[Forbes India] The Expat Diary

Going through the acculturation experiences of foreign nationals who have taken up residence in India is always amusing and refreshing. In some ways its like seeing oneself through the looking glass, but this time the other way round.
The Expat Diary on Forbes India records such several short personal anecdotes of expats who have made India their workplace and consequently their home. In one such piece titled 'India is Not a Country Made for Everyone', SAP Labs’ Clas Neumann writes on what he has learned here and about how different it is from the country which he came from :

"...I learned more about how to conduct meetings, expectations, and I learned not to take things personally. I found this out well in my first meeting I did here with my own little management team at that time. I said let’s start at 9 a.m. I was in the room at 9 a.m. and nobody else was there. Then at 9:05 a.m. the first guy walks in and says, “Hi Clas, nice to meet you,” with no apologies for being late. By 9:20 a.m. we were complete and still chatting. In Germany the meeting would have been over by then and my boss actually would have left the room if no one appeared on time. But this is not meant as a sign of disrespect. People from my culture would easily see this as disrespect — if you’re not on time you’re not respecting my time, and it would be taken as an insult to the person you are meeting. "

Spot on! That's exactly how we are. And then he testifies to our unflinching commitment to the Great Indian 'Nick of Time' Finish.

"As recently as a month ago, I saw my incoming German colleagues who were very worried looking at how preparations were going for our TechEd conference. One day before the conference, my colleagues said, “They will never finish. Look at what state this is in, and they haven’t even put up the backdrop!” And I was thinking, “They still have one night to work.” So I said: “Relax guys, it’s just the way things go, and I can tell you it’s going to be okay by the end of the day. Tomorrow 9 a.m. it will be finished.” The next day at 8:59 a.m., it was all done and so you have to be very trustful, but usually it works."

By now you are positively giggling. But hang on, there's more. How can our tendency to mix all aspects of life effortlessly, work or personal, and to involve everyone around us in them, sometimes even before they know it, not  have manifested itself amply to him. And then how could he have resisted such temptations that we Indians dole out by giving a say to almost everyone whom we see often, in the most significant of our decisions.

"For example, there was this one incident where two colleagues fell in love, and their families did not agree and it was very tense. We sent them to Germany on assignment to get them out of the tension zone, so they could rethink things and communicate with their families from a different perspective. In Germany, people would not even approach the company with things like this."

And finally a sort-of-compliment. Yes, we are competitive and fond of degrees.

"A couple of years ago I saw so many of my engineers do their MBA and they came back knowing more than me, so I became a little competitive. I did an executive MBA from INSEAD; in Germany I would have never done this. Ten years after you start working, you would never take time during your career to pursue any sort of studies, as it puts a lot of stress on your family, and your job."

[WSJ] Rajeev Mantri : Job Creation and Income Growth

Rajeev Mantri, executive director of Navam Capital writes in WSJ: 

The distinction between job creation and income growth is not as well understood as it should be. Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman once visited China at the height of Communism, and was taken to a construction site. He asked why the contractors were not using machinery and modern equipment, and was told that the project was part of a government job creation program. Friedman replied that the spades used by the labor force should be replaced with spoons, and that would increase employment even more! The lesson is that it is easy to "create" jobs, but harder to grow incomes because incomes rise only when productivity increases. Productivity increases when companies compete and innovate.
If we are serious about creating jobs, we should focus on creating an environment where people like Jobs prosper. Bharat will become more like India.
In the current regime, India is being turned into Bharat. Well-intentioned policies that claim to employ the poor are distorting the labor market by incentivizing people to migrate back to villages from cities. The country must urbanize if it has to develop economically, it cannot continue to live in villages.
Much has been made of India's demographic dividend. An average of nearly 1 million people will be entering the work force every single month for the next 20 years, a scale unprecedented in human history. The only comparable event is the post-World War II Baby Boom in the US. This is an opportunity, and can be a huge challenge, because all those people will want to be well-fed, educated and productively employed. It would be futile for the government to even try employing so many people.

