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Synopsis and Analysis (The Hindu) will be available by 1:00 pm everyday

Synopsis of Articles / Issues:

une 28, 2013

1. When the Ganga descends

Had the elemental fury of flash floods not rained down on Uttarakhand last week, June 18 (June 19, according to some almanacs), would have

been a day of festivity and ritual for Hindu devotes across north India. They would have relived the mythology of the Gangas descent from

heaven to earth with a dip in its waters at various pilgrimage centres .

Ganga Dussehra celebrated on the tenth day of the waxing moon in the third month of the Hindu almanac usua lly coincides w ith the

opening up of ice-bound holy sites such as Kedarnath, Badrinath, and Gangotri.

This time, however, the sweeping devastation along the banks of the Ganga in Uttarakhand, with Kedarnath feeling its full force, swiftly

transformed the mood from celebration to mourning.

In the midst of so much grief, how do we reflect on the mythology of Gangas descent in a way that it enables us to comprehend a tragedy of

this magnitude, and perhaps relearn a relationship between human and nature that is life-affirming. For that to happen, it is necessary to look

beyond the veil of ritual surrounding this myth. At its core, this mythology is made up o f aspects which have been integral to peoples ways of

life in mountains, lived in full awareness of the towering presence of nature.

Two narratives

The myth of Gangas descent contains two very different narratives. The first part is a narrative of power. At its simplest, the story of Gangas

descent s tarts on a note of hubris, with a proud king called Sagara whose ambition is to conquer the world. As it becomes clear that there are

few to rival Sagara, the gods above intervene. Sagaras 60,000 arrogant sons (all born of one of his wives) are reduced to ash by the wrath of

sage Kapila for having disrupted his meditation. King Sagara dies of grief. For his sons, now mere heaps of impure ash, there is no salvation fo

generations on end.

Then, Bhagiratha (descended from the son of Sagaras second wife) ascends the throne, and from here the narrative of the myth changes

track. Deeply stirred by the fate of his ancestors, he leaves his throne to undergo two long and increasingly severe penances in the Himalayas

The gods are pleased. Thus Ganga descends from heaven to be caught in the locks of Shiva, who alone can withstand her tempestuous force.

Bhagiratha performs his third penance, whe reupon Shiva releases Ganga in several streams. Ganga follows Bhagiratha across mountains,

forests and plains to the end of the world where his ancestors remains lie. Midway, the wilful Ganga scatters sage Jahnus sacrificial offerings

and he swallows her up in rage. Bhagiratha performs one more penance to have her released yet again, showing enormous reserves of

persistence.

Finally, Bhagiratha leads her to his ancestors ashes at Ganga Sagar. Having purified their ashes and paved the ir way to heaven, Ganga

disappears into the ocean.

Origins of a name

Thats how the originating head stream of the Ganga gets its name Bhagirathi, say people, the other major headstream of the Ganga being

the Alaknanda. These two headstreams, nourished by several others (such as the Mandakini, flowing alongside Kedarnath) come together as

the Ganga, which flows across the plains until it reaches the Bay of Bengal.

The myth of Gangas descent resonates at different levels in the lives of the people of Uttarakhand. At one level, the story of Ganga getting

tangled in Shivas locks or inexplicably disappearing seems entirely believable in a geological landscape that has seen rivers changing course,

or getting blocked swallowed by tectonic disturbances.

In a wonderfully layered article written in 1994, well-known w riter, poet and cultural theorist Pria Devi pointed out an interesting ecological

aspect of Ganga Dussehra: It falls at the leanest moment in the annua l cycle of the river, at the precise moment when, before the rains, she

begins to swell with snowmelt at her source. It is as if the Ganga comes down from the heavens every year.

At another level, this story provides the alluvium of cultural resources for a society to shape its ecology of existence. That is, if one s tays

connected to its core. Thus, in a land where nature resists a ll attempts at domination or subjugation, it is Bhagiratha, not Sagara w ith his

goal of world conquest, who emerges as a heroic figure, articulating a different narrative of power. The qualities emblematic of this valorous

figure: his powers of persistence, humility, and se lflessness .

