The Great Indian Political Drama - 3 (Oct 2018 - )

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KL Dubey
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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 3 (Oct 2018 - )

Post by KL Dubey » Sun Jan 13, 2019 5:13 pm

Like I said, this election is inevitably becoming a "Modi or No Modi" binary choice for the electorate. NaMo is now basically asking this question in every rally/speech: "Do you want me (the chowkidar) or not ?"

Sure, there will be a percentage of voters that will vote for a regional party with the hope that their favorite poltoo may get a chance to become PM after the elections. But this percentage will rapidly dwindle. Most voters will vote for "Modi or No Modi" as the objective. The opposition - by tying up opportunistic alliances with no other objective but to "defeat Modi" - are boxing themselves into this narrative. Ultimately it is the people's level of trust and satisfaction with NaMo's work (including the "pre-poll sops/relief measures") that is going to matter.

Campaign narrative-building is certainly important, but having substance behind it adds great force to the narrative.

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 3 (Oct 2018 - )

Post by SSundar » Mon Jan 14, 2019 1:55 am

Supratik wrote:
Sun Jan 13, 2019 4:25 pm
India TV- CNX opinion poll. Who will be PM? Modi at 41%, RG at 23%, rest much lower. Voters issue - Modi's work at No 1, corruption not a major issue for most people. Sea change from 2014 when corruption was a major issue.
I would like to get the phone numbers of those 23% RG people and sell them to telemarketers. They are a telemarketer's dream. They will buy ANYTHING.

Perhaps the problem here is without corruption as a pivotal issue, the fence-sitters are going to scatter. Couldn't BJP actually make (return of) corruption a major issue by emphasizing Eurofighter and Agusta scams? There are so many examples the BJP can use to show the stark difference between them and UPA on the corruption front. It helps to remind those who have forgotten it and also highlight it to the first time voters.

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 3 (Oct 2018 - )

Post by KL Dubey » Mon Jan 14, 2019 3:32 am

SSundar wrote:
Mon Jan 14, 2019 1:55 am
I would like to get the phone numbers of those 23% RG people and sell them to telemarketers. They are a telemarketer's dream. They will buy ANYTHING.
Not really. Maybe some of those 23% are gullible idiots (I can give you phone numbers of some of them in KL). But at least half of that 23% would be of the "moon and cross" varieties. Most of these guys know very well what Pappu is and fully understand that he is an idiot, but they will steadfastly vote for him as PM candidate since he will help their cause. You can't fool them - they have a set goal and a set strategy.

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 3 (Oct 2018 - )

Post by KL Dubey » Mon Jan 14, 2019 3:42 am

Meanwhile, the law is catching up with the wannabe-heroes of JNU:

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cit ... 518306.cms

Sedition can carry heavy punishment up to life imprisonment. I hope they get it (or something close).

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 3 (Oct 2018 - )

Post by a_bharat » Mon Jan 14, 2019 4:04 am

Given that all political parties (including BJP) are after SC/ST/BC & minority votes, there is huge scope for a competent leader to float a new party that stands for elimination of all quotas and equality for all castes. Sure, there will be legal issues with respect to SC/ST reservations, but a start can be made, get general population interested and work towards the goal of 0% reservations for any caste/religion/group. While all existing parties fight amongst themselves for the 50% vote share and stand for reservations, the new party can have the other 50% votes.

With demands for reservations in private sector jobs getting louder, a time will soon come when it becomes a reality, unless there is political representation for the general category from a party whose USP is "no reservations" and equality for all.

As long as caste based reservations exist, make inter-caste marriage mandatory to claim caste-based reservation benefits for self or children.

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 3 (Oct 2018 - )

Post by chetak » Mon Jan 14, 2019 6:05 am

a_bharat wrote:
Mon Jan 14, 2019 4:04 am
Given that all political parties (including BJP) are after SC/ST/BC & minority votes, there is huge scope for a competent leader to float a new party that stands for elimination of all quotas and equality for all castes. Sure, there will be legal issues with respect to SC/ST reservations, but a start can be made, get general population interested and work towards the goal of 0% reservations for any caste/religion/group. While all existing parties fight amongst themselves for the 50% vote share and stand for reservations, the new party can have the other 50% votes.

