-job training. And there are many young women fresh out of school who will take any job going.

So, within a year and a half of the reopening of the emporium, its staff has already turned over several times…

I may have thought this exploitative behaviour was something exceptional, but it is far from unique. We see versions both in small scale capitalism and in the corporate sector.

For example, in Gurgaon near Delhi, Honda employees were assaulted by police and thrown out of work after they exposed conditions at the plant. Young men would be taken on as trainees with the promise of permanent employment once their training period was successfully completed. During the period they were paid a stipend much lower than a salary, but from the time the training period was part way over they were doing all the jobs the regular employees would do. Then, just before the training was over, they were summarily dismissed and a fresh batch was taken on. Honda was saving one hell of a lot on employee benefits, salaries, pensions, everything. And the Indian corporate sector – of course – supported and praised it!

Then there is a small restaurant on the highway between Guwahati and Shillong where cars stop for snacks and soft drinks. The people who own the place have long since got rid of all their earlier staff. What they do now is import poor village boys from Rajasthan, a state which is right on the opposite side of the country, with promises of high salaries. Once they are here, the boys are given nothing except food and a place to sleep, and are made to work all day, every day. They don’t speak the language, Assamese; they have no money to make their way back home; they know nobody; they have nowhere to go even if they tried to run away.

If you informed the police, a few hundreds of rupees in bribes in their pockets from the owners would make sure that not only will you never be taken seriously, but you’re the one who will likely end in jail on some trumped up excuse.

Such is the reality of India’s booming capitalist revolution.  

If I went out of the door with a gun (assuming I could get hold of one, this not being America) and shot two people, I’d be gunned down by the law or – if I were arrested instead of shot – I’d spend the rest of my life in prison if I didn’t get executed.

The message is that I can’t get away with murder.

Now, if I killed ten thousand people – and made money, a hell of a lot of money out of it – not only will nothing happen to me, but I’d be honoured by society for being clever enough to make a lot of money very quickly. And I could easily buy my way out of any scrapes I might get into with the law.

How do I do it?

I make fake medicines.

It’s so easy and so profitable and so unlikely that anything will ever be done to stop me that there may be more fake medicines being made than real ones.

In little hole in the corner workshops all over India to more elaborate concerns, probably hundreds of thousands of people are contributing to the national economy and earning a living churning out “antibiotics” made of glucose and “painkillers” of chalk powder, not to mention “saline” bottles containing tap water. And if they enrich themselves and their employers, that’s all quite fine. It’s the capitalist economy – where there is a way to earn money, it’s kind of immoral to stop people from earning it, am I not right?

China recently executed its drug boss for promoting fake medicines after taking bribes. Not very surprising Indian officials tacitly condemned it. People might get ideas.