Deserting the workers

THE WASHINGTON POST reached faraway Little Rann of Kutch in Gujarat and came back with a story about the cruel toil of the Pagis. They...

THE WASHINGTON POST reached faraway Little Rann of Kutch in Gujarat and came back with a story about the cruel toil of the Pagis. They are one among an estimated 25,000 families that harvest salt in barren, inhospitable places. As they work and succumb to occupational ills, including high blood pressure and eye damage, the Pagis are beyond the reach of any government welfare agency. The 1976 law prohibiting bonded labour does not rescue them from permanent indebtedness.
The POST etched a deliberate contrast: between an India now a major exporter of software and high tech services and the India 91 per cent of whose workers still inhabit the 8216;informal sector8217;, dominated by low wage jobs, unprotected by governments or unions.

The paper said the 8216;8216;inadequacy of India8217;s safety net for workers8217;8217; has emerged as an issue in its negotiations with developed countries. Alongwith other developing nations, India resists efforts to include safeguards for workers in trade agreements on the plea that it is a form of 8216;8216;protectionism that undercuts their cheap labour advantage8217;8217;.

But away from the entrenched positions, things may be poised for change. The POST wrote of a legislation proposed in September 2002 that would extend some of the same protections that apply to the formal economy to a large chunk of the informal sector.

Will the law go through? Can it be enforced? The POST trained some harsh light on India8217;s unseen salt workers and the challenge of modernising its labour laws.

Chugging in place

In the ECONOMIST this week, the story so far, of the Indian Railways. The magazine offered a well-researched account of the dilemmas of a vast and old organisation in a fast changing world. It outlined the public argument over its future. In the end, the disagreement it framed was not the unnuanced one between those who are pro-reform and those who are anti. It highlighted a more complex tussle between 8216;8216;economists looking at the railways as a business and dedicated civil servants looking at what they still see as a public utility and social service8217;8217;.
The ECONOMIST recalled the recommendations of the Rakesh Mohan Committee. It noted that the discussion the report has sparked always stops short of promoting outright privatisation. A firming consensus favours a railway run on commercial lines and transparent subsidies.
But then, 8216;8216;Indian politicians are addicted to a tax-and-subsidy regime of bewildering complexity, and deterred from tampering with it by a crowded electoral timetable8217;8217;. And in the Rail Board, the 8216;8216;repairists8217;8217; are trouncing the 8216;8216;reinventors8217;8217;.

Empire in denial

This week the US government came in for sharp rebuke even in the US media for its decree barring any country that did not support the invasion of Iraq 8212; that includes India 8212; from competing for next year8217;s 18.6 billion in prime reconstruction contracts. The NEW YORK TIMES accused it of 8216;Bidding for Isolation8217;.
And in a special edition on Issues 2004, NEWSWEEK confessed to an about face. For Issues 2003, it recalled, the theme was 8216;American Power8217;. A year on, it must be: 8216;Power: Who8217;s got it now8217;.

In the opening essay, British scholar Niall Ferguson compared America to Arnold Schwarzenegger8217;s Terminator. In Terminator 3, Schwarzenegger is an indestructible robot programmed to protect a young man destined to save the world. But the Terminator8217;s operating system is corrupted, he comes close to killing the future saviour instead, till the word ABORT flashes in his head, finally preventing him from doing anything. 8216;8216;Less than a year after the invasion of Iraq, a growing number of Americans have already got that five-letter word flashing in their heads: ABORT.8217;8217; In Ferguson8217;s argument, the US is an empire in denial, suffering, most of all, from attention deficit. The US is not as strong as it looks.

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So where lies the power, then? French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin spoke of multi-polarity and 8216;complementarity8217; between poles. Christopher Dickey wrote of the difficulty of weighing the power of terrorists, which lies in 8216;8216;their ability to inspire hate and elude detection, and in their murderous imagination.8217;8217; Melinda Liu looked at the new China, which no longer pretends to be 8216;8216;just another big, poor nation8217;8217;, and where the new buzz phrase is 8216;8216;big-power diplomacy with Chinese characteristics8217;8217;. Others tracked the return of the Dynasty, in politics and in business. Is family power gaining as institutions like the political party and the nation-state are weakening?

All protest will be local now, predicted George Wehrfritz. After Cancun, the summit spectacle, the raucous street protest, is gone. In its place, local protest that is being heeded by politicians. In Europe, they are slowing the pace of reforms. In South America, they8217;re bringing left-leaning leaders to power.