‘Austerity is one thing, eulogising poverty quite another. We need to get out of this’

When you talk to young students on issues like WTO, foreign trade, liberalisation, do they understand?
Well, I can tell you half way through my lecture today when they started asking me questions, these were probably more intelligent questions which were asked to me, than I would expect a large number of my colleagues in the political line of the country to ask.

We have talked about hypocrisy in Indian society, hypocrisy that glorifies poverty, which puts exaggerated sort of premium or importance on spartan living. ‘‘Woh bahut garib hain, lives a very simple lifestyle’’. Do you find the young changing in a place like this? How does it square with say idealism of the youth?
I think the young are changing. And I think this change is in a direction where the world has realised but India still hasn’t realised — that one of the great answers to our problems like poverty is generation of wealth. So whether it’s going to be business or it’s going to be a knowledge resource, you use all this for wealth generation and that is an answer to society’s problems.

Give me some examples…
If you look at the factors, a lot of public life in India is still about eulogising poverty, and wealth generation somehow is being considered as elitism. I think this younger generation which is picking up, perhaps doesn’t agree with that.

But some of this has to do with the way our Hindu society has evolved, this whole glorification of the daridra narayan.
I would say, all ideologies in India — from the Left to the Right. Maybe the Swatantra Party was an exception to this.

And they died.
And they died. All ideologies of extremes, even moderates, thought wealth is elitism and, therefore, is something that is an anachronism to our system, and if you are extremely simplistic in your attitude, that perhaps is a virtue.

It would look like everybody has ganged up on India. Marx, Gandhi and if I may say so, even the RSS, given its own sort of adherence to extreme simplicity, which I am not questioning. I am questioning the glorification of it.
I think the commitment to austerity is one thing but eulogising poverty is quite another in today’s world. And, I think, that we need to get out of.

How does it happen?
I think the ’90s is the crucial turning point. We have seen in the first four decades after Independence, different levels of control system. And I must confess that I am very disappointed with that period. Just take an example: You had 55 per cent poverty levels when you became independent.

In ’47?
In ’47. Till the early 70s it remained above 55 per cent. It’s only in the ’90s, you started the ’90s with 36 per cent poverty, and the fastest depletion, from ’93 to ’99, you came down from 36 to 26 (per cent). Today it would be a little more than 21-22 per cent. I am just giving an approximate.

And mind you, you are willing to give the credit for some of that to the Congress and others since they were in power at that time?
I am giving the credit for this to those who conceived the liberalisation process. In a controlled system, you can’t do it, and then if you grow further, you will see in different areas how it happened. Now, what were our three basic problems since Independence?

(1) Starvation. Today you are a food surplus nation. (2) Foreign exchange crunch. In ’91 you had to mortgage your gold, and today you don’t know what to do with your surplus foreign exchange. (3) Inflation. If you were to go back to the ’60s, ’70s and ’90s, this issue was single digit inflation or double-digit inflation. And today you won’t cross three per cent-four per cent.

For the first time, there are areas in which developed economies are feeling threatened. The House of Commons appointing a committee to go into job losses in the service sector to India… There is a big issue of debate in the US today, not to do only with the New Jersey legislation, are we losing jobs to developing economies like India and China and what to do about it?. And they have now started speaking in terms of protectionism. Of course, we’ll resist it. But that’s the direction of the movement.

And this didn’t come about in ’70s or ’80s. Just take an example. Since I deal with the WTO, a basic issue that has now arisen with regard to TRIPS. The whole campaign was: pharmaceuticals are going to cost more when TRIPS come into force, when the product patents come into force. And suddenly you have a situation where India is going to be the cheap drug supplier to the world. The whole equation has been reversed.

IT: You are ones who are now providing the cheapest services to the world. That’s why people are outsourcing their back offices to India.

In public domain, nobody says reform is bad for India, its society, its people, its economy. At the same time, why don’t you find similar sort of feelings, say, in the political class, even in your Cabinet?
I think we are in the process of changing mindsets. Some people’s mindsets have still not changed. Let me give you a straightaway example — the recent controversy of HPCL, BPCL. Now, there are still a lot of people who feel that the oil sector is strategic. I have never been able to convince myself of this argument. In refining we have foreign investment — both off-shore, on-shore — in gas you have foreign investment, but when it comes to the actual task of lifting the pipe and putting it into the car, oh, well this is strategic.

What is working here?
It’s the mindset. You grew up in a regime where you thought these are great temples of modern India, and what will happen if the state gets out of it? Well, I think if the state got out of petrol pumps and gave it to the private sector — you can keep your Indian Oil for competitive reasons — you will probably find better roadside services in India.

