Biases

Like most other races, Indians have plenty of biases. We have biases against people from other religions – it is very rare to meet a Hindu who is completely open and does not see Muslims with some bit of suspicion. Many of us treat people from North East as strangers. The white-skinned have always tended to see the dark complexioned as inferior. In many parts of the country, there are caste discriminations. There are stereotypes about communities, gender and age.

That is why it is so silly to see cases filed against Emran Hashmi for saying that he has been refused houses because he is a Muslim. It is completely hypocritical to profess otherwise. He has just stated the truth he has experienced. Many of us know that such instances are common.

We need to confront the ugly realities of our society and eliminate them rather than hide behind legal and political obfuscation.

Forecasts for 2009 Elections

In less than an hour, the results of the 2009 elections will start flowing in. This is turning out to be one of the most exciting elections ever with no holds barred campaigns, shifting of course by many parties and the undercurrents of socio-economic change driving preferences.

The opinion poll forecasts went horribly wrong in 2004. The forecasts started off by giving 335 plus seats to the NDA and then towards the elections came down to 272 odd. But the seats finally were much lower and the Congress came back to power in a really unexpected comeback. The media was even more confident of the NDA victory.

The media tends to hype up the parties like BJP more ,because ideological parties tend to be more passionate in articulation of their views and in their fervor. This over a period of time before any election ,starts giving a slightly higher degree of false hope and momentum to these parties. Secondly, the silent voter, most likely of a mainstream non-ideological party, keeps a low profile and so does not go to rallies and this leads the other parties to underestimate the potential of their opposition.

The media is more circumspect this time. The psephologists are also more careful. The undercurrents suggest that the forecasts of NDTV and CNN-IBN seem to make the most sense. TN, AP, Maharashtra are going the way these exit polls have predicted and not the way the media read. This means the Congress will win about 160 plus seats and the BJP marginally lesser than 140. The UPA will be comfortably ahead.

2009 Elections

With seven hundred million voters (possibly, two hundred million of them illiterate) and a colorful cast of leading characters, Indian elections are one of the most fascinating events of our times.

Sonia Gandhi: Sixty something Italian, widow of a Prime Minister, cannot speak Hindi clearly, represents the heart of the Hindi belt, reticent and operates by consensus.

Mayawati: Dalit woman, unsophisticated and aggressive, unmarried, narcissist and uses the administrative machinery to build huge statues for herself, weighs herself in gifts of gold on her birthdays and accumulator of wealth.

Advani: Refugee from Pakistan, erstwhile RSS member, loves Hindi movies, chief claim to fame being that he rode a truck decorated as a chariot to demolish Babri Masjid, 81 years old and using the full power of the net to promote himself.

Manmohan Singh: Ph.D. from Cambridge, economist, brilliant and honest, has had three heart surgeries, lost the only election he fought, bureaucrat extraordinaire.

Jayalalitha: Ex-film star,voluptuous, rumoured to be a special friend of the earlier Chief Minister of the state, capricious, intelligent and charismatic.

Naveen Pattnaik: Sixty year old Doon school educated son of an earlier Chief Minister, friend of Jackie Kennedy and assorted New York socialites, unmarried and honest, author of a book on Indian plants,cannot speak the language of the state he is the Chief Minister of.

Narendra Modi: Risen from RSS, Chief Minister of Gujarat during the worst communal carnage in Indian post-independence history and accused of hatred towards Muslims, demagogue and strong administrator, poster boy of Hinduvta.

Prakash Karat: Marxist ideologue , never fought an election, opposes anything American.

Mulayam Singh Yadav: Ruled the largest state in the country, wrestler and rustic, promotes film stars and socialites in the party, wears dhoti himself and master of caste politics.

Lalu Prasad Yadav: Had the gumption to make his primary school educated wife the Chief Minister of a large state, supposedly turned Indian Railways around, extraordinary talent in using humour to strengthen his position, breeds cows in his official quarters and father of nine children.

