White Supremacy and IPL

"White supremacy is the belief that white people are superior to people of other racial backgrounds. The term is sometimes used specifically to describe a political ideology that advocates the social and political dominance of whites." This is how Wikipedia defines white supremacy.

The naming of Brendon McCullum as captain of Kolkata Knight Riders proves another point of the typical Indian mindset that whites are supreme than us, brown Indians. KKR is not the first team though to believe in “white supremacy.” Before KKR naming Brendon McCullum as their captain, it was Deccan Chargers, Bangalore Royal Challengers, and of course Rajasthan Royals.

If retired players like Shane Warne, Adam Gilchrist can be good for captain than it is hard to justify why Indian players like Sourav, Dravid and Laxman are not fit for captaincy. Age as everyone might think as the factor actually does not hold good when one has Adam Gilchrist and Shane Warne as captains who are no younger than Sourav, Dravid or Laxman. Finally, age has nothing to do as far as captaincy is concerned.

Yes, it is a fact that KKR under Sourav failed miserably in the IPL but that had more to do with the team than his captaincy. KKR, last year, had players like McCulum, Ponting, Gayle for a very few matches and had to do most of the time without regular batsman in the side (even Taibu had to be included as a batsman in some matches). On his part, Sourav did perform well both with the bat and the ball in IPL session I.

It is a pity that the captains that these teams have chosen were never the regular captain of their own national side with the exception of Kevin Pietersen. With the captaincy in the hands of white foreigners, the local flavor, which was given by the city names and evoked immense support from the cities, will almost evaporate from the IPL II.

IPL was supposed to give Indian talents a chance to play with the world's best and thus improve their skills. Actually, this is what Mr. Modi had initially said when he conceptualized IPL. With all white non-Indians in the think tank as well as captains, I do not see how they will play a part in improving the local lot (excluding the members of the Indian National Team) as they do not have any understanding of the locals.

It is just not the captains who are being changed, if one looks at the support team one can hardly find any Indian in any of the teams, be it the coach, bowling coach, fielding coach, etc. It is indeed a sorry figure considering India has produced so many exceptional players and yet no team can have faith in an Indian. The Indians in the support teams of various teams like Lalchand Rajput has been substituted with white people.

SRK, the owner of KKR, himself is a performer and had a long list of failures. Flops of SRK includes but are not limited to Guddu, Chamatkar, Dil Aashna Hai, King Uncle, Anjam, English Babu Desi Mem, Maya Memshaeb, Zamana Deewana, Badshah, Ram Jaane, Oh Darling Yeh Hain India, Phir Bhi Dil Hain Hindustani, Asoka, Paheli. With so many flops under his belt, SRK has not stopped acting as hero in films neither has producers or directors taken the faith off him. It is a pity that SRK being a performer himself could go in for such a step because Sourav could not bring laurels for his team in the inaugural session of IPL.

The present trend of appointing foreign captain and foreign coaches is driven by the typical Indian mentality that everything foreign is good, especially if it is from a white country.

Bulls Bears and Third Front

With the election in full swing, the speculation of which party or parties will come to power after the formation of 15th Lok Sabha is rife. All the analysis on TV and newspaper are showing that neither the UPA nor the NDA is likely to garner the 271 seats required for the formation of a government.

The capital market does not favor any political formation over other and generally looks at stability and will be happy with either the UPA or the NDA coming to power with absolute majority and lasting the full term. In case the third front comes to power with outside support of the congress or BJP, the stock markets are expected to move southwards. The third front will mean a combination of about two dozen regional parties with no focus of policy or ideology and with left being a part of it will have foreign policy and economic policy which will perhaps take India back by a few centuries.

The third front will certainly frighten the investors away from India for the following reasons:
1. Left’s anti-market policy and labor friendly policy (left has successfully shut down industries in West Bengal in their 3 decade rule and only recently started getting investor friendly again).
2. SP’s anti English, anti computerization (as in their manifesto) policy will perhaps make India competitive only with the SWAT areas of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Somalia.
3. Banning of forward trading as proposed by SP and left will only make hedging impossible and bring in more losses for India Inc and needless to say taxes for the government.
4. Finally, and most importantly any third front formation supported by one of the big 2 will not be able to last for long.

Historically, it has been seen that the capital markets do not like the amalgamation of a myriad of political parties coming together and giving an unstable government (like in the times of Deve Gowda and I. K. Gujral) with outside support.

If the third front does come to power this time, it is my guess that the share markets will see a new low in the month of May and June 2009.

