Page 76 - EducationWorld March 2023

Postscript

Silent spectators value of the equity shares of group companies and run-
Adani is accused of artificially boosting the market

VEN IF THEY READ THE TRAGIC STORY OF Ra- ning up huge debts by pledging inflated value shares as
jendra Tukaram Chavan, a Nashik (Maharashtra)- collateral. Yet the plain truth is that the Adani Group has
Ebased farmer who travelled 70 km to the Solapur tangible, high value fixed assets worth billions. This has
APMC (Agriculture Produce Marketing Centre) to sell 512 not prevented India's allegedly educated middle class
kg of painstakingly grown onions, readers of this top- from dumping Adani Group shares en massse. According
selling daily — (ToI, 24/2) — overwhelmingly indifferent, to Rahul Gandhi, leader of the opposition Congress party,
urban middle class citizens — are unlikely to lose any Adani made his billions because of the grace and favour of
sleep over it. Chavan was disbursed a cheque of Rs.2.49 prime minister Narendra Modi. How can this simpleton
from APMC. understand that the most the PM can do for Adani is to
This story has been repeating countrywide for over put in a word to grant a licence or two. The PM can’t run
seven decades. Typically, the ToI narrative didn’t include ports, manage power plants, and raise money for Adani.
the back story of open, uninterrupted and continuous It is his extraordinary business management capabilities
neglect of the agriculture sector under the Nehruvian so- that have enabled his ascent up the Forbes rich list.
cialist development model which has beggared the nation, Not that Adani is entirely blameless. What’s the point
and continuously short-changed rural India. of being the world’s richest individual if you can’t hit back?
To understand Rajendra Chavan’s predicament, it’s The deafening silence from Ahmedabad is disappointing.
pertinent to remember that Mahatma Gandhi repeatedly
advised that free India’s economic development effort Multiplying Mir Jafars
should start in its villages. But this proposal was rub-
bished by the newly independent country’s first prime
minister Jawaharlal Nehru — the indulged Harrow School T’S WELL ESTABLISHED THAT BRITISH RULE over
and Cambridge (UK)-educated only son of influential India began with the victory of Robert Clive, man-
Congress party leader Motilal Nehru. Iager of a trading outpost (‘factory’) of the East India
After Gandhi was assassinated in 1948 and Sardar Company in the Battle of Plassey (1757). At Plassey 3,000
Patel — who had good understanding of India’s private Brit and Indian troops hired to provide security to the fac-
enterprise business tradition — passed away in 1950, tory, defeated the 50,000-strong army of Siraj-ud-Daula,
under Nehru’s stewardship the country officially adopted Nawab of Bengal. This improbable victory was enabled
the “socialistic pattern of society”. As a result, national by the treachery of Mir Jafar, a celebrated General of the
including agriculture, savings (and huge foreign loans) Nawab’s army. Like dragons teeth, a million Mir Jafars
were canalised into giant public sector enterprises run by are sprouting in post-independence India.
business-illiterate IAS officers and government clerks. This lament is provoked by the lack of gratitude and
Unsurprisingly they went into the red from day one. cooperation from leaders of all the great estates of the
Simultaneously, a strangulating licence-permit-quota raj realm, experienced by your editor. Rightly or wrongly
was imposed on private industry. your editor believes that QEFA (quality education for
As a result, rural India has been losing 40-50 percent all) is the essential precondition of national (not merely
of its horticulture produce valued at Rs.75,000 crore per middle class) development. Yet despite EW established as
year before it gets to market. In the US, Brazil and other India’s #1 education news publication of 22 years vintage,
countries which are major fruit and vegetable producers, neither PM Modi nor any BJP Union education minister
Mr. Chavan’s onions would have been purchased at good has conceded an interview to explain complex education
price by an agro processing company. Powerful fresh legislation. Ditto numerous vice chancellors of publicly-
produce vendors’ lobbies have continuously blocked funded universities including IISc, IITs, IIMs.
the growth of a downstream food processing industry However Mir Jafars are most pervasive in India Inc.
Meanwhile academia pundits and the intelligentsia are Despite your correspondent in previous avatars as found-
silent. ing-editor of Business India and Businessworld having
played a major role in freeing India Inc from the chains
of licence-permit-control raj and the ceiling on manage-
Simpleton leader rial remuneration, few corporate leaders have extended a
helping hand by way of interview, funding offer, advertis-
HERE’S A DEEP AND DEEPENING SICKNESS ing or even corporate subscription.
within middle class India. It is prompting this 300 Two months ago, your editor wrote personalised let-
Tmillion-strong and growing class to speed like ters to the chairmen/CEOs of India’s Top 100 companies
demented lemmings towards self-destruction. Whenever to subscribe one copy of EW (Rs.1,700 per annum) for
an individual of Indian origin makes it big abroad — as in display in their reception rooms to spread awareness of
the latest case of Ajay Banga, former CEO of Mastercard, our Quality Education for All (QEFA) mission. There's not
selected by US President Joe Biden to head the World been a single response to date. It’s difficult to believe that
Bank — there is nationwide jubilation. But if a native leaders of India’s Top 100 companies can’t discern the
Indian makes it big like business tycoon Gautam Adani connection between QEFA and national prosperity. With-
recently, allegations of influence-peddling, fraud, stock- out one billion high quality human resources the PM’s
price manipulation and skullduggery disrupt Parliament $30 trillion GDP target by 2047 is doomed to failure. A
and dominate media headlines. root cause is that Mir Jafars are multiplying.

78 EDUCATIONWORLD MARCH 2023