Rahul Gandhi: Son, grandson and great grandson of Prime Ministers, shy and soft-spoken, still learning the art of politics , loves bikes and dimpled, thirty-eight years old and bachelor.

Blaming the Politicians

There is a lot of justifiable anger and frustration at the brazen attacks and the terrible loss of life in Mumbai. The Indian state is weak and ineffective and is not able to protect its citizens. The media and the public are pouring venom on the politicians of all hues. They are technically right because the ministers in the government are supposed to be the policy-makers and supposed to take the decisions. But they have failed to do so and on the face of it they are culpable.

But these politicians are elected by us and before we chose them we knew their capabilities and character and we chose them. They were neither expected to change overnight and nor did we think they would. So what is the point of spewing anger on them?

The politicians the society chooses are actually a reflection of the society itself. A semi-literate and caste and community ridden society will choose politicians which reflect its character and our politicians by and large are what we are .

Only a literate and economically prosperous society will tend to choose politicians that the media and the average middle-class urban Indian expects.Till we transform our society, we will live with our corrupt, venal and incompetent politicians.

This is easier said than done. Amartya Sen and Jagdish Bhagwati were arguably our brightest economists and thinkers in seventies and eighties. Amartya Sen always spoke about the importance of heath and education and Jagdish Bhagwati preached free trade. We did not listen to them. We kept following a social and economic policy framework which was based on poor thinking and vested interests.

The Indian society has to get out of its habit of taking the easy way out and feeling comfortable with mediocrity. A mix of focus on primary health services, education and free trade would have made India a different country, a better society now and given us a different kind of politician today.

This is just one example of how our inherent failings and weaknesses as a people and society are leading us to a life we do not want to accept. This is the time to reflect and change.

Cromwell In Lok Sabha

Oliver Cromwell was one of the signatories to the death warrant of King Charles I and established the Commonwealth. He declared himself the Lord Protector in 1653 for five years.

He dissolved the ‘Rump’ parliament and then formed his Barebones Parliament to which he assigned all power.

He gave the following speech on dissolving the Rump Parliament.

It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonoured by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice; ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of potage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money; is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess? Ye have no more religion than my horse; gold is your God; which of you have not bartered your consciences for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth? Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defiled this sacred place, and turned the Lord’s temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redressed, are yourselves become the greatest grievance. Your country therefore calls upon me to cleanse this Augean stables, by putting a final period to your iniquitous proceedings in this house; and by which God’s help, and the strength he has given me, I am now come to do; I command ye therefore, upon the peril of your lives, to depart immediately out of this place; go, get you out! Make haste! Ye venal slaves begone! Go! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors. In the name of God, go!

Four hundred and fifty years later the words ring loud and true for our Loksabha.

Yeh Bombay Hai

The infrastructure in India is charitably described as lousy. The worst roads are unfortunately in Mumbai, the commercial capital and Bangalore, the IT showpiece city.

Patna today has better roads than either of them. I do not know who is responsible for this shoddy state of affairs-the centre, the state government or the local municipal corporations. It could be even the corrupt contractors and local politicians. But strangely, the general public does tolerate filth, potholes, stray animals and even unpaved roads in the middle of the city.

Mumbai takes the cake in filth and a lackadaisical attitude towards its own roads and cleanliness. So the city which has fabulous citizens, a rocking nightlife and immense professionalism has decrepit looking buildings, animal shit on roads and in many parts only mud and potholes.

Class Discriminations in India

There are very few societies more class-ridden than India. While the country focuses on caste, the discriminations based on class do not let merit and fairness prevail. Caste in educational institutions undermines the concept of merit. But class works beneath the superficial surface and insidiously destroys justice and merit.

