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l SATURDAY l FEBRUARY 9 l 2013

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A moderate Rs 15,000 a year from half the students in government colleges will meet a sixth of the deficit reduction target
SURJIT S. BHALLA
A RESPONSIBLE budget can only come about through expenditure realignment. And before we get into pyrotechnics about whether the rich should pay more, etc, let it be fully understood that the top 10 per cent of the population pays for almost all the income tax collected in India. Add to it that they pay the lions share of corporate taxes, one gets the simple result that more than 60 per cent of all taxes are paid by just 10 per cent of the population. It is imperative that the fiscal deficit be reduced, and be reduced substantially. This will involve a major sacrifice from the populists. But isnt there some way that the rich could share in this burden of adjustment? It turns out there is start asking the rich to pay more for tuition at government-run institutions of higher learning hereafter. These institutions, like their counterparts in the private sector, come in different sizes and shapes of quality. Many are first-rate institutions, though it is particularly sad, and surprising, that none of our finest institutes figures even in the top 200 of the world. Howtoimprovequalityisa larger subject best left for another occasion. Though it is possible that tuition increases at government colleges will motivate them to perform better as they seek to attract more students. At present, it is very unclear whether students are attending government colleges for their quality, or their cheapness. All forms of education have externalities. That is why education whether primary, secondary, or higher is never priced at market. Equally, no one should make the case that education should be free for everybody. To be sure, there are many students who could not attend college without both a scholarship and a stipend. They need to be subsidised but that does not mean that everybody should be subsidised. The pattern of income distribution is such that only about a fifth of the entire working population has incomes above the present cut-off point forpayingtaxesRs1.8lakha year. So a large majority of those who go to college private or public belong to the top 20 per cent of the income distribution. Recall that one needs to graduate from high school in order to attend college. And despite all the freebies, only about 10-12 per cent of the college-going-age cohort goes to college in India. This is about half the international average, with both China and Brazil close to this average of 25 per cent. This India gap is rapidly becoming less as more and more people enter high school and a greater fraction of them

Let the rich pay for tuition

THE MODEST proposal is as follows. About 60 per cent of college-going students can pay for an increase in annual tuition of Rs 15,000. Many students pay multiples of this level for high-school education. The revenue generated from Rs 15,000 a year, from the top half of college goers attending government colleges is Rs 8,250 crore a year, or approximately 0.08 per cent of GDP. Our fiscal deficit is slated to be reduced to 4.8 per cent of GDP, a decline of 0.5 percentage points a modest cut in education subsidy alone yields 16 per cent of this reduction.
graduate. Where are the resources to finance this everwidening pool? There arent but by increasing fees for the top half of university entrants, more of the bottom of the top 20 per cent can aspire that their kids go to college. Some idea of the magnitude of the extra subsidy (over and above that received by the private colleges) for government colleges can be provided by data available from the Employment and Unemployment National Sample Survey for 2009-10. Questions were asked of each household member as to the type of college attended, tuition fees paid to the college, expenditure on books, etc. The simple result on average, fees at private colleges were Rs 30,000 a year and fees at government colleges Rs 6,000 a year. Projecting the data to 2012-13 on the basis of the information available, one obtains the result that private colleges now charge as tuition an average of Rs 60,000 and government colleges Rs 8,000. The number of students going to college approximately half in each, or 22 million students in all. Government expenditure on higher education is provided by both the states and the Centre, with the former accounting for about twothirds of the total of Rs 90,000 crore a year for about 11 million students. Rounding off, one obtains that the government spends about Rs 1 lakh per college student per year and collects less than 10 per cent in tuition. The education cess yields about Rs 32,000 crore with about a third, around Rs 11,000 crore, going towards higher education. The present structure of

tuition fees yields another Rs 10,000 crore. The higher education subsidy is therefore close to Rs 70,000 crore, or about 1.3 per cent of GDP. Why this massive subsidy? Because the forefathers of Indian higher education, the British, believed in free universities.ButeventheBritishhave moved on, as they price higher education at the market for those who can afford it, and subsidise those who cannot. Cant we do the same? Yes, we can. So the modest proposal is as follows. About 60 per cent of collegegoing students can pay for an increase in annual tuition of Rs 15,000. Many students pay multiples of this level for highschool education remember, their parents are in the top 5 per cent of all income earners. The revenue generated from Rs 15,000 a year, from the top half of college goers attending government colleges (approximately 25 per cent of 22 million, or 5.5 million) is Rs

