JK suffers from over-centralisation’

‘JK suffers from over-centralisation’
Sauvik Chakraverti's interview with Greater Kashmir

Arjimand Hussain Talib

Srinagar, Jul 1: Sauvik Chakraverti, an IPS officer, resigned as the Deputy Commissioner, Delhi Police, in 1989 to study higher economics at the London School of Economics. Having developed a strong critique for the failure of Socialist model of development in India, Sauvik served as Senior Editor, The Economic Times, and authored highly acclaimed books like Free Your Mind, 2002; Population Causes Prosperity, 2001 and Antidote: Essays Against the Socialist Indian State (Macmillan, 2000).

On his first-ever visit to the Valley on the invitation of a local NGO, HIMAYAT, to deliver lectures on Population: Kashmir’s Path to Prosperity, Sauvik spoke to Greater Kashmir on a wide range of issues. Excerpts.

In the course of your two lectures in Srinagar on the usefulness of human resources in Kashmir, what impressions did you gain?

I found the students, both boys and girls, very disciplined, eager, curious and intelligent. I feel Kashmir’s future is really very bright.

Our State has had a very limted private enterprise in making productive use of our human resources. Which are the areas you feel we could use them productively?

Every Kashmiri I met is a skilled trader, fluent in English, capable of winning in the globalising world. Kashmir needs free trade to use this resource, more business and less politics.

I remember when you arrived at Srinagar airport you were stunned to see your mobile phone dead..

(Smiles)...All I can say is that in the modern world, to be forced to spend five days without my link to the outside world was extremely frustrating. I hope things change soon.

So are you surprised how people manage things here without mobile phones?

I think when progress passes you by because of State restrictions, it is lamentable indeed.

You have left IPS for academic research and activism. What prompted you to do so?

You see by 1988, I was convinced that socialism was a failure. I applied to the London School of Economics for higher studies and got admission in 1989. My department did not grant me study leave and so I resigned and proceeded anyway. It was the time of Tiananmen Square massacre. Within months, Berlin wall collapsed and within a month Soviet Union was no more. I was convinced that I had done the right thing and since then I have never looked back.

In your many books critiquing socialism’s failure in delivering well in India, you lay a lot of emphasis on developing cities and roads.

Cities are the basis of the civilisation, which began around the Mediterranean with the building of the first cities. Cities are the ant hills of human colonists, because here the division of labour is at a maximum and these are engines of wealth creation. The socialists in India neglected the cities, destroyed all the ones British had built and focussed on a rural utopia that was never realised because it was a false idea anyway.

Roads are important because these enable trade to take place between cities. The socialists neglected this vital area despite being planners. This is really amazing because despots like Roman emperors and our own Shershah Suri built roads.

How you feel about Kashmir’s road connectivity?

Kashmir, like the rest of India, suffers from extremely bad roads. It is vital that this be addressed by inviting private sector paticipation. And if this is left to the State it will only politicise things - as with the Mughal Road - and delay matters endlessly.

The golden quadrilateral is no solution to India’s problems. Our country’s future prosperity critically depends on getting the State out of the inter-city express ways.

What do you think Kashmiri youth should do to improve their condition?

I believe that they should thoroughly study the liberal critique of socialism and convince themselves of the need for free trade and free markets. Thereafter they should totally avoid the politics of empire and focus on urban local self government. As with anywhere else in the world where Socialism entered, Kashmir is suffereing from over centralisation.

An elected mayor and a council, fully responsible for Srinagar and empowered as per the principle of subsidiarity is the first thing Kashmiri youth should struggle for. Then they will be free economically and will be able to prosper without interference.

In your interaction with our Finance Minister what impressions did you gather about the government’s economic priorities?

Although I could note that his government has started doing some positive things on the financial front, I was rather saddened to hear him stress that high on his priority list were the so-called social sectors like health and education.

In both these areas, evidence from allover the country indicates that the State has been a failure. It has denied literacy to the poor and targetted subsidies for the rich. There is a cap of 26 percent on FDI in the insurance sector. If this cap was removed, health insurance will flood the market. Education and knowledge should be freed from State control and immediately as much of it is becoming politicised propaganda. I would advise your Finance Minister to focus on roads. All the roads I travelled on here were terrible. And tax money should be spent on what a private businessman cannot supply on his own.