Interview with Shanthala Damle, LokSatta Candidate in Bengaluru

Dear Friends, continuing my series of interviews with inspiring people around us who are fighting hard to make a change, below is a short (edited) interview with Shanthala Damle, LokSatta candidate for Basavanagudi Legislative Assembly constituency in Bengaluru..

Pl do read – and more importantly, share with ALL your relatives, friends and acquaintances in Bengaluru..Shanthala and all of us need all the help we can get. More about her Shanthala here. You can also follow her on Twitter and on facebook.

*** Interview Begins (edited for brevity) ***

Q. What is your stance towards economic reforms, incl. FDI in Retail?

I am pro-economic reforms. But there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ here…Reforms that worked in other economies might need substantial changes before implementing in India.

…There is one sector which has been generally left without much reform – Agriculture. Labour from the agriculture and other rural sectors are moving to urban areas for employment opportunities. Retail FDI in agriculture especially, agri-business, could provide the incentive to farmers to go back to their farms and to improve productivity by using new and scientific farming methods. With a considerable percentage of produced food being wasted, packaged food industry needs to grow 100 folds now. Large inflow of investment would in turn force an improvement in infrastructure and in the quality of products. To ensure that local producers are not affected, the Government must ensure through policy that the retails giants only source local products from within the local economy and include a price-control and anti-hording mechanism. But arguments against FDI is that local retailers, small-time traders will lose their market in the price wars that retail giants can unleash by accessing low-priced products from the world market and by employing sophisticated marketing tactics. Another sector also fears repercussions from FDI in retail. Many of the displaced labor from manufacturing and from agriculture that now live in cities are self-employed in the retail service sector. Foreign retailers could push this unorganised sector into unemployment.

Let me write few sentences of other key sectors needing reforms. Before FDI in retail, there is an urgent need to reform our manufacturing sector. We need to grow our production capacity and capabilities to meet sourcing standards of retail giants. Opening up of defense equipment manufacture is also required. This would generate employment and has direct effect on defense expenditures. FDI in higher education is a need of the hour too. We need quality and quantity of higher education universities which will boost innovation.

Q. What is your position on campaign finance? Corruption in elections/vote-rigging?

Campaign financing needs to be more transparent. There are many good people in politics who need money to contest an election. We can’t be in a position where only rich can practically contest elections. I am building my campaign on micro-donations from general public with regular publishing of detailed expenditures in my website. Please visit my website (http://www.shanthaladamle.com/) for more details. I need more support from people like you.

In general, there is a need of electoral reform of which financing is a big piece. Other current key issue with election corruption is ‘paid news’. ..Candidates like me and parties like Loksatta need to work hard to spread the awareness about clean political candidates and to motivate people to exercise their franchise.

With the efforts of Loksatta, laws have been amended to regulate fund-raising by political parties during elections. As a result, within the boundaries of law, parties can raise funds from individuals and institutions and these donations are entitled to income tax exemption.

..There are still problems with mismanagement of voters’ lists which prevents citizens from voting and they need to be addressed. The bigger problem now is about ‘paid news’. It is a much bigger monster to tackle as fourth pillar of democracy itself is into dirty practices. I believe transparency of expenditures and a crowd-sourced vigilant mechanism of news-monitoring by election commission would check this problem.

Q. What are your views on reservations in education, jobs, promotions, private sector (and reservations on the basis of caste, religion, socio-economic measures?

Reservations are a necessity for some sections of our society if we want to set right the imbalance of centuries of subjugation. But, a better system needs to be put in place because not all the downtrodden sections of our society have benefitted from the present reservation system. The most backwards classes and castes need to be provided with access to good school and college education. Beyond this, training and employment opportunities should be improved and increased for the most downtrodden. Having said this, there is also a need to check undue benefits of reservations to households who do not need. I do not support repeated reservation for the creamy-layer.

…Unfortunately, the reservation issue is used by politicians to pacify different communities with an eye on vote banks. Instead, the quality of resources and opportunities offered to these communities should be addressed. ..To ensure that the balance is maintained in our society, reservations should taper off over time.

India has a huge private sector and this sector focuses mainly on acquiring the best talent. There is a need to sensitise this sector towards the social needs of the downtrodden communities. Forcing them to follow reservation might not go well. I believe strong improvement of education and training facilities for backward communities would indirectly force private sector to hire…

Q. Views on taxes – should there be an infrastructure tax?

Taxes are necessary evils. There is no need of an additional tax, but for tax code improvement. We should be reducing the tax rates while increasing tax collection. Using technology to check tax fraud, simplify collection at source and transparency in use of tax is required. We need to have a strong economic policy to account for the plan and use of tax money that the Government collects from citizens. One important step towards transparency would be to seek an outlay plan for all budget allocations and compare it with the outreach of these funds at the end of each year at both the central and state level. This is important in plugging leaks in the system and rooting out corruption.

Increasing the transparency and ease of paying taxes, increasing tax slabs and widening the tax net through voluntary compliance for tax defaulters will help the government widen the tax base. Tax benefits and incentives to SEZs and to sectors like IT that have contributed greatly to our economy should be provided.

