The Siege Within
Published by sauvik January 18th, 2006 in Economics, Governance, IndiaEvery barbarian knew how to bring a city to its knees: he laid siege to the city. How did he achieve this? Let us take the example of the walled city of Delhi, as it was even 500 years ago, and think up what any barbarian would do to lay siege to the town.
The walled city of Delhi has a few gates: Lahori Gate, Kashmiri Gate, Ajmeri Gate and so on. Outside each of these gates was a road leading to that respective city. Laying a siege on Delhi would mean blocking these roads, so that the city would be deprived all its supplies. Trade and commerce would stop; food supplies would be exhausted – and the city’s rulers (older, established barbarians) would be forced to either fight the barbaric hordes outside or meekly surrender.
Sieges were simple, the product of untutored minds, and they worked precisely because even an idiot knows that no city is self-sufficient: all its needs are met from without.
Which brings me to our current rulers, central planners, “eminent” economists all. They have laid siege to their own cities! You drive out of Kashmiri Gate today and you’ll never hit Kashmir. There is no highway to Kashmir, Lahore or Ajmer today. In fact, there isn’t a road even to Gurgaon, just at Delhi’s border. Ibrahim Lodi hit the highway to Panipat to meet Babar. There isn’t a highway to Panipat today! Every city in India is such. Are these “planners” anything but ugly minds that rule a nation in such a way that each and every city and town is brought to its knees by transport bottlenecks. Our “centrally planned” transportational disaster reveals that there is nothing called raison d’état in India. There is no “reason of state”. It is a state of unreason, as though morons and imbeciles are in charge of our collective affairs. Sher Shah Suri, eminent barbarian, built the Grand Trunk Road from Peshawar to Bengal, still the most important road in North India. Corrupt and evil Roman Emperors ensured that “all roads lead to Rome”.
Because cities are not self-sufficient, and must procure all their needs from outside, it is said that “every great city sits like a giant spider on its transportation network”. As an economist, I believe transportation must get top priority in India, not “education” – as Amartya and Manmohan insist. Put on Deep Purple’s “Highway Star” – that’s my song! Then hear “We Don’t Need No Education” (and certainly not from these morons!).
Perhaps a little bit of ‘education’ from the morons would have lead Sauvik to realize that most of the goods move by rail these days and NOT by road. While Sauvik is talking about the siege of ancient cities, he has failed to realize that other forms of transport have come along which are far more efficient for moving goods and people than roads.
All of the cities mentioned (except perhaps Lahore for obvious reasons) can now comfortably reached in 1/2 or 1/4 the time it would have taken to go there by road. Oh and other great invention - airplanes - you should try it sometimes, beats a road any day of the year. India has the largest rail network in Asia and the second largest in the world and the airline sector is booming these days so don’t worry Sauvik I have plenty of ways to get to Ajmer and Kashmir today - you can drive your car, I’ll just hop a flight.
Try and keep up with the times man - Deep Purple has broken up and Roger Waters who wrote “We don’t need an Education’ is now a vegetable having done a wee bit too many recreational drugs. He probably should have stayed sober for that drug education class ;)
They should really privatise new road construction. If someone can figure out a way to make money (by toll booths or whatever) by constructing new roads, then good for him. These private roads can exist in addition to the State roads and will speed up road transport.
There are obviously limitations of space, and competition will be ultimately bounded by space. That, however, is no reason for forbidding private construction. They should do what they are doing with FM airwaves (which are limited) - auctioning the licenses to particular frequencies every 10 years. They could auction off road-space every 10-15 years.
It can be worked out amongst reasonable people. If the government allows a 150-160% return on the project - any entrepreneur would jump in and provide the capital needed upfront. And hundreds of private entrepreneurs across India could bring a lot of capital, at once, more than the State can ever raise in taxes. They could create a boom in new road construction.
The problem is the beggar-thy-neighbor attitude of the government, which would not allow that to happen. You know what it really comes down to? Racism. The elected official is a member of the “masses” who are often ethnically different from businessmen who have the money. They simply don’t want to see us (’the privileged’) profit further.
I could rant on about how ‘democracy’ of the masses is keeping the country underdeveloped. They dont want to allow elites, freedom, to start businesses and make more money. They want the masses to start busineses - but the masses don’t have any capital. So their attitude is - let’s skin the rich gradually with taxes, and let’s do all the development we can with that capital. Well that is why most ‘rich’ people (without significant business interests here) - try to emigrate, further empoverishing the country.
Private familys can bring a lot more money to India’s development, at once - but it will be brought in only if the goverment allows a decent margin of profit. No profit, no private capital, no boom in development.
OBVIOUSLY, initially, Inequality will further increase. But the poor will have many more jobs, and their wage-rate can go up. If they are smart enough to accumulate some capital, they too can start some business.