Read the full article: The Genesis of Jobs on WSJ.

[HT] The Hunger Project

Emerging India either does not know or ignores the statistics: Half its children are malnourished, a record worse than the world’s symbol for deprivation, sub-Saharan Africa. India is ranked 66th out of 88 countries in the Global Hunger Index drawn up by the International Food Policy Research Institute. India is home to a quarter of the world’s hungry – about 230 million people – according to a World Food Programme report released on March 2009. More than 455 million Indians survive on US$ 1.25 ((Rs 56) approximately) a day or less, compared with 420 million in 1981. As the government prepares to launch India’s grandest attempt yet to tackle hunger and malnutrition, the Hindustan Times announces a nationwide effort to track, investigate and report every aspect of the struggle to rid the nation of hunger.

Follow the Hunger Project on HT. 

Orissa, Jharkhand Cut Neonatal Mortality Rates

 Mothers in the tribal regions of Jharkand and Orissa are stopping their babies from dying by simply 'peer educating' and 'talking out' problems with the help of NGOs like Ekjut. TOI reports:

Prasanta Tripathy runs the NGO Ekjut, which facilitated the training. He says “there is a 45% reduction in neonatal mortality rate as well as a change in practices related to child-rearing. Besides, there is a 57% reduction in postnatal depression.”
Tripathy says they stress on “participation, learning and action — the ingredients in the making of an empowered mother and healthy baby.”
The NGO started with 20 women in three villages around Chakradharpur six years ago. By now, it has 20,000 trained women, spread across more than a thousand villages in nine districts of Jharkhand and Orissa.
Sumitra Gagrai, Ekjut group coordinator, says the core of the revolution was the community spirit unleashed, when trained female volunteers fanned out across remote villages “to encourage adolescent girls and married women to find practical solutions for good health during the pre and post pregnancy period.” 

Read the TOI reports here and here.
Just another example of how far even a handful of small basic steps can go in alleviating the seemingly intractable challenges facing us today.

D Subbarao : Why is Financial Literacy Important?

In a recently held RBI-OECD International Workshop on Financial Literacy in Bengaluru on March 22, 2010, Dr. D Subbarao, the RBI Governor, highlighted the imperative of Financial Inclusion and Financial Literacy for an economically empowered India :

5. Let me step back a bit and spend a few minutes on why financial literacy is so vital. There is virtually no country whose economy has developed and matured without a corresponding deepening of the financial sector. And such deepening is possible only when individuals and households are financially literate and are able to make informed choices about how they save, borrow and invest. Indeed, it is possible to argue that the sub prime problem would not have grown to the explosive proportions that it did if people had been financially more ‘literate’.
6. Beyond the individual level - and this is equally important - greater financial literacy can aid a better allocation of resources and thereby raise the longer-term growth potential of the economy. India clocked average growth of around nine percent in the period 2004-08 before the global financial crisis interrupted the growth trajectory. One of the key drivers of this growth has been the increased savings rate in the economy, which reached a high of 36 percent of GDP in 2007/08, the year before the crisis.
7. The increase in savings itself has been a consequence of the changing demographics and the welcome trend of rise in household savings. However, nearly half our population still lacks access to banking and other financial services. If we can redress that and provide this ‘left behind’ population access to the entire gamut of banking services, we could raise household and overall domestic savings even further, and that will fulfill one of the necessary conditions to achieve the double-digit growth that we aspire to.
8. To make that happen, we need to deepen the penetration and expand the coverage of financial services to all sections of society and to all regions of the country in a meaningful way, particularly to those at the bottom of the economic pyramid. Lack of financial awareness and literacy is one of the main reasons behind lack of access to financial products or failure to use them even when they are available. An NCAER and Max New York Life study shows that in India, around 60 percent of laborers surveyed indicated that they store cash at home, while borrowing from moneylenders at high interest rates - a pattern which increases their financial vulnerability.
9. Financial literacy and awareness are thus integral to ensuring financial inclusion. This is not just about imparting financial knowledge and information; it is also about changing behaviour. For the ultimate goal is to empower people to take actions that are in their own self-interest. When consumers know of the financial products available, when they are able to evaluate the merits and demerits of each product, are able to negotiate what they want, they will feel empowered in a very meaningful way. They will know enough to demand accountability and seek redressal of grievances.  This, in turn, will enhance the integrity and quality of financial markets. One big lesson we have learnt in our outreach programmes is that financial literacy is not just a public good; it is a merit good. What this means is that by deepening financial literacy, not just individuals and households, even the society at large stands to benefit.