Apart from this, several other reforms like the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and the Direct Tax Code (DTC) are necessary. …

Q. Views on the parallel economy: how do you see the problem and who would you deal with it?

The nexus between politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen is the main cause for a parallel economy in India. According to some reports, 70-80 billion USD goes out to the parallel economy. If we did not have this unaccounted (also known as “black”) economy, India’s economy would be 9 trillion US dollars. There may be conflicting claims on how big is this parallel economy, but it is certainly a big portion of GDP India would have been a middle-income country and not a poor, developing country. ..Unaccounted cash in the market clearly has direct effect on inflation, especially on real estate market and food inflation.

…The first way to solve this problem is to clean up our political system. Electoral reforms to bring more transparency in campaign financing, reforming anti-defection policies and voters’ ability to recall candidates are required. Important requirement for this to happen is that people with a clean background starting to participate in the political process. Next in line are police and judicial reforms…

Q. Views on “criminalisation” of politics and views on banning people with criminal convictions from standing for elections?

I strongly believe that the people with proven criminal convictions should be barred from standing for elections. That is the case today as per law – but we have hundreds of people “accused” of crimes – of the magnitude of murders and rapes as well as financial crimes like money laundering, bribery etc. Using options like fast track courts, all the convictions related to aspiring public representatives should be resolved very quickly. If high-court and above convicts someone, such people should be barred from contesting for 6 years unless apex court clears their name.

All political parties need to set their own standards above the minimum required by law. They should not allow people with criminal cases to stand for elections on their platform. Before 2002, it was not necessary for the contesting candidates to declare if there are any cases against them. Due to Loksatta’s efforts, along with other civil society groups like ADR, PUCL, Supreme Court pronounced a landmark order in 2002 and in 2003 requiring candidates to file an affidavit. Thanks to this order, voters can now at least know about the cases – and have an opportunity to reject them all. When candidates with criminal cases begin to lose, all political parties will begin to allow people with cleaner records to contest elections. Active participation of clean people in the politics gives opportunity for voters to select best from the lot. So, it is imperative that more and more people take active part in politics. After all, work begins at home first!

At Loksatta, we call upon only those individuals that share our principles and a commitment towards clean politics to join the party. Our candidates are required to completely follow the Election Commission’s directions regarding campaign finances and donations. These non-negotiable conditions are deterrents for the ‘wrong’ candidates to join us. ..

Q. What is the single biggest problem in Indian politics today? Is it corruption? criminalisation? lack of competence? fragmentation of electoral base – along casteist, religious, regional lines? something else?

Corruption is the biggest problem to our political arena today. For a long time, corruption was a symptom rather than a cause. But corruption has become a serious problem now. Be it Fertilizer or Fodder, Spectrum or S-band, the monster has touched every sector and every aspect of our life. ..One might think that criminalisation is the bigger problem, but both feed on each other. There are instances where criminalisation has entered terrorism crossing certain lines. But I clearly believe that if we are able to check corruption, criminals loose the platform completely.

..Apart from poverty, political corruption breeds all kinds of other problems – law and order issues, economic and social divide – all resulting in lack of economic growth. Today, every area that we lag in has been the direct or indirect result of political corruption.

Transparency and accountability, which are the pillars of good governance, are almost non-existent today. Citizens have to depend on political connections or bribes to get even basic things done. India lacks a strong legal or judicial system to keep the political system in check…

Q. What is the most important “social” issue facing our country today?

Poor public health is the most important “social” issue facing our country today. There are several other social issues – discrimination based on caste-color-etc, ‘jugaad and chalta hai’, entitlement-hungry population, religious radicalism, apathy towards political process etc in our society today. I consider those to be a social issue which can be solved only with social transformation. ..

The problems are all connected, so also the solutions. Somewhere we got to start fixing it. I have picked reaching good health among all the citizens as my goal. Owing to poor budget allocations, with misinterpreted correlations and lack of good infrastructure, I believe health services have failed to reach common people as well as it should have. It has simply reduced to opening new hospitals. But public health is about preventing health problems before they occur. Ensuring good Government hospitals, well-equipped ambulances, health awareness campaigns, making sure standards are maintained in all the health facilities and investment through public-private partnership to bring the latest medical innovations to our people will help our society become a healthy one. But this is not just enough. Improving hygiene mindset and increasing awareness about sanitation facilities are more important from a social angle.

Q. What is the most important “economic” issue facing us today?

Lack of basic infrastructure – be it road or power or water supply is one of the biggest “economic” issue. Corrutpion is equally an important issue hampering our growth, but I have already talked about it in my earlier answers. Other issues like poverty and unemployment have direct relation with lack of poor infrastructure.  There are other issues like poor labour policies, worsening fiscal deficits etc which obviously need to be tackled.

…There is a need to foster, sustain and increase huge network of entrepreneurs around us. The culture of self-employment has to grow. This requires less investment but more encouragement from government. Providing the opportunities for self-employment through vocational training and facilitating SME startups will go long way in our economy. Focusing on indigenous innovations and R&D facilities will improve opportunities for India at many levels including employment and poverty reduction. ..Power generation capability, I believe, is in the same arena as ability to produce entrepreneurs. With improved infrastructure, a larger portion of poverty will be tackled. Developing better irrigation facilities or ability to transport fresh produce at a faster rate to markets is quickly going to make agriculture lucrative.

With road, prosperity drives in! Power brings power! Community grows!

*** Interview Ends ***

Other Interviews in this series:  Nehaa Patil, Nisha Singh, Deepak Mittal, Ujjwal Banerjee and Geeta Gokhale