8,250 crore a year, or approximately 0.08 per cent of GDP. Our fiscal deficit is slated to be reduced to 4.8 per cent of GDP, a decline of 0.5 percentage points a modest cut in education subsidy alone yields 16 per cent of this reduction. Will there be protests if tuitionisraisedforrichstudents? Let me see these students will say that they are paying more than three times this amountforprivatecolleges,but the government should subsidisethem,andthereforethey willleadademonstration?The CPMwillarguethatwecannot tax rich students and taxi fares mustbereduced.AndMamata Banerjee will argue that her bankrupt state will continue to provide free education to the rich, as required by the laws of equityandinclusivegrowth.
The writer is chairman of Oxus Investments, an emerging market advisory firm, and a senior advisor to Blufin, a leading financial information company

The Mamata Banerjee governments decision to turn away Rushdie and my deportation by the Left Front played to the same gallery
TASLIMA NASREEN
time, I failed miserably, which left me no alternative but to stay in Europe or America. But whenever India gave me permission to enter, I did not waste a moment; I rushed to Kolkata and met all my friends there: a homeless felt at home, for the first time, while living in exile. I tried a lot and eventually got a residence permit to reside in India. No more a constrained tourist, I was a resident in this great country, and I thought my travails were over. I received my second prestigious literary award for the first part of my memoir, My Girlhood (Amar Meyebela). But there was to be no respite for me. Just a few years thereafter, the West Bengal government banned Dwikhandito, the third part of my memoir. I personally knew Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, then the chief minister under the Left Front government. He was initially very friendly, and that is partly why it was so shocking to me that he banned my book, which was about my struggle against religious fanatics. Upon being asked, Bhattacharjee said as many as 25 intellectuals had asked him to ban my book. But that was not the end of it. What I didnt realise in my shock and grief was that this information, involving a few authors in Bangladesh, was a secret and not supposed to come out. The late Sunil Gangopadhyay, an accomplished writer and close friend of Bhattacharjee, was the most displeased and excoriated me, saying that it was bad form to disclose things that happened behind closed doors between two people. Anyway, I didntthinkthebookwasbannedbecause I honestly told my life stories; some other reasons must have been given to justify banning the book. Then I found out it was banned on the charges of hurting religious feelings of Muslims. Now, Muslims learnt that a book had been written by an author named Taslima Nasreen who hurt their religious feelings. That was when Kolkata began to change. When the government bans your book, me to leave the state since August, and they were desperate to make it happen by the end of November. Peoples attention was diverted for a few days. Ultimately, however, the CPM could not win theelection,buttheydidsuccessfullysend a signal to the fanatics that they managed tothrowananti-Islamapostatelikeme out of their precious state. The CPM used me to secure Muslim votes; Muslim fanatics used me to demonstrate the strength of fundamentalist faitheveninasupposedlysecularcountry. Mamata Banerjee, the current CM of West Bengal, is inexplicably walking the same path as did the CPM. She may oppose everything the CPM did, but she agreed on one idea that I must not be allowed into West Bengal. Because both political parties do the exact same thing, that is, appease the fanatics in order to retain their votes. Salman Rushdie was not allowed to reach West Bengal. The current government prevented his entry into Kolkata. The Left parties, currently in the opposition, do not object to this decision. How can they? Because what Banerjee is doing with me and Rushdie is not at all different from what they did with me just a little while ago. IamthankfulforthefactthatIndia,as a country, has shown a degree of commendable religious tolerance in my case; I have at least been allowed to live here. Had it been Bangladesh or Pakistan, I wouldhavemostlikelybeendeadbynow. At the same time, I do believe that had my book not been banned in 2003, I would not have been thrown out of Kolkata in 2007; had I not been thrown out of Kolkata, Rushdie could have gone on to visit Kolkata, this wonderful city of intellectuals with a rich literary history. The sad fact of life is that once a government bows to the fanatics, the fanatics are immeasurably encouraged and emboldened and the trend is set. Nasreen is a writer

