ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 มิ.ย. 2024
- India is too large to be governed in a top-down way, with an all-powerful center. It makes a mockery of democracy. Decentralisation is the only way out.
Welcome to Episode 47 of Everything is Everything, a weekly podcast hosted by Amit Varma and Ajay Shah.
In this episode, Amit and Ajay discuss how a country as large and diverse as India needs more local government. But what does this mean in practical terms? Should we be happy with dictatorial chief ministers? How does democracy work at the level of a village? Why do we need many more states -- and empowered cities? Does Bubba really know the Pope?
Amit's newsletter is active again, so do read and subscribe at indiauncut.substack.com/
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TABLE OF CONTENTS:
00:00 Packaging
00:13 Introduction: A Thought About How States Evolve
04:34 Chapter 1:India Is Heterogenous
12:29 Chapter 2: What Should the State Do?
24:17 Chapter 3: The Subsidiarity Principle
40:19 Chapter 4: The Indian Journey
57:43 Chapter 5: Migration Is Important
1:08:42 Chapter 6: A Choice Between Bad and Bad
1:14:28 Chapter 7: How Do We Solve This?
1:18:32 Chapter 8: Amit’s Recco
1:19:39 Chapter 9: Ajay’s Recco
USEFUL RESOURCES:
1. Amit on Twitter: / amitvarma
2. Ajay on Twitter: / ajay_shah
3. The Seen and the Unseen -- Amit's audio podcast: seenunseen.in/
(Also on all podcast apps. And TH-cam, though less than 1% of listens come from here: / @theseenandtheunseen )
4. Ajay's organisation, XKDR Forum, on TH-cam: / @xkdr
5. In Service of the Republic -- Vijay Kelkar and Ajay Shah: amzn.eu/d/hwGILb3
6. The Art of Clear Writing -- Amit's writing course: indiauncut.com/clear-writing/
7. The India Uncut Newsletter -- Amit's newsletter at indiauncut.substack.com/
8. Lant Pritchett Is on Team Prosperity -- Episode 379 of The Seen and the Unseen: • Ep 379: Lant Pritchett...
9. CMIE Consumer Pyramids dx: consumerpyramidsdx.cmie.com/
10. From Imperial to Adaptive Firms -- Episode 37 of Everything is Everything: • From Imperial to Adapt...
11. Metrics of Empowerment - Episode 88 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Devika Kher, Nidhi Gupta & Hamsini Hariharan): • Ep. 88: Metrics of Emp...
12. We Should Celebrate Rising Divorce Rates (2008) - Amit Varma: indiauncut.com/we-should-cele...
13. South vs North -- Nilakantan RS: amzn.in/d/cGcWZou
14. South India Would Like to Have a Word - Episode 320 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Nilakantan RS): • Ep 320: South India Wo...
15. Accelerating India’s Development - Karthik Muralidharan: amzn.in/d/8GIl1wI
16. Karthik Muralidharan Examines the Indian State - Episode 290 of The Seen and the Unseen: • Ep 290: Karthik Murali...
17. Karthik Muralidharan and the Bureaucrat’s Burden -- Episode 375 of The Seen and the Unseen: • Ep 375: Karthik Murali...
18. The Practice of Medicine - Episode 229 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Lancelot Pinto): • Ep 229: The Practice o...
19. Brave New World -- Vasant Dhar's podcast: bravenewpodcast.com/
20. The Fable of the Monkey and the two Cats -- Pranay Kotasthane: tinyurl.com/4zmsnp26
21. Centrally Sponsored Government Schemes - Episode 17 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Pranay Kotasthane): • Ep. 17: Centrally Spon...
22. Shruti Rajagopalan on India's many constitutional amendments: • Shruti Rajagopalan on ...
23. Urban Governance in India - Episode 31 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan): • Ep. 31: Urban Governan...
24. Exit, Voice, and Loyalty -- Albert O Hirschman: amzn.in/d/inFK6az
25. Seeing Like a State -- James C Scott: amzn.in/d/7QP3iLD
26. Our Population Is Our Greatest Asset -- Episode 20 of Everything is Everything: • Our Population Is Our ...
27. The Power Broker -- Robert Caro: amzn.in/d/5ctnHnd
28. Triumph of the City -- Edward Glaeser: amzn.in/d/8tbd0xe
29. The Death and Life of Great American Cities -- Jane Jacobs: amzn.in/d/0gH07m3
Produced by Amit Varma
Shot by Vaishnav Vyas and Nomsita MS Haritashya: / vaishnav.vyas
Edited by Nomsita MS Haritashya: / nomsitaharitashya
Thanks to Gaurav Chintamani for helping with sound: / gaurav_chintamani
Chapter images & additional illustrations by Simahina: / i_am_simahina
As somebody who is from Kerala, I love it everytime you guys say good things about Kerala. But I cant help but see all the problems of Kerala, like for example, the younger generation dont stay in Kerala because there are no jobs ( I am an example and as are 90 percent of my engineering college mates ). THe state that does so many things really well like healthcare, doesnt seem to be able to create an atmosphere that is favourable to enterprenuers. I wonder if you have any thoughts on that.