Is it only a question of mindsets or are corporate lobbies also at work? And people tend to get swayed?
A: I think more than corporate lobbies…

But there are corporate lobbies.
There is also a mindset where you don’t want to lose control. Well, if you have a turf where you are able to control a system, you are able to control institutions and organisations, and of the kind, how do you just dream of getting away?

And nowhere does it work than in civil aviation.
Well, in civil aviation, I think the tragedy is if you don’t privatise in time, you’ll never be able to privatise. Now, look what has happened to the Indian market — you have two private sector airlines, both doing reasonably well. You have a public sector airlines.

Now, supposing at the time when I heard Tata wanted to come in or Indian Airlines was privatised, let’s say, in the mid-’90s, and you had three-four private airlines in the domestic sector in India, India would have had one of the best private sector airlines as far as the world is concerned. Their quality is good, mind you… at least the private sector airlines that are operating in India. We prevented privatisation, we prevented some private players from coming in. The result today is…

If we had privatised Maruti in time, we would have made three times the money…
But there I must give credit to Arun Shourie. Even though he was delayed, despite obstacles, I think the hidden businessman in him took over and he’s been able to get more money for the minority’s stake, than the previous governments got for the majority’s stake.

But similarly in civil aviation, we in fact said, ‘we invite foreign investment, but not from anybody who has anything to do with aviation business’. We looked like a joke internationally.
Our policy, I believe, requires to evolve. It’s not only where the airlines are concerned, also the airports. I recently went to Cancun. Now, Cancun is an 8 km strip, 500 metres wide, it has 147 hotels, and those 8 kms have three million tourists more than the whole of India.

And I bet those hotels have higher occupancy than hotels in Agra. I was astounded to see that hotels in Agra have only 35-40 per cent occupancy.
You see, you can’t today attract the kind of tourism you want to with these kinds of airports. You cannot do it with these kind of railway platforms. Of course, fortunately, the highways are coming up.

And when you talk of railway platforms, let me also remind you, that one of the great Indian absurdities is still the continuance of laws like you can’t take pictures at a railway platform in India.
I am glad the Aviation Minister has liberalised a little as far as airports are concerned.

Cellphones etc…
But I do see a great silver lining where the railways are concerned. You have a large network. It’s overburdened. I think one of the advantages of national highways is going to be to lessen the burden for railways, both in terms of cargo and passenger traffic.

And also give railways competition. To survive, they have to compete with big trucks now.
And the tariff will have to be worked out. But the railway system hopefully should improve as a result of the highways coming up and becoming operational.

We started talking about students, idealism, passion and what they think about. You were a student in this college. I think that was just after you went to jail during the Emergency. Describe those times.
That was a different age altogether. In that phase, career opportunities were limited. You could think in terms of becoming a chartered accountant, a few MBA institutions, you could become a lawyer or a professional.

Actually, if you could become an MBA you went to State Bank of India as a probationary officer.
…Or if you became a chartered accountant, you opened your office in Old Delhi and started working and there was a great passion. There was a larger passion about student unions, college politics and various factors of this kind.

How did you go to jail?
If you remember, the pre-Emergency was JP’s movement, we were all part of it. Thereafter, you had the election case of Mrs Gandhi which she lost in June 1975. And as a reaction to all this, she imposed the Emergency. Now, the imposition of Emergency led to various factors. Every person who had sympathies with the Opposition, or not with her, was sent to jail. And we spent 19 months in jail. Press-censorship was there, your paper was in the forefront of fighting the Emergency …

And showing the same passion.
And the powers of judiciary were being diluted, the Constitution was being amended.

So how was it working on your mind at the age of 22?
I think there was a sense of idealism with which we grew up. And the career consciousness in us was far lesser.

And what did that idealism say? That idealism spoke of democracy, liberalism?
Idealism was… I don’t think economic liberalism has still gelled in with us.

No, social and political liberalism.
Social and political liberalism, free press, independent judiciary, a free political system… that was being denied to us. And if we were to spend a year or two in jail for it, we were willing to do that.

Well, not all those that went to jail with you were willing to spend a year or two (in jail).
Well, there were some who had circumstances and became the weak spots and the indents started showing up.

Some had circumstances, some had, I suppose, a spinal problem.
But, you know problems are present in every society.

And what happens when you meet them now?
Well, I think if you meet them now, of course we try not to remind them of what they did during the Emergency.

But they know.
But they obviously know what they did during the Emergency. We felt terribly let down by them. In fact, I’ll tell you, in the jail, one way of leaving your ideology was to issue a formal statement supporting the 20-point programme of the Emergency…

And the five-point programme of Sanjay (Gandhi).
…And all these used to be referred to in jail and subsequently, after the Emergency, there was a whole category of bees sutris, as we used to call them.

So you still have your list of bees sutris?
Well, I have it in my mind, I don’t normally narrate it.