With demands for reservations in private sector jobs getting louder, a time will soon come when it becomes a reality, unless there is political representation for the general category from a party whose USP is "no reservations" and equality for all.

As long as caste based reservations exist, make inter-caste marriage mandatory to claim caste-based reservation benefits for self or children.
Certainly, they should be allowed 3-4 intercaste wives each so that the reservation benefits reach them all the more quickly.


isn't such a system already in place for some of our already entitled sections of society??

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 3 (Oct 2018 - )

Post by a_bharat » Mon Jan 14, 2019 6:15 am

chetak wrote:
Mon Jan 14, 2019 6:05 am
a_bharat wrote:
Mon Jan 14, 2019 4:04 am
Given that all political parties (including BJP) are after SC/ST/BC & minority votes, there is huge scope for a competent leader to float a new party that stands for elimination of all quotas and equality for all castes. Sure, there will be legal issues with respect to SC/ST reservations, but a start can be made, get general population interested and work towards the goal of 0% reservations for any caste/religion/group. While all existing parties fight amongst themselves for the 50% vote share and stand for reservations, the new party can have the other 50% votes.

With demands for reservations in private sector jobs getting louder, a time will soon come when it becomes a reality, unless there is political representation for the general category from a party whose USP is "no reservations" and equality for all.

As long as caste based reservations exist, make inter-caste marriage mandatory to claim caste-based reservation benefits for self or children.
Certainly, they should be allowed 3-4 intercaste wives each so that the reservation benefits reach them all the more quickly.


isn't such a system already in place for some of our already entitled sections of society??
What kind of response is that? Are you out of your mind?

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 3 (Oct 2018 - )

Post by Sachin » Mon Jan 14, 2019 6:43 am

Sharad Pawar Says NCP-Congress Deal Done on 45 of 48 Lok Sabha Seats in Maharashtra, No Truck With MNS
Ok. So that is the plan of INC in MH. What is the plan of Shiv Sena? Continue bad mouthing BJP or make an alliance and the fight it out together? By the way in MH, Congress may also give/donate around 2-3 seats for the communist parties :lol:.

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 3 (Oct 2018 - )

Post by hanumadu » Mon Jan 14, 2019 7:25 am

Shiv Sena wan'ts CM ship in next state elections irrespective of who, whether BJP or SS, gets more seats. BJP is not agreeing, so far at least.

Various opinion polls are giving BJP 15 to 22 seats if it goes alone, not a total loss from 23 they got last time.

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 3 (Oct 2018 - )

Post by Hari Seldon » Mon Jan 14, 2019 10:34 am

hanumadu wrote:
Mon Jan 14, 2019 7:25 am
Shiv Sena wan'ts CM ship in next state elections irrespective of who, whether BJP or SS, gets more seats. BJP is not agreeing, so far at least.

Various opinion polls are giving BJP 15 to 22 seats if it goes alone, not a total loss from 23 they got last time.
Time then to do a operation lotus on the sena and poach the best of their political and organizational talent from the second rung.

Also, if BMC starts getting unstable for a while closer to the poll,s perhaps even the sena's thick skulls may get a hint or two.

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 3 (Oct 2018 - )

Post by Gus » Mon Jan 14, 2019 11:25 am

challenges in multiple fronts

SP-BSP alliance, congress to go alone to try and split BJP UC votes..so UP will be a tough fight.

SS nonsense in MH means a tough fight there too.

GJ, RJ, MP, CH etc where it is 1v1 ..cong won't be a pushover, as seen in state elections.

TN will go to dmk and dmk has pledged to congress. if admk washes out, then at best bjp will get kanyakumari and coimbatore seats.

compared to 2014, a lot of minuses, while the plusses are in east with gains in WB, OD and NE states. possibly some in KL as well from recent polarization there.