Class in the Indian context is a nebulous and complex concept.You can feel it, you practice it but you cannot capture it properly. It is tied at a gross level to caste but also to economic wealth, family station, your English pronunciation and also the colour of your skin! So a poor man is going to be beaten up in the police station but a rich man will stay unharmed. It is very rare even in the most merit-based institutions in the country to see a driver's son being friends with a privileged doctor's child. We do not let people of a different class rise and the concept of merit is twisted to suit the dominant section's interests. In a more open society like the US, you find some of the most influential figures like Clinton,Oprah or even Larry Ellison come up from devastated families and economically deprived backgrounds. But the surreptitious discriminations practiced by Indians do not let any person from a lower class rise similarly, except in academics and research etc. where merit cannot be subjugated.

So the leaders in any part of life today come up from the same relatively privileged 5% of the population.

This is also because we sub-consciously tend to magnify the importance of anybody with the right background and do not really give due importance or respect to people of a lower class. This is part our cultural heritage. The minister's son or the industrialist's nephew will always get the blue-blooded treatment in class compared to the boy with the most merit. Marriages are closely tied to the status of families perpetuating class differences again. The great stories of our society are about kings and princes not about ordinary folk doing extraordinary things. God Rama was not born to a poor man but to a king. The heroes of Mahabharat are all from princely families. Karna grew up as the son of a charioteer and so he was not allowed to participate in the archery competition to win the hand of Draupadi. He wins another archery competition defeating the Pandavas and Kaurava brothers and the crowd is stunned by his prowess. But when they discover that he is not from royal blood, they stop applauding.

A country of a billion people has only a few figures like Rajni Kant,Lal Bahadur Shashtri or an Irfan Pathan who come from a different class and have managed to stand out. Some child from a deprived class, who wants to dream and achieve will always find odds like this daunting and will give up in his quest.

This makes the talents of a large part of the population unavailable for our growth. But there are no easy answers to this. Centuries of mindset and discrimination cannot be undone in a few years.

Regional Disparities

According to the 2001 census, only 43% of rural households (56% in urban) in India have electricity.The regional disparities are even more disturbing. The level of electrification in rural Punajb, HP and Haryana are 90, 95 and 79 percent. In contrast, the levels in rural WB, Assam and Orissa are 20, 17 and 19 percent respectively. Bihar has a level of 5.1 %.

The percentages of Punjab, HP and Haryana rural households getting tap water are 16, 38 and 83. The number of rural households getting tap water in WB, Assam and Orissa are 7, 5 and 3 percent respectively. The figure for Bihar is 1.38 %.

So much for being one country and so much for Jyoti Basu's 30 year reign due to the prosperity in rural Bengal.

How Good A leader Is Manmohan ?

In around a month, Manmohan Singh will reach the midpoint of his tenure as the Prime Minister. There will be assessments followed by bouquets and brickbats in equal measure. He has been successful in bringing down the communal temperature, sustaining the economic growth, forging a brave new foreign policy path, initiating some landmark acts like RTI, launching programmes like Bharat Nirman and the rural employment guarantee. He has alienated the urban educated sections because of the reservation policy, failed in convincing the left on several reform initiatives and not managed to make any headway on preventing terror.

But how good a leader is he? By common thinking and opinion polls, he is not a good leader. But going by research on leadership he is probably the best we ever had. The most influential theories on the personal characteristics of a leader have been by Plato, Warren Bennis and Jim Collins.

Plato propounded the concept of the ' philosopher king ‘. According to him the king should either be a wise man or a lover of wisdom. On this yardstick, India today has probably no politician better than Manmohan. And no past PM, barring Nehru comes close to him in knowledge and wisdom.

Warren Bennis emphasised the importance of self-knowledge and inner voice in becoming a leader. He also spoke about having vision, a broad education, curiosity, virtue and risk-taking as essential ingredients of a leader. It is difficult to assess any past PM on self-awareness and inner voice but amongst the other parameters aggregated, Manmohan scores more than any PM except Nehru. He however fails badly on risk-taking.

Jim Collins studied more than 1400 organisations over a thirty year period and arrived at the concept of 'level five' leadership. Level 5 leaders exhibit a paradoxical combination of personal humility and ferocious resolve. They are mostly shy but competent. Abraham Lincoln, possibly the greatest leader America has produced, was a typical level 5 leader. He was described as quiet, peaceful and shy by author Henry Adams. Level 5 leaders have always achieved more than the level 4 leader who is the charismatic and visionary type. Here again, Manmohan could do better on resolve but on the overall attribute he would rank higher than the earlier Indian PMs.