Kaun Banega Prime Minister

India goes in election mode from April 16 to May 16, 2009, to elect the 15th Lok Sabha. The 15th Lok Sabha will have 543 seats and therefore for any party or formation to come into power would require at least 271 seats. That no single party will be able to garner 271 seats in this election is a foregone conclusion. Who becomes the prime minister will depend on which formation comes to power. At this moment there seems to be three political formations that has more or less taken shape viz., the United Progressive Alliance or the UPA, National Democratic Alliance or the NDA, and the Third Front.

Let me now profile the prime ministerial candidates and the chances of their becoming the next Prime Minister of India:
1. Dr. Manmohan Singh: He is the Congress’ choice for the Prime Minister from the UPA. For Dr. Manmohan Singh to be the next Prime Minister of India, Congress has either to gain a few seats than last time or at least maintain the number of seats it had and reach somewhere in the vicinity of 140-160. I do not see Congress reaching the number after it has lost the Hindi heartland alliance in UP, Bihar, Jharkhand. Congress is likely to do very poorly in the southern states of TN and Karnataka. So I would not give Dr. Manmohan Singh (or any other congress candidate) more than 35-40% chance of becoming the next Prime Minister.

2. Lal Krishna Advani: He is the BJP's and NDA's choice of prime minister. Again for Mr. L. K. Advani to become the prime minister, BJP has to win somewhere in the vicinity of 140-160 seats by itself and hope its allies will get the rest 111-131 seats. I do not see BJP getting anywhere near 140-160 seats on its own as it is very weak in UP, no presence in WB, TN, Kerala (accounts for 181 seats). So I would not give Mr. L. K. Advani (or any other BJP candidate) more than 40% chance of becoming the next Prime Minister.

The calculations for either Congress of BJP might change only if there is any unforeseen wave coming out in their favor in the next few weeks. For anyone else to become the next Prime Minister, he/she has to get the support of one of the big two i.e., Congress or BJP.

3. Ms. Mayawati: She is the BSP's prime ministerial aspirant. I do not give her even 1% chance of being the next prime minister because I do not see any political party giving her support as she is too ambitious and can eat into the support base of other regional or national parties.

4. Mr. Sharad Pawar: Sharad Pawar may find support from Shiv Sena apart from his own party to become the next prime minister, but there would be a very remote possibility that BJP will support him and Congress just won’t support him as that might wean away some influence from the Nehru-Gandhi family and historically Congress has never supported any strong leader with mass support outside of the Nehru-Gandhi Family (leaders inside or outside Congress). I would give him less than 5% probability of being the next Prime Minister of India.

5. Mr. Lalu Prasad Yadav/Mulayam Singh Yadav/Ram Vilas Paswan: They are the leaders of the newly found fourth front. Since they appeal to the same class of voters there is 0% probability of any of the two supporting the third as the prime minister as he (selected one) can then undermine the other two. So I would give 0.5% probability for any of them to be the next Prime Minister of India.

6. Ms. Jayalalitha/Chandra Babu Naidu: I do not see either of them getting the support of Congress as congress is the main opponent of Chandra Babu Naidu in AP and Sonia Gandhi will not support Jayalalitha due to the latter’s previous comments on the foreigner issue.

Who can then be the next Prime Minister of India? For sure, we won’t have back to back elections due to lack of decisive majority for any formation. Now if we go back in history and look at the other non-Congress, non BJP prime ministers of the recent past we find Mr. V. P. Singh, Mr. Chandra Shekhar, Mr. Deve Gowda, and Mr. I. K. Gujral. The one thing that was common to all of them was they either did not have mass following or their area of influence was limited to their own state only, so they got the support of the Congress party.

It is this logic that brings to my mind another complete outsider of national politics into the foreground, Naveen Patnaik of the Biju Janata Dal. Although, I understand this is the most audacious or even hilarious prediction ever and seems to be impossible, but then who had ever thought Mr. Chandra Shekhar, Mr. Deve Gowda or Mr. I. K. Gujral will be the Prime Minister of India before the elections.

Why Naveen Patnaik? Congress will support him because primarily he or his party does not have any following outside of Orissa, secondly with less than 15 seats of his own Congress can dethrone him at an opportune time, and finally he has just been weaned out from BJP. The Yadavs (Lalu and Mulayam) will support him for the simple reason that Mr. Patnaik is not going to eat into their share of votes ever and they can have their sweet revenge on Congress. The Left will be more than happy to support him or any other non-congress, non-BJP person. I see more than 50% chance of Mr. Naveen Patnaik as the next Prime Minister of India because of his acceptability amongst the third front as well as the Congress. How long he can remain the Prime Minister is a different question altogether.