This will be a tough fight. an election that is unlike the previous one which had inevitability to its results.

this one will set the narrative for many more elections to come.

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 3 (Oct 2018 - )

Post by chetak » Mon Jan 14, 2019 4:17 pm

a_bharat wrote:
Mon Jan 14, 2019 6:15 am
chetak wrote:
Mon Jan 14, 2019 6:05 am
a_bharat wrote:
Mon Jan 14, 2019 4:04 am
Given that all political parties (including BJP) are after SC/ST/BC & minority votes, there is huge scope for a competent leader to float a new party that stands for elimination of all quotas and equality for all castes. Sure, there will be legal issues with respect to SC/ST reservations, but a start can be made, get general population interested and work towards the goal of 0% reservations for any caste/religion/group. While all existing parties fight amongst themselves for the 50% vote share and stand for reservations, the new party can have the other 50% votes.

With demands for reservations in private sector jobs getting louder, a time will soon come when it becomes a reality, unless there is political representation for the general category from a party whose USP is "no reservations" and equality for all.

As long as caste based reservations exist, make inter-caste marriage mandatory to claim caste-based reservation benefits for self or children.
Certainly, they should be allowed 3-4 intercaste wives each so that the reservation benefits reach them all the more quickly.


isn't such a system already in place for some of our already entitled sections of society??
What kind of response is that? Are you out of your mind?
which part of the constitution supports what you said??

which parent will agree?? your's??, mine??.

which political party has the testimonials to do this??

they will be turfed out of office, never to return.

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 3 (Oct 2018 - )

Post by chetak » Mon Jan 14, 2019 4:22 pm

Hari Seldon wrote:
Mon Jan 14, 2019 10:34 am
hanumadu wrote:
Mon Jan 14, 2019 7:25 am
Shiv Sena wan'ts CM ship in next state elections irrespective of who, whether BJP or SS, gets more seats. BJP is not agreeing, so far at least.

Various opinion polls are giving BJP 15 to 22 seats if it goes alone, not a total loss from 23 they got last time.
Time then to do a operation lotus on the sena and poach the best of their political and organizational talent from the second rung.

Also, if BMC starts getting unstable for a while closer to the poll,s perhaps even the sena's thick skulls may get a hint or two.
just fight the elections separately and be done with this parasite for good.

hand over the govt to them and it will be a hundred times worse than the scamgress.

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 3 (Oct 2018 - )

Post by KL Dubey » Mon Jan 14, 2019 6:01 pm

Gus wrote:
Mon Jan 14, 2019 11:25 am
challenges in multiple fronts

SP-BSP alliance, congress to go alone to try and split BJP UC votes..so UP will be a tough fight.
Well, that is one way to look at it. The other way to look at it is that all these buggers are getting together because all their traditional votebanks are leaking votes to the BJP in the first place. If those votebanks were intact, mortal enemies (literally) like BSP and SP would not be getting together.

SP-BSP is banking on the Yadav+Jatav dalits+ Greens combination.

SP can certainly count on a large Yadav votebank, but with the 37-37 sharing formula I very much doubt if the BSP candidates will get whole-hearted support from Yadavs and the SP grassroots workers. In the VS 2017 election, one reason for the SP-INC bust was that SP voters and workers refused to wholeheartedly support Congi candidates. SP also doesn't have much pull among non-Yadav OBCs who are gravitating to BJP.

BSP is a weak link. Non-Jatav dalits are voting considerably for BJP, and even Jatav dalits cannot be taken for granted by Mayawati anymore.

The greens are an interesting case. Usually the mullahs issue a fatwa of sorts directing everyone to vote as a bloc for a particular party. That party has usually been the SP in UP, which means the Congis will be completely doomed. I do not see them winning more than 1 seat (even Amethi is in doubt). This time the fatwa will be likely to vote for whoever is the MGB candidate, in which case a lot of greens may not end up voting for the BSP candidates. Added to that the TTT effects may lead to significant leakages.