Read the complete text of his speech here.

[Forbes India] India's Second Tryst with Destiny

Dinesh Narayanan and Udit Misra write for Forbes India on the key issues they think India will do well to focus on in the coming times:

We’ve picked out four key challenges that the next ten years will throw up. One, the country needs a new, more remunerative approach to farming that replaces the current subsidy-ridden system. Sixty per cent of the population still survives on agriculture and figuring out a solution is now critical.

Two, India’s urban centres are bursting at the seams. So far, apart from a piecemeal approach, there’s been very little to suggest that the country is ready for the surge in urban population.

Three, the expanding society will fuel the demand for more energy. India is seriously short of stable sources of power. In the near future, the power produced will have to come from “clean” sources as the world seeks new ways to curb the damage to its environment. A sensible energy policy is, therefore, required urgently.

Finally, over the next few years, as incomes continue to climb, citizens will demand a more responsive government: New roads, better education and healthcare, to name just a few. Even though the budget has spelt out the government’s future role as an enabler rather than a provider, there is still a large swathe of services that require its supervision and execution. And for the most part, the government is invariably found wanting. How do we retool our bureaucratic machinery to be more responsive and capable so that the benefits of reform reach the people who need it the most?

 Read the full article here.

Dr Kiran Bedi's Mantras for life

MeraCareerGuide, a career and education related website for students, has posted an interesting video of Dr. Kiran Bedi's recent address to the students of DTU (formerly DCE). 

The speech is about Kiran Bedi' 3 Mantra's of life. Dr. Kiran Bedi said, "I am sharing secrets of success with you - the 3 'M' - Mastery, whichever subject you wish to pursue or whatever you do in life, attain mastery on it; Member, be a responsible member of your institution, family and societal communities and try to give back something to it; and Meaning, find out and pursue the higher purpose behind attaining this mastery and membership, and true meaning of your existence.

Watch the video here on MCG's website.

[WSJ] The Terror of Bollywood

Arun Venugopal brings to you a topical subject whose Bollywood's treatment is far more substantive than Hollywood's.

[Forbes India] How did Gujarat Become a Farming Paradise?

The turnaround of agriculture is water-starved areas of Gujarat has lessons worth emulating for all State planners. Some highlights from the article by RN Bhaskar in Forbes India:

Gujarat was early to amend the laws governing the marketing of agricultural produce and allow farmers to sell their output directly to private buyers. Even today, many states haven’t done so and keep the farmer tied to the official procurement hubs. Some have gone back on reforms. But Gujarat has persisted with opening up market access to farmers.
This also opened up contract farming. In 2004-05, Gujarat took an unusual step. It allowed companies to buy crops from farmers a year in advance. This helped the farmers hedge against price upheavals and guaranteed a minimum price. What’s more, there is also some flexibility to allow higher payments if prices rose at the time of transaction. While it reduced market risks for the farmer, it also encouraged companies to invest in farming indirectly. 

 ....