The moment Kolkata changed

Printline
RUCHIKA TALWAR A register of reports and views from the Pakistan press

PAKISTAN

ELECTION TUSSLE
TAHIRUL QADRI is reportedly attempting to delay elections. Daily Times reported on February 8: Qadri on Thursday prayed the Supreme Court [would] declare [the] appointment of [the] Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) chief and four members null and void... He contended since the members of the ECP have not been appointed according to the procedure laid down by the constitution, their appointment is unconstitutional, invalid and void ab initio, adding that their assumption of office and continuance is unconstitutional and unlawful. Should his demands be met, Pakistan will have no functioning poll panel and the upcoming polls cant be conducted till the ECP is reconstituted. Dawn quoted Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader Aitzaz Ahsan: General elections may be postponed if the Supreme Court decides to admit the petition filed by Qadri... Ahsan said it was not possible to constitutionally remove any member of the ECP in its present form or to constitute the commission anew. The chief election commissioner, Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim, told The News: This criticism is most unfortunate as we are only six weeks away from the expiry of the term of the present government and on the verge of a smooth transition from one democratic government to the next for the very first time, he maintained. My appointment as well as [that of] the ECP members was made in complete compliance with all the constitutional provisions... none of the attacks against us give any details about our so-called political affiliations, he noted. Meanwhile, Qadri has announced his next plan, reported Daily Times on February 5: The cleric said that the second phase of his revolutionary struggle would start in Gujranwala on February 15, in Faisalabad on February 17, in Multan on February 22 and in Peshawar on February 24, while rallies would be held in Sukkar and Rawalpindi for electoral reforms in the country.

I HAVE known Kolkata since my childhood, through childrens books and stories my parents told me. I came to know it better during my youth, when I finished reading the works of as many superb Bengali writers and poets as I could gather, and also when I published the poems of many contemporary Bengali poets from the East as well as the West, while editing and publishing my poetry magazine since 1978. I remember, I visited Kolkata for the first time in the late 1980s and it was like a dream. I felt I knew and loved Kolkata better than many native Kolkatans. In the early 1990s, I was the first writer from Bangladesh to receive West Bengals most prestigious literary award, the Ananda Purashkar. Since then I have felt closely related to Kolkata. I got the opportunity to personally meet and come close to many authors and intellectuals whom I held in great regard. I was fortunate to receive their love, sympathy and solidarity. Annada Shankar Ray, Shib Narayan Ray, and Amlan Dutta were the true secular humanist intellectuals in Kolkata. Something else happened in the early 1990s, too; I was forced to leave my beloved country and live in exile. I could not accept the idea that a Bengali writer had to leave Bengal simply because some ignorant, insane people did not like my writings, and therefore, I made several attempts to return to my country, or at least, to West Bengal, which shares a common history and traditions with my country. Sadly, each

CR SASIKUMAR

the fundamentalists are encouraged and enthused; they are inspired to find you a soft target. They feel the government will side with them. The Islamic fundamentalists started issuing fatwas against me; they set prices on my head. It happened in Kolkata first, and other cities followed suit. Yes, other cities must have been inspired by the Kolkata fatwa; I was physically attacked by fundamentalists in Hyderabad.Thefundamentalistswontdare touch a writer if they are not convinced theywouldgoscot-free.Iwasaloneexiled writer,notamemberofanypoliticalparty or large organisation; I became an easy

targetofthefanatics,aswellasofthegovernments of two countries. The West Bengalgovernmentusedmefordiverting attentionfromthepoliticalfalloutoftheir dastardly actions in Nandigram and Singur and then decided to throw me out of the state, eventually out of the country. Fanatics and fundamentalists, amongst theMuslimfolkswhotooktothestreetsto protest against the killings of Muslims in Nandigram by the goons of the ruling party, had held up a piece of paper that said, Taslima, go back. This demand by thefundamentaliststodeportmewasfulfilled with alacrity by the West Bengal government;theofficialshadbeenasking

I DO believe that had my book not been banned in 2003, I would not have been thrown out of Kolkata in 2007; had I not been thrown out of Kolkata, Rushdie could have gone on to visit Kolkata, this wonderful city of intellectuals with a rich literary history. The sad fact is that once a government bows to the fanatics, they are immeasurably emboldened.