Apologies for the long comment, Got caught up.
so we have the greatest defender of the socialist moronic indian state, ck, back on the show! talking rubbish as usual.
well, railways were invented before the automobile. india got the biggest railway network in british times, largely from private investment. after independence from british rule, the network neither expanded, nor was it modernised. over 90 per cent of india’s railway earnings are spent on salaries - ‘jobs for the boys’. what does ck think of privatising the railways?
however, it must be noted that free india never had an automobile & highway revolution - thanks to the afore-mentioned morons. it is ck who should keep up with the times - for the automobile revolution is on us, and roads have not kept up. will ck suggest that we should now dump our modern cars, for roads are not required (according to ck and his moron friends, the planners) and we should wait for trains to take us around? transportation is now “multi-modal”: car, bus, train, aeroplane. will ck say that we should only have trains and planes, and cut out the rest?
as for my music: ROCK NEVER DIES!
Sauvik, shame on you! Ck is right!
Haven’t you heard?
Fares on the well-connected and ultra-competitive Delhi-Ajmer and Delhi-Jammu sectors have reduced to less than a rupee due to the intense price wars!
What’s more, truckers across the country are sitting jobless because traders and businessmen, electrified by Ck’s startling revealation of existence of rail networks in India, have cancelled their contracts.
And just yesterday I heard about how the Indian Railways, in a new PR move aimed at taking advantage of the fact that most trains between important cities run almost empty through the year, have decided to randomly upgrade 2nd class travellers to 1st class and 2nd AC.
And due to Ck’s discovery of railways, and the massive capacity of the Indian airline industry, which is many times more than the demand, all auto companies are planning to stop production.
thank you gaurav. i stand corrected. after all, I get by with a little help from my friends!
Sauvik,
I can’t agree more.
In addition to transport infrastructure, I would contend that information infrastructure is as important. Add power grids and telecom networks to roads, ports and airports.
Nobody is saying that you shouldn’t invest in transport infrastructure. But you need to pick the places where you get the most bang for your buck.
Sauvick is drawing from ancient times for trade routes which are no longer relevant. What’s next rebuild the old silk route so we can trade spices and silk with the west. Get with the times old man. Next you’ll suggest building a road from the US to India so programmers can drive back and forth. A fast T3 line or a satellite link can move a lot more ‘goods’ than a road ever could.
Yes roads are still needed but pick routes and places where they are really required. We don’t have the unlimited funds that the US had in past to build mile after mile of freeway which for your information was one of the largest government funded projects ever and can probably never be replicated.
Ck,
I don’t think it is anybody’s argument that India should build roads in places where few people actually use them. But such a situation (like in current day Japan) is unlikely to arise in India in the near future, given the massive infrastructure deficit. I think there is a fair chance that if you pick any set of cities/towns/villages at random, you will find them grossly underserved.
Secondly, and I’ve written about this in greater detail, the view that all infrastructure needs to be government funded (and hence, cannot be really built because government will never have enough funds) is the reason why we don’t don’t have that infrastructure. If we had waited for DD to create the numerous national, regional and even international TV channels, BSNL/MTNL to provide millions of people each month with phones, we would have been saying the same things - government funds are limited, etc etc.
just as we have a virtual www (worldwideweb), we need a ‘real’ www on the ground, so that the ‘goods’ we order on the net can be physically transported to us.
poor roads in a country like india, composed mainly of poor farmers, is really horrible, for farm produce is perishable, and must reach market in time.
note that for many years now we have been paying a cess on petrol and diesel which is all put into the central road fund. but where are the roads?
it is vital that private players be allowed in to compete with the state’s road monopoly. then, these players will invest where they see traffic - the ‘biggest bang for their bucks’ that ck spoke of. add duty free secondhand car imports and the traffic projections will hit the roof, as more and more indians own cars and drive around.
we need every village connected with their nearest cities and towns - and private players may not invest here. so there is a role for the state here, i believe. however, this can be done at lower levels than the central government. perhaps even city governments, guided by self-interest, will spread their tentacles outwards and connect all the villages and smaller satellite towns in their ‘footprint’ area.
Since we are not arguing that roads do not need to be built, can you give any examples where a network of privately built roads has actually worked. There is the odd toll bridge here and there but as far as I know nowhere in the world are there entire road networks that are privately built and there is a very good reason for that.
First it is just to difficult to buy up a the massive amounts of land in linear stretches. Even te government with its eminent domain rights finds it difficult to do that.
Second, unlike the railroads where you needed to own an engine or locomotive to be able to use the railroad (thus setting a high bar for free-loaders to make use of the tracks), anybody can use a road as it supports multiple uses - you can walk on it, drive a bullock cart or a car and it becomes very difficult to make sure that people do no cheat.
Third, roads have always been government run institutions. Since sauvick likes looking at ancient times - take a look at the very first road network - the great Roman Roads - all government built, funded and operated. Look at the great modern roads in the US and Germany - also government built and maintained.
The first major roads in the 1800s US were privately owned and operated toll roads for westward migration and the railroads, which formed the backbone of the US transportation system until the post-WW2 era were all privately-owned and built, with the US gov’t’s sole involvement being selling the necessary land to the railroad companies.
As for our current highway system, there are a lot of toll-booth highways that go faster than regular roads, though admittedly they are gov’t run. However, building of the highways is done by private contractors.
Also, the modern highway system had a dual-purpose, being both for civilian use and for landing B52s and other aircraft should the Cold War have gone hot. If you look at the US highway system, there are stretches every so many miles that are completely straight, in order to let aircraft land.