But the big change in Gujarat has come from the conservation of the most crucial resource for farming – water. Gujarat started by planning large dam projects such as Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP) to achieve a breakthrough in agriculture. To this day, its progress remains limited. ... That’s why Gujarat has embarked on a major exercise to conserve water and use it more efficiently in the fields. The most important turning point in the state’s agriculture has been the innovative management of its groundwater resources. The state has adopted a combination of rainwater harvesting – that traps water that would otherwise drain away – and micro irrigation – that supplies each drop of water more efficiently and directly to the plant. The movement has been a roaring success and stories abound of conversion of barren lands into fertile farms, rising yields and falling costs of cultivation across the state.

Read the full article here.

[WSJ] India Pulls Up Vedanta for Flouting Norms

Finally the authorities take cognizance of the excesses of the Vedanta corporation in its mining operations in Orissa's tribal areas. Hope the follow-up action will be stringent and will make an example out of them.

Vedanta Aluminium Ltd.'s operations in Orissa state could suffer a setback after a government team said the company--a unit of mining giant Vedanta Resources PLC.--violated environmental guidelines at its planned mining site in the Niyamgiri Hills.
Environment minister Jairam Ramesh said he will seek "follow-up action" with the Orissa state government after a ministry panel sent to the region submitted three reports saying Vedanta started work on its mining project before receiving final clearance. ... Mr. Ramesh added that Vedanta's project--extracting bauxite ore for its alumina refinery in the foothills--may have also violated rights of the 8,000-strong Dongria Kondh tribe living in the Niyamgiri Hills.

Read the complete article on WSJ.

Naxalism: The Non-sympathetic View

On March 5, 2010, as part of its Eminent Persons’ Lecture Series, Institute of Defense Studies and Analyses (IDSA) organized a lecture by Home Secretary Gopal K. Pillai on “Left Wing Extremism in India”. Pillai shared with the distinguished audience his own perspective on the Naxal movement, which is considered to be one of the most serious internal security threats faced by India today.

Read a report of his speech on the IDSA website.

In a nutshell, he believes that the present laws dealing with the tribal areas ( Indian forest conservation act, the mining act, land acquisition law, power plant law etc) have several loopholes and until and unless necessary measures are adopted by the government in reforming these acts, it will not be possible to uproot the Naxal movement or any other extremist movement from India. But in order to bring development to the people, the government needs to secure the administrative control that it has ceded to the Naxals over the years and since the Naxal movement does not believe in peaceful discussion and emphasizes armed struggle, the government must take them head-on.

Raj Shukla of IDSA neatly summarises the way forward :

One, of course, is to regain administrative control of lost areas by securing them and delivering development, and to keep persisting despite the inevitable setbacks. Two, is to nurse our police forces back to health, through a slew of measures which have been discussed ad nauseam. Three, is to address the grievances that threaten to explode in a socio-economic cataclysm - mining rights, forest rights, developmental neglect, rehabilitation of the displaced, uncompleted land reforms, agricultural indebtedness, urban slums and other sources of societal inequality. Four, we could even try and cash in on the latest offer by Kishenji and utilise the services of Arundhati Roy, Mahashweta Devi and Kabir Suman as ‘independent observers’ in an attempted mediation of the dispute.

He adds,

There is of course the other school led by the indomitable M.J. Akbar, which asserts that India will survive the Maoist insurgency by ending poverty and in no other way. May be, but the bigger truth is that in a country of India’s size, diversity and conflicting aspirations, no matter what you do ( even if you were to conquer poverty once and for all), violent disaffections of some sort will afflict us. While attempting to address them, apart from other tools, you will need a sophisticated police force. The Naxal challenge is a wake up call to rejig our internal security instruments and restore their organizational ethos, autonomy and operational credibility. With regard to its violent hue, we need to act with dispatch.

[TOI] Mahasweta Devi : 'I dont know what the Maoists want but I can mediate'

Much of Mahasweta Devi 's writings are inspired by the tribals of Bengal and Bihar. Her work offers valuable documentation of these marginalized communities. The 84-year-old writer, who has won many awards, including the Magsaysay and the Jnanpith, is well-known for her strong opposition to the government's anti-Maoist operations. She tells Jayanta Gupta of TOI  that she doesn't know the Maoists, but that as a writer with a social conscience, she is willing to mediate on the people's behalf.