Pria Devi puts it succinctly: What distinguishes Bhagiratha and explains his great popularity as a culture hero, is his non-violence, and his

remarkable patience. He is quite clear about means and ends . His ends are selfless. It is not his own moksha that he seeks. Equally, he will no

seek his ends by applying his will outwardly as a force.

He turns inwards....By the integrity of his se lf-government he compels outward sanction to h is inner motives. This strand of cultural memorycan be a potent resource for resistance, for it implies that notions o f conquest of humans or nature be replaced by the idea of conquest of

the se lf and its excess appetites, whether it is an individual, or society.

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Cultural memory

Like a river this cultural memory flows through space and time now a subterranean existence, now a rapid current over ground. And when it

does surface, it lays bare civilisational faultlines such as an exclusionary narrative of power impervious to the political ecology of inclusive

instincts. In post-independence India, this cultural memory surfaced in the 1970s to herald a new phase of protest environmental resistance

that one might term a Bhagiratha prayas (the Hindi equivalent for Herculean effort). This phase was accompanied by the articulation of a

whole new d iscourse of Cons titutional guarantee s such as equality and citizenship emerging from the margins of the Republic, from the

Narmada valley to present-day Niyamgiri hills.

In Uttarakhand, too, the past four decades have seen noteworthy movements o f environmental resistance built on this principle, such as the

1970s Chipko movement spearheaded by village women like Gaura Devi, which is considered Indias first green movement. From the 1970s to

the 1990s , Gandhian activist and environmentalist Sunderlal Bahuguna through long fas ts, and many others such as Professor Vinod K. Gaur

and other experts of Himalayan geology, questioned the long term impact of big dams such as Tehri (built on the Bhagirathi), on the fragile

ecological balance of the Uttarakhand region. As for the Ganga, listed among the 10 most endangered rivers of the world by the Worldwide

Fund for Nature, it still awaits the collective conscience of a Bhagiratha to come back to life.

Role of greed

The qualities symbolised by Bhagiratha also exist as part of larger contemporary discourses, when we speak of sustainable development,

disparities within nations and be tween hemispheres, or limiting consumption by putting a leash on gluttony.

The story of Bhagiratha and Ganga is as relevant today, if not more. As news filters in of the near totality of natures devastation in

Uttarakhand, it is becoming clear that humans have p layed their part in exacerbating the sheer scale of the disaster in terms of lives lost and

property destroyed. Unchecked construction and increasing encroachment on the flood plains o f the Ganga to accommodate more and more

residential buildings, hotels and tourist rest houses in the name of development, have extracted a huge human cost for a Sagara-like conques t

of the environment.

Similarly, in the a ftermath of the 1991 Uttarkashi earthquake, experts had pointed to the man-made factors responsible for large-scale

destruction: the explosion of inappropriate building techniques and materials in the march to modern progress frequently accompanied w ith a

disdainful neglect of local wisdom. Over the years the nature of protest may have changed, but the issues o f entrenched interests vis-a-vis

forest, mineral and water resources still remain; on the contrary, they have become more acute.

Due to a range of factors, the catastrophe which brought forth a terrifying side to the Ganga not witnessed in recent times, occurred around

the time of Ganga Dussehra.

Yet seen in conjunction, the disaster and the mythology seem to be pointing to the same truth: ritual observance on an appointed day may be

important, but is certainly not enough. It is equally significant to internalise the essential spirit and reality of the story of Bhagiratha and

Ganga, and, for that, the pact between the self-reflexive human and nature needs to be revived.

2. Banking on inclusion

New bank licences should be awarded to players who can demonstrate that inclusion is compatible with financial viability

The race for new bank licences is on. The deadline for filing applications is July 1. The RBI will then constitute a committee to screen the

applications, w ith the intention to issue the first se t of licences by March 2014. The outcomes may we ll have a bea ring on the long-term health

of the banking sector.