Many great leaders also develop an elaborate inner life due to hardships and traumas in their early years. Manmohan Singh grew up in poverty, battled against odds to do well in academics and then excelled as an economist. This broad experience of life in different facets makes him more complete as a human being than any of his predecessors.

The only dimensions where he falls short are risk-taking ability and resolve - definitely an outcome of his days as a bureaucrat. As a leader, he also has to operate more on instinct than on caution. Whenever he has risen beyond these limitations as in the nuclear pact with the US or the reforms as the finance minister, he has stood tall.

Utter Rubbish

There was a time when I used to think that everything printed in the newspapers and magazines is the absolute truth. Growing up in remote places of Orissa,a copy of The Statesman or the Sunday magazine were items worth looking up to. Later, I joined a B-School which itself was written about in the press and for the first time I realised everything written is not true. But I gave the benefit of doubt to the media.

Working in the corporate sector also did not open my eyes to the bullshit perpetrated as news for a long time. But I was not sure about why they wrote what they wrote. Then I discovered the P.R.agencies. And I realised ,that may be fifty per cent of what is written in respectable newspapers could be trash handed over by the agencies. In fact,any article talking about the plans and expectations of a company or an industrialist or a politician is usually only that-plans of smart operators who know how to use the media.

I know of an industrialist, a rogue would be the better word,who appears on CNBC and speaks to ET about his future plans and anyone who knows him can bet his backside that they are a load of utter rubbish.

Why is this so? It is largely because journos with some exceptions get sucked into the -You scratch mine and I will scratch yours- cabal of politicians, businessmen and their bosses. And there are the usual issues of dal, roti and kids.It is the same situation for people who start off as honest bureaucrats. So in this country it is an open secret that several politicians have made thousands of crores but no newspaper or magazine has managed to investigate that. It is only left to Bollywood to talk about the issues with anonymous characters.

So what is the answer to this mainstream media malaise? Is it going to be the blogs? They can be powerful because they can be set up at no cost and hopefully it will give rise to some fearless individuals fighting for truth and justice.

AIDS in Nigeria

Nigeria is a country obsessed with sex. The President, a highly respected man otherwise, has eight wives reportedly. Amongst the wealthy and the powerful not having multiple wives is the exception rather the rule. The women are as aggressive as men in hunting for partners.If you go to a cyber café ,the only thing you see is boys and girls chatting on yahoo to hook and fix up their rendezvouses. A significant proportion of single women are willing and available for a price. If you want a girlfriend all you have to do is go to the university and ask for one. It is not unusual for fathers to ask their daughters to fix up a school/college girlfriend for their colleagues.The FM stations in the morning are full of pastors exhorting the sinning masses to restrain themselves sexually.

No wonder with so much promiscuity, AIDS has struck. In absolute numbers South Africa and India are ahead but in percentage terms Nigeria has 5.3% of the population affected by AIDS against 1% in India.

To find out the real extent of the spread of AIDS, we have to factor in the statistics that the life expectancy is only 48 and only 58% of the population is above the age of 15.Assuming that the population below 15 is relatively AIDS free, then approximately one in eleven Nigerian adults has AIDS. It is a horrendous figure and it is today a leading cause of death like in many other African countries. Thirty percent of the prostitutes (called harlots rather colourfully) have AIDS and are a principal source of the spread of the disease.

It is a point to ponder, if you ignore the tremendous human tragedy, how the natural system has in-built checks and balances. For promiscuity now there is AIDS, a disease as dreaded as any in history.