Damn the eventual consistency of youtube. I kept refreshing the channel page on youtube and it's the Twitter that tells me first that the episode is live.
Present sir ! ❤
You guys have been on loop. Best find on TH-cam in recent times. Thank you for all the discussions.
I am a UPSC aspirant and quite honestly some of these debates are part of our exam syllabus and have been asked in good detail in civil services exam.
It's funny that how even civil services recognises these benefits in theory but not in practice.
Migration also helps with mixing the genetic pool in the long run. But it's not very high in India or for that matter in USA. MORE migration is very important
Second episode in a row where Amit has called us listeners 😡. Please register the complaint Dr. Shah 🤓
Shhhhh!
Wherever you both sit and chat seems like a great place. No wonder your conversations are so lively
There must be mosquitoes there no?
Amit it’s so good seeing you in TH-cam #love&respectfromTN
An excellent podcast, Ajay and Amit. Thank you for sharing your knowledge freely.
What an excellent episode. I have always believed in strengthening & improving urban governance which are hotbed for all productive economic activity that generates most of the wealth in our country. The poor urban planning & other inefficiencies of tier 1 cities, which city dwellers experience, constrains them & results in great economic loss. We should be fixing urban governance in mission mode & all the extra revenue generated after having done this exercise can be redistributed to solve other macro challenges within a state.
It’s Friday and the favorite people are on TH-cam!! Brilliant episode.
Can you please do an episode on Kerala. How is it such an outlier ? How does it get so many things right even though it is Socialistic ? (Outwardly so). There is already a TSATU episode on Bihar. Only fair that there is an episode on Kerala.
Wow great convo ❤️ but the solution prescribed is bit risky in-context of water sharing within states. As we have currently have large states which among themselves are fighting.. Imagine 100 states going after water!!!! Tribunal p tribunal milord!
I think we need to first find holistic soln to water mess then go to more states soln
I have started watching your podcast since , math is better than a brigadier's girlfriend . That episode grabbed my attention because i am a student of bstat at ISIcal . Your discussions are intellectually stimulating . Best wishes going ahead
Many many tanks to Ajay for this episode!
Great way to spend Friday afternoon :)
Also, Kerala did have some prior experience fighting epidemics.
The state was affected by Nipah virus which is a virus spreading through bats.
There was a movie made based on the incident called Virus release in 2019.
What a convo, the relation of Public finance and cultural heterogeneity being India Specific. What I take away... is that Decentralising major funds to cultivate T2 and T3 cities in focused manner - since village governance face trust issues - is a win-win. It can act as great local nexus points for unemployed youth of clustered villages living in proximity, and practically reducing cost of transport, rent and property rates for them who get swept into limited spaces of Metros like Mumbai, Delhi and bangaluru. These cities have potential minimum economics of scale and homogeneous vicinity culture, which potentially would prevents migration/intolerance issues.
Great episode . Can you pl do an episode of the role of philanthropy and csr in achieving social outcomes . How does it sit with the view of markets being the primary vehicle of development
Such a great conversation.
You seem to make high presumption on North and South, West divide on specific metrics.
But there are many outliers too.
1. GST collection that reflects consumption levels
Odisha generates more GST than Andhra Pradesh, Chattisgarh generates more than Kerala despite both former states having lower populations wrt latter.
2. Gujarat has a higher poverty rate than West Bengal as per MPI 2023 of NITI Aayog despite high income prosperity.
3. A South state like Andhra Pradesh has lowest Literacy rate in the country.
Now I agree on broad economic divide but there are many outliers too which should not be ignored.
Excellent decluttering
The good thing about this episode is that there are no concrete solutions because the topic is so complex. It is an exploratory discussion. The Gentle readers can also continue thinking about the issues raised long after the episode !
The most important requirement in any decentralization is an alert polity that clearly understands the priorities of public goods.
I am listening. Keep going.
India urgently needs at least 100 everything is everything youtube programs in 100 possible states .Only then a clearer roadmap will emerge for 100 states.And for this we need nothing more than 100(ajay +amit).
Kapil Dev was once asked if there can be another Kapil Dev. He replied, "Father dead, mother too old."
in 3 weeks, Everything is Everything will have its 50th episode! A&A, please consider doing a live episode ( live audience with/without tickets or even a livestream).
Just shot an AMA for ep 50. But will certainly do something live one day!
Is one solution of decentralization having 75 states instead od 30??
I think if our 30 states devolved more power on a district and city/municipal level, that would be effective enough.
Any number of states with our centralising impulse is unlikely to solve our problems.
Ajay Sir, if possible can you elaborate on how how is GST point-able to a location? Sharing my own real example:
I run a small design agency from Panaji with employees working from home in multiple states.
We have a customer, say a software product company ABC in Bangalore
ABC's customers are insurance companies, with HQs in Mumbai but customers spread across India.