Diverse players are said to be in the fray leading industrial houses , non-bank finance companies (NBFCs), investment banks, public sector

finance companies and, at least, one infrastructure company. The RBI will use " fit and proper" criteria, but the RBI governor has indicated that

not all applicants satisfying these criteria will get a licence. He has sa id that there is no po int in going through the process only to issue two or

three licences, but has declined to indicate a precise number. The critical question is: what criteria, other than "fit and proper", should the RBI

use? This question is be st addressed if we are clear what the primary objective is. Is it greater competition (and hence greater efficiency), or is

it financial inclusion?

One measure of competition is the concentration ratio, defined as the share of the top three banks in total banking assets. India's

concentration ratio of 35 per cent is among the lowest in the world. Comparable averages are: advanced economies 60 per cent, Asia 40 per

cent, and Latin America 55 per cent. It is hard to a rgue, going by this indicator, that India's banking sector lacks competition.

There are some who argue that competition is limited by the dominance of public sector banks (PSBs) that account for 70 per cent of assets in

banking. It is said that Indian banks' net interest margin (the difference between the yield on loans and investments and the cost of funds) as

a proportion of assets of 3 per cent is higher than that in many other economies. Margins need to be brought down and this is best

achieved by licensing players w ith deep pockets, namely, industrial houses .

Both parts of the statement can be challenged. Higher margins in Indian banking could reflect higher risks. Margins of new private banks are

higher than those of PSBs, so increas ing the number of private players may not be the answe r to high margins. If banks are to meet the highe

capital requirements proposed under new international norms, and if they are to invest in financial inclusion, it is better that margins stay on

the higher side.

As for letting in industrial houses to inject serious competition, such a move carries its own dangers. Most people seem to think the principal

danger is that o f "inter-connected lending", that is, banks promoted by industrial houses will find ways to channel funds into various entities

connected w ith the house. This could place public deposits in jeopardy. In India's present environment, this particular concern may be

somewhat misplaced. The better known industrial houses have too much to lose by letting a bank in their control fail. By and large, they have

stood behind borrowings of weak firms within their group in the interests of protecting their reputation. They will do what it takes to make a

success of their banking venture. It is their very success, however, that we need to fear. For three reasons.

First, industrial houses represent concentration of economic power. Adding a bank to an industrial house would add enormously to its clout.

We can do w ithout further concentration of economic power in a scam-ridden system. Second, given its clout, an industrial house may be ableto circumvent or influence regulation or what is called "regulatory capture". Banking regulation is one of the strong points of the Indian

economy, and the RBI justifiably enjoys a high reputation. Any weakening of the banking regulator risks financial instability. Third, the success

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/banking-on-inclusion/1134798/

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of an industrial house could come at the expense of existing banks. Banks promoted by industrial houses could take away some of the best

borrowers and depositors. They could poach the best people by paying a lot more. This will push up costs across the system. It will make life

particularly difficult for PSBs already hard pressed to attract and retain people.

Some would say this is wha t competition is all about: success must go to the efficient and the weak must perish. In banking, however, we

have to contend with systemic failure. We do not want the entry of industrial houses to create individual banks that are efficient and a banking

system that is weaker. In short, the case for greater competition in Indian banking and, that too, to reduce margins is not obvious. And

even if we do need more competition, industrial houses may not be the best candidates.

The priority in banking today must be financial inclusion. On a variety of measures, India lags behind other emerging markets on financial

inclusion. We need to extend banking services to underserved segments in both the urban and rural markets. We need players who can

demonstrate that inclusion is compatible w ith financial viability. If this is accepted, the appropriate criterion for awarding new bank licences falls

into place. We do not need more banks that w ill focus on reta il lending and working capital finance, while nominally meeting the stipulation of

having 25 per cent of their branches in unbanked areas.

Bank licences must be issued to those who can convince the RBI that they can use innovative business models to achieve financial inclusion.These could include existing NBFCs that are not part of industrial houses a s well as completely new players. This w ill give us financial inclusion

as well as more competition without undermining financial stability.

(Based on excerpts from The Hindu, Indian Express, The Times of India and Indian Express

Right Okkal. Rights Reserved.

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