The Other Rath Yatra from Puri

I spent a large part of my childhood in Orissa,a state known for its bucolic beauty,stunning temple architecture ,frequent floods, poverty and Lord Jagannath.In fact Lord Jagannath occupies a more prominent place in the life and psyche of Oriyas than any God for any other community,I can think of. Of course, the chariot festival is well known but less known is that Oriyas of all ages, classes and types think of him as protecting and helping them everywhere. He is Jagannath meaning lord of the universe, a lord for all. Some of his most famous devotees have been Salabeg,a Muslim and also an elephant who was trapped by a crocodile in a river. He is the Lord who is for universal brotherhood;kind,compassionate and very much a part of your own milieu rather than a powerful God ruling you from a distance.

So it is with a lot of pain that I read that Rajnath Singh’s rath yatra will commence from Puri.I understand that he has his right as an Indian citizen to travel anywhere.But it is tragic that he uses Puri and its rathyatra tradition and in all likelihood he will try to take Lord Jagannath’s blessings for his journey .This is a political stunt,a cheap and devious trick to exploit the Hindu insecurities.

Lord Jagannath always stood for harmony,peace and tolerance.The Oriyas were always a peace-loving people.In fact,I remember growing up without even once being exposed to any caste and religious identity.I remember in the engineering college I studied in,I lost out the award for the Best Actor despite a brilliant performance.I was told later that the Mathematics professor who was the judge had preferred somebodyelse for the award because I was not a brahmin.I remember being utterly stunned by this for days at the narrow-mindedness of the man.In fact today almost after 20 years,I think of him with revulsion.But this was the only incident of someone trying to define me as a member of a caste or religion and acting on that basis.The harmony amongst different identities,castes and religions was faultless.We used to treat Muslim or Christian boys with a fond quaintness rather than with suspicion.

So it is even more tragic that the people and the soil of such a state are being defiled to further narrow,divisive and communal agenda of a rustic cow-belt politician and his party.

India-Two Different Millennia

India is a more fascinating country from a distance.Everytime I travel abroad ,I realise the greatness of the country which sometimes escapes my attention in the din and noise of its daily life.It has grinding poverty but it also has unique grandeur.It has its venal politicians but also a brilliant middle class that is making waves around the world for its prowess in IT,management and engineering.It has its centuries old caste inequalities but also its rich,distinct culinary tradition.Amartya Sen’s “The Argumentative Indian” does a fine job of delving into the splendid tapestry that is India.Alongwith Nehru’s “The Discovery Of India” ,it will remain a fine example of throwing light on the cultural,social and knowledge mosaic that is this 5000 year old civilisation.

But the disconcerting fact remains that the great contributions of India to the world like concept of zero,the decimal system,elements of trigonometry,buddhism,ayurveda or formal rules of grammar all belong to the period till the end of first millennium(till 1000AD).The last thousand years have not seen any great contribution to the world even though there has been some great architecture like the Taj or Konark built.So today inspite of India’s rising status the average Argentine or Dane does not use anything intrinsically associated with India.He probably talks on Finnish phones(Nokia),watches American movies,secures himself with a Chinese lock,drives a Japanese car,plays in a German shoe(Adidas),drives with Saudi oil.The impact of the IT sector is of course high on the corporates in general but not on the common man.Logically the inventions of the last thousand years will always play a more dominant role in life than the inventions and discoveries of the previous millennia . So the relative importance of India in the average life of a human being today in the world is lesser than what it was in the first millennium.

The most probable reason for this seems to be that the world discovered the riches of India in a big way in the second millennium.Combined with better routes and technology, it could travel and attack the country.So the last thousand years seem to have been a time of wars,battles for dominance and bloodshed.The British rule of course typifies this.This meant that the resources and time of the rulers and the people were more focussed on survival rather than on developments on the frontiers of knowledge.This over a period of a thousand years led to the relative decline of the country in the world standings.

One can only hope that the people and politicians understand this and South Asia gets out of its history of bloodshed and rivalry as we enter another new millennium.

Manjunath

Manjunath’s murder is symptomatic of the malaise in the system.

