If politicians understood the facts and were truthful,
they would rant against “greedy” socialists rather than private oil
companies.

says Richard W. Rahn in Socialist Oil Death Spiral.

Most people do not realize that about 90 percent of the
world’s liquid oil reserves are controlled by governments or
state-owned companies. Exxon Mobil, the world’s largest privately owned
oil company, owns only 1.08 percent of the world’s oil reserves, and
the five largest private global oil companies together own only about 4
percent of the world’s oil reserves.

This is news to me too. How come we hear so much about the evil private oil company and so little about the rest?

Nitin Pai, editor of Pragati: The Indian National Interest Review, promised me warm and fuzzy feelings if I contribute and get published in Pragati. Well I did get published in the November 2007 issue and I am purring like my kids’ cat from the all the warmth and fuzziness. Thanks Nitin.

For the full version please visit and download from Pragati: The Indian National Interest Review. Please subscribe to Pragati for monthly issues.

India will evolve into a confederation of city-states

FOR CONNOISSEURS of mutinies—of the noble, peaceful and yet defiant kind—very few can be as satisfying as India’s grand mutiny against British colonial rule. What began as a plea for equal treatment evolved into a full fledged mutiny demanding complete independence. Thanks to Mahatma Gandhi and other enlightened leaders the mutiny became a work in progress, attaining many dimensions.

From being just a revolt against a distant monarch and his local representatives, it took on various local entities and issues. It culminated in our independence, with Indians taking back political power, inheriting structures and institutions of democracy, rule of law and other practical tools of civilised governance. Yet we still engage with our past ruler, the British, in cordial and hopeful ways. We are enthusiastic members of global organisations even where they have a far greater say than us.

Many may be surprised, even rattled, to hear that this mutiny of our forefathers is still a work in  progress. And it is progressing defiantly though not always nobly and peacefully. Everyday headlines document the modern day mutinies raging across the land, ranging from demand for complete secession, to resisting abuse of the notion of public good, to keeping local control over who should clear the garbage. History is bound to repeat.It is ironic that after 60 years of independence, the basic nature of this mutiny has not changed much. It is still a revolt against distant monarchs—albeit democratically elected— in New Delhi and our states’ capitals and their local unelected representatives. Equally ironic is that it took us almost 50 years after independence, to pass the 74th amendment to the Constitution, acknowledging, in words if not in deeds, that decentralisation and local governance is important after all. Shamefully tardy recognition in the land of the Mahatma, champion de-centraliser and anticentraliser.

Most of our disputes, festering for ages, are the result of persistent inability of locals and their democratically elected local representatives, if any at all, to deal with them promptly and effectively. In practical terms, the system places locals at the mercy of distant rulers for most solutions. Since these rulers—state and central ministers for example—have a million and one things to do, and because even a small state has hundreds of cities, towns, villages and a myriad of issues to deal with, even the most energetic man cannot minister his flock promptly, resulting in festering wounds and growing resentments on the body politic.

Recently, Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) organised a public workshop to seek advice on its draft master plan. An earlier version of the plan, long on data and clichés and short on analysis and planning, elicited howls of criticism and protest from local activists and concerned citizens. To CMDA’s credit, the workshop was an open affair and the officials seemed genuinely eager to receive help.

Yet the problems of our overly centralised society were very much obvious. The workshop was inaugurated by a State minister who was also the Chairman of the CMDA. The keynote was by the Chief Secretary for the State of Tamil Nadu. All of the representatives of the government who spoke—laying out problems, solutions and plans, trading questions and answers—were unelected bureaucrats appointed by the State government. Chennai is one of the fastest growing cities in the country, yet not one of its city councillors or the Mayor was to be seen or heard.

Now this could mean two things. Either such plans are never going to see the light of day. Which begs the question: if the city planning agency does not make plans, then who does? The state and central governments? Or the plan is indeed important and it is pre-decided that state government appointed technocrats will run the show, not the local representatives. The calibre of most of technocrats was visibly high, but not relevant, since they can never be punished or rewarded democratically, only be shunted around bureaucratically.

Take any modern city like New York, Paris or London that people flock to. It is the Mayor who is visible and accountable. It is he (or she) who loses his job when the snow is not removed on time; race riots break out; crime increases. It is his fortune that rises when city’s living condition improves. Technocrats answer to these democratically elected leaders who have their ears to the political ground. The most competent politician, who runs the most complicated city the best, gets the promotion to Chief Minister, Prime Minister or President. Many have heard of Teddy Roosevelt, Ehud Olmert and Jacques Chirac but can anyone name the chief technocrat who served under them?

India is urbanising fast. Tamil Nadu, for instance, is already around 50 percent urban. Stories of increasing urbanisation and villages without humans are globally true today. For decades locals have been kept impotent at addressing local problems promptly with adequate resources. This has created untenable villages, at a faster rate than what would have happened naturally, thereby causing mass migration of the worst kind: distress migration.

Instead of local empowerment, the rulers’ response has been to create a myriad of ministries at the centre and the states, resulting in piles of bloated departments and their ever increasing appetite for tax payers’ wealth.

Absence of rapid devolution of power to local governments will result in more of the unliveable, violent and ungovernable mega-slums that pass off as cities. Centrifugal forces in action in India, despite ideological, ethnic or religious veneers, are the result of over centralisation of power, resources and accountability. Centralisation has sucked away power and responsibility, leaving behind local vacuums for trouble makers to fill, who end up representing the genuinely resentful.

Co-option of these mutinies by the forces of good, as in the case of our independence mutiny, is a must and urgent. Resulting noble and peaceful mutinies must result in a liberal democratic framework, freeing the locals and their governments to pursue locally directed development and interests.