And finally, the Modi effect (in terms of the work done for the poor, not just election rallies) will have an effect.

Overall I am quite optimistic, though indeed I agree it is a challenging election. This kind of election is exactly why NaMo's standing head and shoulders above the rest in terms of integrity, work ethic, and appeal is the key factor. If you are not much different from the rest, you cannot win a full majority in this multi-cornered election just by playing tricks here and there or releasing some last-minute benefits for voters. People suggesting that BJP should also go in for random tricks that are not consistent with the party ideology, do not get it.

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 3 (Oct 2018 - )

Post by Supratik » Mon Jan 14, 2019 6:40 pm

Also Shivpal Yadav may contest. Just 2-3% of the 9% Yadav vote and 3-4% of the Dalit 20% vote may do the trick. I hear that Akhilesh does not have full control of Yadav votes like Mulayam and Mayawati core vote is Jatav while the BJP is trying to woo non-Jatav dalits. May not be a simple addition of vote banks.

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 3 (Oct 2018 - )

Post by KL Dubey » Mon Jan 14, 2019 7:19 pm

^^I believe Shivapalan has already decided to contest, the question is whether he will tie up with Congis or not. Either way he will play a spoilsport. The other character is "Raja Bhaiya", who has floated his own party and is hostile to the BSP and SP. Given his SP origin he might pull some votes away. Additionally, there is a large cadre of SP workers who are quite angry about Mulayam being pushed out. Let us see how much energy the SP can muster.

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 3 (Oct 2018 - )

Post by fanne » Tue Jan 15, 2019 12:47 am

KL Dubey ji, with all humbleness
Raja Bhai is out and out 'Rajput' leader, with influence in Pratapgarh, UP. He can only hurt BJP.
My take on UP
BJP vote has been consistently at 43% (with Apna Dal). Usually for LS it has always been 4-5% more than VS. in UP, they hit 43% in LS and the VS that followed (does that mean they will get 4-5% more as marginal players get squeezed out in LS? Don't know?). The surveys have been consistently giving BJP 43% (all # +-2%). The individual sum of BSP + SP is at 44%. Will the arithmetic simply add up? Will BSP + SP be say 40%? (Because they usually do not exactly add, except many elections/state we have seen them adding up).

Also if Shivpal floats own party or Bhim party suddenly gets into the act. Will congress play overt FC card and get BJP vote (except for Brahmins no FC caste will go their way, but that's what they are targeting. In Rajasthan, they are out and out playing BR card).


Will BJP play some middle class game (tax break), Or some D4/D5 will scuttle it in name of Financial prudence. UP is close and can go any which way. Risk of MGB is more. Lets see how that plays out.

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 3 (Oct 2018 - )

Post by syam » Tue Jan 15, 2019 2:49 am

The thing is, no one works for the people of the country. For the first time, Modiji working 24×7 for the Nation.

If he doesn't get any majority on his own, India deserves whatever shitty future it has. One of the reasons why I am not doing any pro-bjp stuff on any platform.

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 3 (Oct 2018 - )

Post by fanne » Tue Jan 15, 2019 3:17 am

syam wrote:
Tue Jan 15, 2019 2:49 am
The thing is, no one works for the people of the country. For the first time, Modiji working 24×7 for the Nation.

If he doesn't get any majority on his own, India deserves whatever shitty future it has. One of the reasons why I am not doing any pro-bjp stuff on any platform.
wah kya logic hai!! Kaun se school se padhe ho bhai?

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 3 (Oct 2018 - )

Post by Vikas » Tue Jan 15, 2019 5:24 am

It is amusing to see that on this forum, it is generally believed that if NM doesn't return to power, India is doomed.
How do we know that Shashi Tharoor or R^3 or even Omar Abdullah will be a horrible PM choice ?

PS: The Sinha duo from Bihar would not even get the dignity of a used condom irrespective of who forms the central govt.