Read the interview here in Times of India. An excerpt :

What went wrong in rural Bengal in order for outfits like the Maoists to gain a foothold?
After what happened in the 70s, we welcomed the Left Front government in 1977. We expected them to deliver but they have not even done the bare minimum for the people. Even after so many years, a major part of rural Bengal does not have access to electricity or good roads. It only got worse and Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was the last straw. Projects like the ICDS and Right to Food were complete failures.

Add to this the state-sponsored violence. There can be nothing more cruel that what took place in Nandigram. The victims told me how men who used to call them didi (elder sister), boudi (elder sister-in-law) and masi (aunt) took liberties at the behest of a certain political party. The police refused to register FIRs, leave alone arrest the criminals.

In West Midnapore, it was not only the tribals who were victims of torture. Everybody who is below the poverty line (BPL) has suffered — including Muslims and backward classes. The government handed over land in Salboni to the Jindal Group and received crores. How much of this was utilized for local development? There is a big scam in West Bengal regarding the distribution of ration cards. BPL families receive “above poverty line” cards while affluent ones hold BPL ones. After all this, does the government expect people to support them?

 ....

You are against a military solution. The government is not ready for talks. How can this violence end?
Operation Greenhunt has to stop. I am against violence of any kind, whether perpetrated by CPM, Trinamul Congress, the government or Maoists. I strongly condemn the brutal killing of Eastern Frontier Rifles personnel at Silda just as I oppose the murder of Tudu. Every life is precious. If the government wants a solution, it should try and achieve transparency at the panchayat level. That is the only way that trust can be built up. 

Vijay Mahajan on Universal Financial Inclusion : How It Can be Done

He writes in the Inclusion magazine:

In terms of bank branch density, India scores fairly well and this is primarily due to the branch expansion policy that was pursued soon after nationalisation in the 1970s. Thus, while we seem to have cracked the “last mile” problem, the poor have still to see the “first smile” from the service providers. More branches have not translated into better access for the poor. They still find it difficult to fulfill the “know your customer” (KYC) requirements to open accounts and contending with surly staff in branches. How can this be changed?
...
The interesting thing is that India’s banking system (except for big city-based high-end users) in 2009 is a lot like the Indian telephone system was in 1989, before the STD-PCO revolution. To be sure, there are thousands of ATMs from where even small account holders can draw cash, but even these are mainly present in bigger cities in any reasonable density. To truly take the system to the next level of access, three things are a must – enabling every adult to open a bank account, establishing a dense and nationwide network of transaction points, spanning not just the “last mile” but the “final furlong”, and lastly, an inter-bank exchange or switch, to ensure that all transactions are recorded in real-time. Taken together, this will be the Nationwide Electronic Financial Inclusion System (NEFIS) that we recommended in the report of the Raghuram Rajan Committee on Financial Sector Reforms.
...
Interestingly, India is on the threshold of these possibilities. The first, opening of bank accounts, can be greatly enabled by the proposed unique ID (UID) number that will be given to every Indian. This will eliminate the need for further KYC requirements. The second is supported by the recent recommendation of the RBI committee on the business correspondent (BC) model, which says that kirana shops and STD-PCOs (yes!!) can become BCs for banks. The third, an inter-bank switch already exists both for large transactions - RTGS for above Rs 100,000 and NEFT for transactions below Rs 100,000, but rarely below Rs 1,000. Thus, all key parts of NEFIS are falling into place.
 ...
The technologically challenged need not worry if this is possible and how much will it cost. It is already being done in several pilots, such as by the pioneer company in this field, A Little World or ALW, and the whole kit costs less than Rs 10,000 per mobile BC!
...
After satisfying itself that such technologies are reliable and tamper-proof, the RBI should permit the use of m-money more widely (that is beyond bank account to bank account transfers), as has been done in European e-money regulations. This will reduce the use of currency for small transactions, just as has happened for larger transactions in the last decade. This will significantly reduce transaction costs of cash pay-in, pay-out and handling currency notes/coins. A day should come when an NREGS worker receives her wages on her mobile phone and uses it to pay her kirana shop and school fees, without using currency. All this, while the balance in her account earns interest!