When we deliver a service to our customer in Bangalore, we charge them and pay GST. In my basic understanding, they get credit on it when they charge their Mumbai customer who in turn gets credit when they charge their pan-India customers. The end customer who bought insurance and actually 'paid' the GST didn't directly transact with most of the people in the value chain.
If the GST in this case were to be distributed across center, state and city, which state and city would get which parts of it?
Do we have any scale on which we can measure amount of decentralisation?
How to fight mosquitoes at home level.. Should have been part of the discussion 😂
People living on 7th floor and above have no mosquitoes problem?
Odomas ain't helping always...
Picardin based ointment
Is Genetic method of eradication being tried in India?
Does Fogging affect humans?
The subsidiary framework is so obvious but invisible to policy makers?
The usurping of concurrent list is deplorable! & we need to reclaim our republic by federalism & decentralization..
Knowledge groups need to spring up at village & talukas..
10% #GST centre:state:city 3: 2: 5 is a killer 💡idea!
Locational #GST is 😋✨
Ajay the tank man & saying Bimal Patel is building a book & that we gotta run for the book release were fun !🤣😝
❤🎉
More T2 & T3 cities need to be made into UT's or have a mayoral system. I don't see anything else as being a long term solution. Bad city life is the main reason why so many Indians choose to immigrate out every year. Making them first world like will entice many NRI's to return home
I mean you have a valid point. Decentralising major funds to cultivate T2 and T3 cities in focused manner - since village governance has trust issues - is a win win. It can act as great local nexus points for unemployed youth of clustered villages living in proximity, practically reducing cost of transport, rent and property rates for them who get swept into limited spaces of Metros like Mumbai, Delhi and bangaluru. These cities have potential minimum economies of scale and homogeneous vicinity culture, which prevents migration/intolerance issues.
Second thing...we both are Aditya lmao
❤
5 minutes in already!
Sir please revisit the post exposure prophylaxis for rabies in a dog bite case. You are promoting a wrong protocol. First dose of ARV is to be given on day 0, irrespective of the dog's status. The 10 day observation period starts after that.
Does the GST 2.0 promised by Chidambaram in their manifesto resemble what Ajay is discussing?
It's halfway there.
I order/ buy the groceries, veggies, fruit and most other consumables at home. It doesn’t make my wife any less empowered than me. I get how it may make sense to use this as a proxy for empowerment in some groups but there are limitations.
It was a musing in the episode I mentioned, Metrics of Empowerment. We were just shooting ideas at each other, brainstorming. Meant more to stimulate thought and further ideas than to make data-backed rigorous argument. :)
Powerlessness corrupts as easily as power
-British philosopher Dr. Shabbir Akhtar
Tanks reminded me of th-cam.com/video/ZeMRFk4fGzk/w-d-xo.html its a 1.5 hour video about the history of tanks.
Also, are those new lenses?
Infant mortality per 1000 in kerala is 7;
6 in USA; 15 in TN & 48 in MP😅
Thank you for an insightful episode, yet again! 🙌🏻
I have a genuine question, can/will Bitcoin be considered as a reserve currency for India basis the true decentralised nature of Bitcoin.
There are proven records and the growing number of nation states adopting Bitcoin as legal tender and/or holding it in their treasury. The same applies to a growing number of corporations too after the onset of Spot Bitcoin ETFs in US from Jan 10th this year.
I would highly appreciate it if you could share your thoughts on the topic! 😊
The state won't allow anything that threatens its power.
@@amitvarma
Thank you.
Curious, what are your thoughts about the cantillon effect that emerges due to the fiat monetary system?
Is a 'decentralised India' really possible if the 'monetary control' is not bottom-up instead of top-down?
Friedrich Hayek did believe that government intervention in the price system could take us from free-market governance toward totalitarianism.
Yeah, the Cantillon Effect is monstrous and creates the kind of inequality we should be against. And I agree with Hayek's broad point, of course. But I have no idea what we can do about it given the power the state possesses!
@@amitvarma there is a solution, Hayek once said that unless we somehow seize this money power from the hands of the government, there is no hope. Bitcoin has a very good potential to do that. I hope you put more of your time to study more about it, I am open for the discussion too.
@@amitvarmaand even if you search ‘Prout’, societal structure suggested by 1950s saint named ‘Shree Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar’, famous in India as ‘AnandMurti’ , he also forced a lot on Decentralisation of the power.
PROUT = Progressive Utilisation Theory
The tax mess, physical infra and bottlenecks in decentralised india was responsible for imports being cheaper than internal trade. We are actually far more decentralised than optimal. This goes totally against this reality! This decentralisation idea is another luxary idea of elites that hurts poor!
There are enough people who are coming through the ranks having had 25 to 30 years of experience before occupying positions that are making rules at the central level. There are exceptions where INHERITANCE of political power allows one to do so. That needs to be checked.
The conversation sounds like a leftist propaganda for Kerala. 😅😅...but seriously Kerala has much better health care system. However, no one is pushing through a one size formula all across. These facts are incorrect