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 3 (Oct 2018 - )

Post by SSundar » Tue Jan 15, 2019 6:08 am

Vikas wrote:
Tue Jan 15, 2019 5:24 am
It is amusing to see that on this forum, it is generally believed that if NM doesn't return to power, India is doomed.
How do we know that Shashi Tharoor or R^3 or even Omar Abdullah will be a horrible PM choice ?
I live in legal marijuana land. But what you smoke seems to be more potent :roll: . Please explain the scenario under which any of those three will become PM and stand independent of the famiglia.

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 3 (Oct 2018 - )

Post by hanumadu » Tue Jan 15, 2019 6:10 am

Vikas wrote:
Tue Jan 15, 2019 5:24 am
It is amusing to see that on this forum, it is generally believed that if NM doesn't return to power, India is doomed.
How do we know that Shashi Tharoor or R^3 or even Omar Abdullah will be a horrible PM choice ?

PS: The Sinha duo from Bihar would not even get the dignity of a used condom irrespective of who forms the central govt.
This question does not deserve an answer.

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 3 (Oct 2018 - )

Post by Muns » Tue Jan 15, 2019 6:43 am

Folks, many of you have seen over the last few days with Modi's push towards South India with his Mera Booth Sabse Mazbooth show. While many if it does seem scripted it's a laudable effort in trying to highlight on a national level exactly what the BJP has done not only for Tamil Nadu, but also for Andhra. Currently he is now in Kerala as well in turn trying to energize the Karyakartas across all of the southern states in trying to make an impact.

As part of his push we recently released a video regarding the false legacy of EV Ramasamy also known as Periyar, who is basically the ideological base between the DMK and the AIDMK. To some extent I've tried to disprove his false legacy in talking with the journalist who supposedly has a background of being a Tamil Brahmin.

I tried to relate the story of Bhakta Kannapa who came from poor caste background and yet is one of the great nayanar saints to achieve moksha. In a sense I tried to disprove the notion and anti-brahmin/Hindu hardline that seems to be a feature of the dmk and aidmk parties.
The video is really meant to highlight the fact that perhaps it is time for Tamil Nadu to turn away from its anti-Brahmin ideology towards more pro-Hindu parties? Of course while I do try to force our agenda, his answers were more neutral stating that Periyar ideology was needed at the time.

In any case I'm hoping that some of you will be able to watch. Please like subscribe and share and give me any feedback regarding the video.

Can Tamil Nadu turn against the false legacy of Periyar?




Also please take a look at the channel as well. With the upcoming Delhi elections I also tried to release a recent video regarding the inadequacy of the Delhi government with regard to the dengue crisis. Delhi elections will soon be after the national elections as well. Time to wrest back the capital from AAP. The video itself is a good breakdown on the health aspects of Dengue and the inadequacy all reporting or even fudging of the numbers of cases by aap.

www.india-aware.com

www.youtube.com/c/indiaaware

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 3 (Oct 2018 - )

Post by chetak » Tue Jan 15, 2019 7:54 am

Shows the long standing perfidy of the britshits and the amerikis, without conscience or an iota of gratitude for the sacrifices of the Indian people and her soldiers in the two great wars.

No matter what they say now, this is the true genetic nature and the inherent national character of these two countries.

even today, they conspire against us in sparing no covert effort to separate cashmere from India while mouthing diplomatic platitudes to soothe India and keep her docile while the BIF wreak havoc.

Despite the deluded nehruvian pipe dreams, India will never become a part of the old boys club ever. we should beware. Forces much more potent than edwina are and have been constantly at play here.


How India Paid to Create the London of Today



How India Paid to Create the London of Today

A sudden change in the currency with which old debts to the colonies had to be paid helped Britain consolidate its status as a financial centre

Image

How India Paid to Create the London of Today
London skyline. Credit: London Eye/Twitter

Kannan Srinivasan
20/APR/2017

The UK is a tax haven closely connected to other tax havens it has set up. Its trade deficit is therefore offset by the money pouring in from its own tax havens. Almost 90% of net capital inflows to the UK come from just Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man. So far, there has been no decline in such funds with the news of Brexit. Britain enjoys a significant measure of protection from the consequences of leaving the EU by virtue of this rush of cash.