Talk about the idealism of that time, talk about free judiciary, free media, social and political liberalism, of course economic liberalism was not part of our thinking at that time. How does that square now with your friend Narendra Modi’s boys burning effigy of NHRC?
People will have their own differences over issues. I, for one, do not subscribe to burning an effigy of the NHRC. They are entitled to their view point. But today, if on a larger scale, I find the idealism with regard to politics and social commitments is at one level, I think there is a different kind of idealism which is now building up among the students, who I, let’s say, met today, where their levels of excellence have risen much over and above where we were. And what they are targeting, the width of their knowledge, the width of their vision, I think it is head and shoulders above us.

Let me take you back to the burning of the effigy of NHRC. It’s one thing not to agree with it, but someone like you, who was brought up in this climate, in JP’s movement; many of your friends, including I, would feel disappointed that you were not a stronger voice against this.
Let me tell you, today, you have institutions which are in the system…

The cursing of the Chief Election Commissioner, John Michael…
There I am willing to make some exception that people overreact in public speeches etc. But let me tell you, the Election Commissioners in India also must realise the restraints of their offices. And because they are entitled, their decision is eventually the final decision, but political provocations must never come out of those decisions. For instance, what happened on a tour with regard to some civil servants, didn’t exactly put the EC in great glory. This is not to say that I would like to undermine them in anyway.

But the fact is that what happened subsequently in Gujarat, you know, in terms of the Best Bakery case, or in terms of many other cases show that the civil service and the police were partisan or at least not performing their job properly.
I would slightly disagree with you. To say that the civil service was partisan because of a case, I think more than that…

No, civil services were partisan because that was a political direction.
No, more than that, I think it’s a problem which is more attributable to a responsibility which I have, that’s of law and justice in the country. Which responsibility is, that overall I can see, and that’s reflected in the Best Bakery case and that’s reflected in thousands of cases across the country, that’s reflected in cases against important leaders, against mafias.

The whole system of criminal law in this country needs a serious review. If people are powerful and they are amongst the accused in any case, then the tendency of evidence disappearing against them because of pressure…

But there is one more nuance here. People are powerful and their friends are in power in the Centre as well. So as the Law Minister of India, how much authority do you have to atleast try and put it back on the rails in a state like Gujarat.
Even in a state like Gujarat, to be fair to the state, even witnesses who have turned hostile — now I am not going to sit in judgement over the riots, these are matters pending in the courts — they have at best said that somebody came and tried to pressurise us. There is no mention of the machinery of the state trying to pressurise anybody.

Some of these are MLAs for example.
Let me assume, against an MLA or a municipal councillor.

And then POTA is used against the accused in some cases and not in others.
No, POTA should be used in cases where the conditions present under POTA are made out of. I’ve been a great defender of POTA. And if it’s used against a person of any community I wouldn’t stand in the way. But to merely say you used it against a terrorist or against an attack which could be covered within the definition doesn’t necessarily mean that even if it’s not made out on another case, you use it. You may have to go under some cases under the law under which the offence is made out.

We have already seen two sides of you in 20 minutes. One is this suave, liberal Arun Jaitley who’s explaining the nuances of WTO from Cancun and elsewhere. And the other is Arun Jaitley the politician who supports Narendra Modi and who can also articulate Modi’s point of view. If somebody put a gun to your head which Arun Jaitley would you choose over another?
Arun Jaitley would be only one. There won’t be two Arun Jaitleys.

But there would be two sides to Arun Jaitley.
No, there would not. I could reverse this argument and say, where the same newspapers which said the witnesses are turning hostile here, but in another case they said well which case looks a frameup in Godhra, but I am not going to get into that sort of an argument. I would certainly like the accused in cases whether it’s cases of riots or cases of social tension or it’s cases of mafia to be dealt with strictly as per law. I’ve taken the initiative and this is independent of Best Bakery case, that an amendment is introduced that the whole witness recording system in India must be changed so that we can do away with these threats. And that would apply in whether it is the Best Bakery case or it’s the Godhra case or a mafia case.

The issue is you can’t just make a judgement on the basis of one case. Now, I am not particularly happy about some cases that may have been carried on. Even in the Best Bakery case, let me repeat this, the witness has turned hostile, the witness says that an MLA or a corporator belonging to two different parties threatened us. Let the courts decide that question, I don’t stand in between. Even there, I think one has to be fair. The witness doesn’t say that a policeman, a collector, a minister, the state government had anything to do with it.

Let me ask you one question. Is there any question you wish somebody had asked you but never did?
Well, somebody can certainly ask me a question: What are you going to do about changing this whole process of criminal law system in India, which itself is a serious threat to the civil society, because of the high acquittal rates?