 Read the full article here.

Javed Akhtar on Devil's Advocate on Art and Freedom of Expression and of Dissent

Javed Akhtar trumps Karan Thapar who sits there looking like an idiot after having failed to pigeon-hole the discussion while Akhtar makes complete sense. Loved watching the videos.

See the transcript and watch the videos here.

Sanjeev Sanyal : Marathi Manoos will take Mumbai where Bengali Bhadralok took Kolkata

An insightful comparison between today's Mumbai and yesterday's Kolkata by Sanjeev Sanyal (the author of The Indian Renaissance: India’s Rise after a Thousand Years of Decline )  :

The decline of Kolkata tells the same story. Till the mid-60s, the city was the most important cultural, intellectual and commercial centre in India. Its industrial hinterland was the largest in Asia, excluding Japan. The city was a multi-cultural mix of Bengalis, Marwaris, Biharis, Anglo-Indians, Europeans, Jews and Armenians. It even had a vibrant China-town. However, attitudes changed from the 60s — multinationals were squeezed out, new technologies were discouraged and the teaching of English was banned. Even the works of Rabindranath Tagore could only be performed according to strictly-prescribed formulae. The result was not a renaissance of Bengali culture. Instead, Bengal has never again produced individuals of the calibre of Tagore, Satyajit Ray, Vidyasagar, Vivekanand or Subhash Bose.
The lessons of Kolkata are important for Mumbai, especially since its own rise was partly helped by its rival’s decline in the 60s. Many of the companies that drive Mumbai’s current success were originally headquartered in Kolkata, and, in some cases, are still registered there. The self-proclaimed protectors of the Marathi Manoos may want to consider what happened to the Bengali Bhadralok. Today, the Bengali middle class (including me) lives in “exile” in Bangalore, Delhi-Gurgaon, New York, London and even Mumbai. We were not exiled by foreign rule or by the invasion of migrants but by close-mindedness and the lack of imagination.

Read the full article in Business Standard here.

[IBNLive] Orissa tribes fight mining firm in real-life play out of the movie Avatar

"The fundamental story of Avatar -- if you take away the multi-coloured lemurs, the long-trunked horses and warring androids -- is being played out today in Niyamgiri mountain in India's Orissa state," said Stephen Corry, director of the British charity, Survival International.

In impoverished but mineral-rich Orissa, hundreds of indigenous tribes people are battling to stop London-listed Vedanta Resources Plc from extracting bauxite from what they say is their sacred mountain.

Read the full article here.

The point to take home, I think,  appears at the end of the article:

"Some of the villages want the mine, but many do not," said Tudu Majhi, 46, from the village of Khemdipadhar, near the planned site of the mine. "We want development but does it have to be at the expense of our mountain?"

Post Script : Also read an interview of  Bianca Jagger, former wife of rockstar Mick Jagger, who is a campaigner for the rights of indigenous peoples, including the Dongria-Kondh in Orissa who are protesting Vedanta’s proposed bauxite mines in the Niyamgiri hills of Orissa : Jagger tells Infochange about the campaign that has led the Church of England and others to withdraw their investment on ethical grounds.

Nandan Nilekani's Interview on Forbes India

Nandan Nilekani talks about networking, conquering new environments and playing for the long haul.
His best interview yet. 