In practical terms this means implementing far more than what the 74th amendment envisions, in letter and in spirit. Devolution of power and decentralisation of responsibility will weigh down trouble makers and forces of good with mundane duties of local governance and leave very little energy and reason to point fingers at the centre and the state.

Wishful predictions are in order. Our coming mutinies will be noble and peaceful and they will succeed.  India will evolve into a confederation of ‘city-states’, whose members recognise the benefits of collective security and common foreign policy. City-states left alone to evolve their respective culture and economy while the central authority, strong but limited in scope and size, douses conflicts among members and prevents barriers to free flow of ideas, people and commerce. A day may come when cities of our neighbours will be tempted to join this union. Lahore, the past Paris of the east, for example, may find it beneficial to join and rediscover its lost liberal glory, rather than be bound eternally to perennial lawless and illiberal lands. That may not be repetition, but a welcome reversal of history.

My friend Marc and I were discussing the imminent war in Iraq in
2002. I made a prediction and have been meaning to post it for
sometime, for no reason other than to say ‘aha I said so!’ when it
comes true. So five years later …..

Iraq will become three regions. The southern Shia dominated region will get absorbed by Iran. Sectarianism demands it.

The northern part which is Kurd dominated will become Kurdistan,
maybe a US-European protectorate. Though there are sizeable Kurdish
populations in Turkey and Iran, it will be long till there is a proper
Kurdistan, it at all. Also, a landlocked nation like the Iraqi
Kurdistan cannot survive and prosper without an umbrella of protection
from great powers.

The middle portion of Iraq will join the Hashemite Kingdom of
Jordan. Hashemite king Faisal I ruled Iraq till 1958. Of course, he was
assassinated during a military coup in 1958. Does Jordan and its King
Abdullah II want more headache, with no oil attached, is another
question.

Sovereignty of many modern states is overrated. Luckily I am not
future candidate for Secretary of State, Foreign Minister, Prime
Minister or President. Otherwise that statement would come to haunt me
some day.

Nation-state is a western concept and a fine one too, most of the
time. But nation-states should evolve naturally. Constituents of such
states must not be like oil and water. No pun intended. Sometime it is
foolish, and dangerous, to take sovereignty of certain nation-states
serious. Especially states cobbled together by fast retreating has-been
powers.

As I write this, Iraq is a temporary mess. Iran is cautiously
helping the west and at the same time fishing in troubled sands. Turkey
is moving troops towards Iraqi northern border to ostensibly fight
Kurdish extremists. Syria is busy doing something secret with Israel.
Are they talking or shooting, not sure. (Israeli jets violated Syrian
airspace and bombed something and not a peep from Syria or anyone else.
Something is up. I am yet to be informed what.) Jordan is calm. Scary!

Iraq is a temporary mess. Yankees will leave. As always. The
Persians and the Bedouins will wait them out. For a region that has
witnessed shifting sands for centuries, this is just another day. Lines
in the sand drawn, by vain humans and irreverent desert winds.

Interestingly, if the west (read US) wants to make the middle east
not so relevant there is a way. Get rid of the US Department of Energy
and eliminate all subsidies on oil. Let the middle eastern countries
pay for the security of its oil and shipping lines. Not US tax payer
with their white elephant war ships. Let the price of middle eastern
oil soar to its natural levels. Other oil regions, some with nukes,
will become more important. Oil will price itself out of the market to
alternate energy.

Those words-alternate energy-itself is absurd. As if there is oil
and then there are other sources of energy. Shows the predicament we
are in. Oil has the globe by its balls.

Another interesting thought. Blood is supposed to be thicker than
water. But is religion thicker than oil. Israel gets its support from
the west for lots of good and foolish reasons. Two important ones are
oil and religion. Oily one is obvious. Religious one is more
interesting as it has a millennial feel to it. Christian conservatives
in the US, politically resurgent in recent decades, have developed a
special longing for Israel. Holy land, born again, second coming of
Christ, resurgent militant Islam, 9/11. You name it and Israel is in
the middle.

Israel also acts as a proxy and an outpost for guarding oil interest
of the west. Since westerners, even non-Christians and
non-Conservatives, need oil this makes supporting Israel secular affair
too. But what happens when oil becomes less relevant. It will one day
and that is for sure. Will religion alone carry the weight of
supporting Israel when oil is gone?

Talking about religion. Will Islam, which is the fastest growing
religion in the world, still surge when oil is gone? Ironic it will be,
if both Israel and Islam gets less attention, when oil is less relevant.

Finally, I love hypocrisy. The more blatant the better. I especially
love the hypocrisy of non-westerners like me. We get to cast our stones
and have our oil too. All at the expense of the US tax payers. They pay
for the security of the middle eastern oil routes. My guess, and this
is purely a guess, is that US would be better off focusing on South
America and may be even ‘nucular’ Russia and its vassal. Would be
better off kicking Chavez and Che around and protecting oil flow from
the south. Integrate Russia into NATO. This makes integrating its
smaller neighbours, who fear and hate Russia’s historic and future
hegemony and aggression, into NATO redundant.

Instead they spend inordinate amount of resource and lives in the
middle east. And the beneficiaries are Indians and Chinese. Rest of
Asia and Europe too. Without the US meddling we would have had to boss
the Arabs and bloody our hands. (By the way, we are beginning to do
this in Africa. Boys and girls, get your malaria medicine and yellow
fever vaccine ready. For we are going to Africa for oil and more. Brown
man’s burden you see). This way we get to accuse the Americans of
imperialism and enjoy its fruits. Have the cake and eat it too.
American with their can do attitude and wild west optimism have a lot
to learn from us Asians. ‘Master, teach me kung fu’ says the hackneyed
white guy to the Asian in cheesy, B-grade martial art movies. It should
be ‘Master, teach me geopolitics and foreign policy’. Classic!