Playing Big Brother

(Published in Banking Services Chronicle October 1999)

On Aug 5 US President Bill Clinton announced a plan to block loans given by international financial institutions to steel industries abroad. Reason: He’d fight unfair trade practices by others that have contributed to a surge of steel imports hurting the domestic industry. Who will be at the receiving end? Well, as usual, the developing countries. Clinton tries to retain his integrity: “We must ensure that our actions are consistent with our commitment to open markets and respect for international trade rules, just as we insist that other countries do the same.”

One can easily see through the argument. Full of sound signifying nothing. We know this is Big Brother speaking. Whose actions are always justified. Who always sticks to rules. Because the umpire is virtually absent. The arbiter that we see in the form of world bodies is often rendered helpless by the awesome might of the Big Brother.

But then the US alone is not to be blamed. Playing the big brother is human nature. If you can exercise power, exercise it. If you can bend the rule, bend it. Look at the way our public sector behemoth, Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL), is behaving. It has asked for a waiver of Rs 4,550 cr out of a total loan of Rs 6,069 cr from the Steel Development Fund (SDF). Now, there are various other options that SAIL can exercise to come out of the red. One, it could spin off its non-core units. Two, it could sell the Indian Iron and Steel Company (IISCO), a loss-making subsidiary. Above all, it could go for privatisation. But restructuring is a tough job. So the PSU giant has opted for the easy way out.

The same is perhaps true of the moral guardians one comes across at the Censor Board. They are once again in the news for cutting scenes from Shekhar Kapoor’s Elizabeth. One can’t understand why it is they who should decide what we are to see. You consider the masses mature enough to choose their ruler but not so to choose what to see! I must not see a portion of a film because the Big Brother wishes it so. It would be understandable, and rather welcome, if he advised. But it becomes obnoxious when he orders.

Take a look at the transfer industry where the politician plays big brother to the bureaucrat. Writes Robert Wade: “The transfer is the politicians’ basic weapon of control over the bureaucracy, and thus the lever for surplus extraction from the clients of the bureaucracy. With the transfer weapon not only can the politicians raise money by direct sale: they can remove someone who is not being responsive enough to their monetary demands or to their request for favour to those from whom they get money and electoral support – the contractors.”

There is perhaps one exception to this Big Brother rule. Interestingly enough, the category we are referring to is once again that of politicians. But this time both the brothers are politicians themselves. I’m talking of the alliance scenario. Clearly, the Janata Dal (United) is a small brother as compared to the BJP. Samata Party, Lok Shakti and the Sharad Yadav faction of the Janata Dal put together are still way behind the lotus-symbol party. And yet these socialists tried to have an upper hand in the bargain for seats. Or for that matter, we saw how Jayalalitha, with a handful of MPs, often played the Big Sister to Atal.

And this exception also carries a lesson along with it: Playing big brother is a short-term game. It is an unsustainable development. You cannot be a happy man if you decimate the trees around you.

Generosity is the desirable long-term game one should play. Says Tibor R Machan in Generosity as a Virtue in Civil Society: “Generosity … is a good trait because practising it makes us more at home with the world. By bestowing upon some others various goods, such as time we have to spare, skills they could use, some article of value, or money, we contribute to the positive upkeep and improvement of the community that can make a more hospitable setting for our life.”