The earnest officer was being honest and fearless. He was perhaps too idealistic in the state of U.P. Here, you are expected to buckle down and accept injustice and unfairness. Here, you are expected to only see all the corruption and decay around you silently and possibly crib about this to your wife and friends. You are expected to slowly become a part of the same rotten system and start making money by being a player yourself. You are expected to throw the teachings of your conscientious parents and maybe Ayn Rand into the nearest dustbin and start chasing the average Indian dream of a three bed-room house with two airconditioners and one sedan. So what, if on the way to the dream, you do not recognise yourself in the mirror and you just see hollow eyes and a charred heart.

Manjunath refused to do that and he paid such a heavy price. I am appalled that the perpetrators of the crime even thought of committing such an act in cold blood and then getting away with it. In the process the utter lawlessness in the state of UP has been exposed.

It is a tribute to the Indian media that they have painstakingly followed up the story and given it the necessary exposure. NDTV and other channels besides several leading newspapers (led by Indian Express) have played an outstanding role in building up public consciousness.

However the IOC management and the government remain silent. Is it the silence of the guilty or the silence of the cornered?

The other question is that obviously the adulteration is not happening for the first time. According to some news reports, it is a racket of ten thousand crore rupees. So for the scam to be of this extent 1) either the other persons in charge have turned a blind eye out of fear and/or self-interest 2) or, the checking processes are inadequate. On both counts, it indicts the IOC top management and the oil ministry.

Manjunath’s sad end can be sanctified only if these larger issues are addressed.

HDI and GDP Growth

The joyful pandemonium over economic growth faintly amuses me and reminds me of the games that able gentlemen play in the corporate boardrooms and corridors. It goes like this.

When we are talking about the progress of the country we must consider the overall growth not only economic. This holistic growth status is better described by Human Development Index in a very useful annual exercise by UNDP. This is a composite indicator which captures the achievements of the country on three basic dimensions of human development namely income, health and education. It is a much more comprehensive indicator than simple GDP growth.

Economic growth is one of the requirements of poverty reduction and human development. It is probably a very good indicator for developed economies which have reached desired levels on parameters like infant mortality, life expectancy or literacy. So in one sense, the only play the developed countries can actually have is economic growth. But poor and developing countries have a lot of work to catch up on the other parameters and the obsessive focus on economic growth alone after ignoring other indicators of progress is callous and insensitive.

It is analogous to the situation, for example ,in FMCG companies where the progress of the brand is projected depending on the requirements of the managers. So based on the context the state of brand could be described by a) current marketshares(ms) b)ms growth over last year c)urban ms d)growth in urban ms e)growth in ms vis-à-vis last quarter f)primary sales growth (sales from company depots to distributors)g)offtake (sales from outlets to consumers) and several others. So in most likelihood, some factors would be showing high growth or a positive trend and the trick is to focus on those factors, hide the unpleasant indicators thus ignoring the holistic health of the brand.

Similarly, economic growth today is being focussed on because it is positive and it induces a feel-good factor. The media is the champion of this drum-beating and I almost see the country’s politicians and industrialists thumping their chests with pride when they meet their counterparts in various seminars and conferences and saying “Mera economic growth tera economic growth se zyada hai”.

They tend to forget that four hundred million of their countrymen go to bed hungry everyday and 2.5 million child deaths ( the highest in the world and one fifth of it) occur in India every year. They forget that even though we are making progress, in absolute terms we have only dented the mammoth poverty obstacle.Illiteracy, hunger, pregnancy related deaths, gender inequality and incidence of disease are rampant and we fare just above sub-saharan Africa on these parameters. The situation in Bihar, MP, Rajasthan and UP are almost as sorry as sub-saharan Africa. These unpleasant truths are captured by HDI but hidden in the metric of economic growth.

So even though India is amongst the top ten countries in economic output on purchasing power parity basis, it is an abysmal 127 on the HDI rankings.


Maybe, it is time the states are ranked on these parameters and they are incentivised on their performance(if not being done already) and this is given wide publicity. ‘India today’ attempts a ranking on these but awareness about it needs to be spread more. At least, the middle classes could use this as pointers to their voting.