How did London achieve this status of being a major financial centre? Knowing this history might be useful, especially for Indians, as the country played a role in it, thanks to the steps taken by Prime Minister Clement Attlee’s Labour government in 1947, employing the resources of newly independent India.

As war broke out in 1939, the trade surpluses run up by India, Egypt, Brazil and others trading primarily in sterling, were withheld by Britain. Total debt to all such creditors (excluding the US, which obtained British businesses and naval and aircraft bases in return for cash) amounted to £3.48 billion. In addition, two and an half million Indian soldiers fighting in Italy, North Africa, the Middle East and the Far East were paid salaries; when any died, their widows were to be paid pensions by the government of India, which remained uncompensated even as the war ended. All this made India (which included the future state of Pakistan) the largest Allied creditor after the US. Britain owed her £1.335 billion ($5.23 billion, which is about $59 billion today). Britain owed the next largest creditor, Egypt, £450 million. At a conservative estimate, the debt to India amounted to about a fifth of the UK gross national product, or seventeen times the annual government of India revenue at highly depressed prices.

India, and other such creditor countries, expected that their future economic development could be significantly financed by the money owed by Britain. But with a run-down industrial economy in 1945, the UK had little that such countries needed.

What the creditors wanted was dollars. They expected, with the money to be released by Britain, to import the plant and machinery they needed from the new leading industrial power, the US.

White plan

There seemed, at first, to be a way to get such convertible currency. Harry Dexter White, the chief adviser to US treasury secretary Henry Morgenthau, framed a scheme for the purchase of these balances, in stages, by the new fund to be set up after the war, the subsequent injection of liquidity, and re-purchase.

But, as White was aware, if Britain honoured her enormous debts in this way, that might have meant a more rapid disbanding of the British occupation of Aden, Greece, Malaya and many African countries. The Royal Navy would not have had the resources to play a role of any significance, nor would Britain become a nuclear weapons state. India, Egypt, Brazil and others might have fared far better than Britain did. And, as will be become clear, London would not have become the new hub of international finance.

The celebrated economist John Maynard Keynes had been appointed by the UK government to negotiate post-war arrangements with the United States and other countries. He fiercely resisted this White Plan. He set out to make sure that the sterling balances could somehow be conjured away.

Over the next year, he lobbied effectively in Washington DC — his hard work seemed to pay off. So when the great conference took place at Bretton Woods in 1944 to lay out the post-war reconstruction of the global economy, and the sterling issue was raised by Egypt and by India, the US treasury team abandoned its own commitment to “liberate blocked balances”.

Another ray of hope

Yet after these creditor countries lost out at Bretton Woods, they drew hope from a key provision of the Anglo-American Loan Agreement. Under that treaty, the US provided a credit of $3.75 billion repayable over 50 years at 2% on the specific condition that Britain made the pound sterling convertible into any other currency for current transactions. Accordingly, the pound sterling was made convertible the July 17, 1947.

So as India negotiated the terms of these sterling balances in London over the course of August 1947, her team expected to convert their assets into dollars.

Hope betrayed

But the Indians were unaware how much had changed in Washington DC. The new president, Harry Truman, had changed virtually the entire cabinet he had inherited from Franklin Roosevelt. The people India had thought it could count on to keep Indian interests in mind had been replaced by determined Cold Warriors entirely unsympathetic to India, such as Dean Acheson. At the same time, these new hawkish Truman aides saw Britain – with her enormous network of bases all around the world and large armed forces everywhere – as the key ally.

Emboldened by her new status, Britain is said to have secretly sounded out the US, and received a discreet assurance that she could avoid repaying India, Pakistan, Egypt and others their wartime debt in convertible currency.