Lessons from Machiavelli

Obama has decided correctly that drone strikes effectively target terrorists, with fewer civilian casualties than bombings
DAVID BROOKS
hold power. The ends justify the means. In fact, Machiavelli was a moralistic thinker. He barely goes a page without some appeal to honour and virtue. He just had a different concept of political virtue. It would be nice, he writes, if a political leader could practise the Christian virtues like charity, mercy and gentleness and still provide for his people. But, in the real world, thats usually not possible. In the real world, a great leader is called upon to create a civilised order for the city he serves. To create that order, to defeat the forces of anarchy and savagery, the virtuous leader is compelled to do hard things, to take, as it were, the sins of the situation upon himself. Sometimes bad acts produce good outcomes. Sometimes a leader has to love his country more than his soul. Since a leader is forced by circumstances to do morally suspect things, Machiavelli at least wants him to do them effectively. If you have to do something cruel, do it fast; if you get to do something generous, do it slowly. If you lead a country,

WALK THE TALK

THE Express Tribune reported on February 8: Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistans (TTP) Punjab chapter has maintained that Pakistan should be taken out of the ongoing violence and led towards peace. The TTP had, on February 3, proposed peace talks with some riders. The Nation reported on February 4: The release of Muslim Khan, Maulvi Omar and five other Taliban leaders is [the] prerequisite for talks, while former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Syed Munawar Hasan should be granulators, TTP spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan, said through a video message. The Express Tribune added: On Thursday, Nawaz advised the government to take the offer seriously and immediately start the talks. Fazl had also welcomed the Taliban offer.

OUR DRONE policy should take account of our founders superior realism. Drone strikes are so easy, hidden and abstract. There should be some independent judicial panel to review the kill lists.
you have more to fear from the scheming elites than the masses, so you should try to form an alliance with the people against the aristocracy. When you read Machiavelli, you realise how lucky we are. Unlike 16thcentury Florence, we have a good constitution that channels conflict. Our ancestors behaved savagely to build our world, so we dont have to. But its still not possible to rule with perfectly clean hands. There are still terrorists out there, hiding in the shadows and plotting to kill Americans. So even todays leaders face the Machiavellian choice: Do I have to be brutal to protect the people I serve? Do I have to use drones, which sometimes kill innocent children, in order to thwart terror and save the lives of my own? When Barack Obama was a senator, he wasnt compelled to confront the brutal logic of leadership. Now in office, hes thrown into the Machiavellian world. Hes decided, correctly, that we are in a long war against al-Qaeda; that drone strikesdoeffectivelykillterrorists;that,in fact, they inflict fewer civilian deaths than bombing campaigns, boots on the ground or any practical alternative; that, in fact, civilian death rates are dropping sharply as the CIA gets better at this. Still, theres another aspect of Machiavellian thought relevant to the drone debate. This is a core weakness in his thought. He puts too much faith in the self-restraint of his leaders. Machiavelli tells us that men are venal self-de-

THIS winter Im taking part in a great course at Yale called Grand Strategy. Were reading strategic thought from Sun Tzu and Pericles straight through to Churchill and George F. Kennan. This week we read Machiavelli. Machiavelli is a tonic because he counteracts the sentiments of our age. Were awash in TV news segments celebrating the human spirit, but Machiavelli had a lower estimation of our worth. The conventional view is that Machiavelli believed that since people are brutes then everything is permitted. Leaders should do anything they can to

ceivers, but then he gives his prince permission to do all these monstrous things, trusting him not to get carried away or turn into a monster himself. Our founders were more careful. Our founders understood that leaders are as venal and untrustworthy as anybody else. They abhorred concentrated power, and they set up checks and balances to disperse it. Our drone policy should take account of our founders superior realism. Drone strikes are so easy, hidden and abstract. There should be some independent judicial panel to review the kill lists. There should be an independent panel of former military and intelligence officers issuing reports on the programmes efficacy. If you take Machiavellis tough-minded view of human nature, you have to be brutal to your enemies but you also have to set up sceptical checks on the people you empower to destroy them. The New York Times

REVIVED BY MUSIC
FANS of Vital Signs and Junoon, Pakistani bands from the 1990s, will be pleased to learn that they are making comebacks. These bands were popular across the subcontinent, with hit songs like Dil Dil Pakistan, Saiyyo ni and Saanwli saloni. The Express Tribune reported on February 8 that the two bands have readied Naya Pakistan, a new anthem for the country ahead of the polls.