Image

Braj_Kumar_Nehru
President John F. Kennedy meets with then ambassador to the US from India, Braj Kumar Nehru, in the Oval Office, 1961. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

So, as India’s representative, B.K. Nehru wound up India’s negotiations in London for the transfer of the balances he was mystified by what his British counterpart murmured to him.

“Wilfred Eady ..said to me (August 15, 1947), ‘Watch your dollars’,” Nehru has written. Nehru did not understand.

“Why should he talk about dollars when the pound had become convertible? All the sterling would become available for purchases in the dollar area, so why did he want me to watch my dollars?”

He was to find out when Britain renounced the convertibility of the pound sterling on the current account within five days of signing the agreement with India.

As Nehru ruefully acknowledged, this “immediately changed the character of the agreement which we had entered into. The pounds released were no longer usable for what we wanted to buy.”

Britain then devalued the pound in 1949, diminishing the value of the claims of the creditor countries by thirty per cent.

What if?

Had Britain not defaulted on convertibility, many countries would have switched to the US dollar in order to finance their imports. Thereafter the central banks of the world would have cut back on their holdings, effectively exiting from the pound sterling.

It was not in Britain’s interest to allow that to happen. Given that the US dollar was the premier international currency, the pound sterling now had to survive at least as the secondary currency for the purpose of international settlement. So default on convertibility was the absolute precondition in order to ensure a gradual drawdown on sterling.

This gave London the time to re-invent itself. Since so many central banks around the world were compelled to hold sterling and therefore trade as much as they could with the UK, Britain survived as an important financial centre. As the stock of US dollars held outside the US grew, it was bound to attract the interest of innovative financiers, and the most innovative were in London. Merchant bankers in the city first saw the potential of trade and investment in this Eurodollar market. The enormous volume of transactions in the Eurodollar market enabled London to return to its role before the First World War, as the most important centre of international finance. Post-war Britain was on its way.

In the meantime, creditor countries such as India and Egypt had to settle for occasional drawings of pounds sterling that they could convert into no other currency. They therefore had to buy goods from nowhere else but the UK. But British industry however had in many areas ceased to be internationally competitive in terms of its prices or technology. So this arrangement suited not the holders of sterling, but the UK, in that she could sell them obsolete plant and machinery at higher prices than would been possible in any free market. The UK had found a captive export market for goods that could be exported nowhere else. India’s imports of the Ford Prefect, the Standard Vanguard, the Morris Oxford, the Indian Naval Ships Delhi and Mysore, all date from the golden age of sterling balances.

But as independent India faced acute food shortages, her stock of sterling could buy her none. She had to turn to the World Bank and IMF to make up the convertible currency she needed, and pay for imports of food courtesy the Aid India Consortium, composed of the World Bank and a group of countries that included, ironically, the UK.

Britain gained the opportunity to employ her former colonies, and possessions of the Crown, to organise capital flight from all around the world. The Cayman Islands, Cyprus, Dubai, Guernsey, Hong Kong, the Isle of Man, Jersey, Mauritius, Singapore and many other such tax havens enable wealthy individuals to conceal their liquid assets. Yet their close connection with London, that most efficient financial centre, enables the best possible returns for the super-rich. All this is possible because Britain avoided honouring her war time debts to India and other countries promptly, and in convertible currency. The enforced Indian loan acted as developmental finance to the UK economy. India’s sacrifices during the war and after may have benefited it but little. But they certainly made possible the London of today.


Kannan Srinivasan, who is working on a book on money laundering, wrote this article at the Wertheim Study, New York Public Library. kannansrinivasan.org

syam
BGR Member
Posts: 127
Joined: Mon Oct 02, 2017 2:59 am

Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 3 (Oct 2018 - )

Post by syam » Tue Jan 15, 2019 7:55 am

fanne wrote:
Tue Jan 15, 2019 3:17 am
wah kya logic hai!! Kaun se school se padhe ho bhai?
No logic there. Democracy at the end of the day - 'by the people'.
Isn't that what they teach in school?

All these days, I thought people go to the booth and vote for their leader.

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