WSJ on Rural BPO

"Do you really think women can work on computers?" Men in Bagar genuinely wanted to know the answer to that question when Source for Change – an initiative of the Mumbai-based Piramal Foundation -- set up an all-women BPO (business process outsourcing) center in this small village in India's Rajasthan state. The skepticism didn't end even after Source for Change selected 10 women from 25 applicants in August 2007. Wary men would accompany their wives or daughters to the training center and then wait around until they were ready to return home.
More than two years later, men still drop in unannounced at the remodeled house that serves as Source for Change's combined headquarters and training center. But these are not the same suspicious husbands and fathers. Instead, they are individuals hoping to find jobs for the women in their families. "They realized that we made available the two most valued symbols of social status here: English and computers," says Karthik Raman, head of business development for Source for Change. "Some of the women who work here earn more than the men in their families. They now have a voice at the table."

Read the full article here.

[Rajdeep Sardesai's Blog] The Age of Extremes

From Rajdeep Sardesai's blog on IBNLive -

If there is one thing that contemporary news television has done, it has accentuated the polarities in public debate. The limited discussion time on television does place a premium on short, snappy soundbites. On television, the moderate viewpoint that might qualify its responses with a considered 'on the other hand' is quickly discarded. By contrast, the more direct, extreme view is celebrated because it leads to, let's be honest, a 'big fight'. As someone who has 'moderated' many such 'fights', let me say that the experience has been mostly enjoyable. To have two articulate speakers slug it out - lets say an Arun Jaitley from the BJP and a Kapil Sibal from the Congress - does make for terrific television: it can be edgy, dramatic and exciting. But also, at times, dare I say, a little predictable.

The recent debate over Naxalism typifies the problems associated with converting a highly complex subject into a binary black and white conflict. Much like a boxing match, the participating pugilists are placed in their respective corners. On one side, you have the votaries of the strong state: for them, the Naxals are terrorists who must be eliminated. On the other, you have the so-called Naxal 'sympathisers' who believe that the Indian state is brutal and repressive. Bring them to a television studio, and the debate follows a familiar pattern: loud, accusatory and, in many instances, highly personalised.

Lost in the cacophony, there seems little space or time to discuss how a just and acceptable solution can be found to what is both a socio-economic and a security challenge. Why should every reference to alleged 'atrocities' committed by a local militia like the Salva Judum in Chattisgarh be seen as an exhibition of 'anti-national' behaviour? On the other hand, why should unbridled criticism of Naxal violence be seen as state propaganda? What if, one were to suggest, that both sides are in danger of being victims of their own propaganda machines, that maybe the Salwa Judum and the Naxals are two sides of the same violent coin? Maybe, the polarities on television mirror the divisions in society itself.

Perhaps, we have pigeonholed the world around us into neat little boxes. The space for exploring the grey areas of an issue, to be more accepting of a counter-argument to our entrenched belief system is shrinking. Or atleast we don't seem to wish to enter the hidden crevices of a vexed question that might force us to re-examine our convictions.

Read the complete post on his blog here.

Economic Survey suggests replacing PDS with food coupons

The Public Distribution System (PDS) of food grains in India is plagued by pilferage, black-marketing and diversion and inexcusable wastage. These supply side inefficiencies not only hurt the poor but also have cascading effects that impinge on the consumption choices of the common man as well. It is high time this regime of indirect subsidies is done away with and replaced by a more effective system of direct subsidies in the form of food coupons that can be used to buy food items from the open market by the BPL families. This will lead to a single market for food grains (vis-a-vis the two markets that exist today - the subsidised one for BPL families and the non-subsidised open market) and hence do away with the very concept of black-marketing. It will also get rid of the need for government owned-fair price shops which is important as the operators of these shops have little incentive to prevent wastage since their income is not dependent on how much they sell.

An article on InfoChange India on the Economic Survey recommendation:

India’s 2010 Economic Survey suggests doing away with food and fertiliser subsidies and providing the poor food coupons to exchange at market prices.

Naxalism: Terror or Crusade or something else?

"SINCE 2006, when Manmohan Singh described the Maoist insurgency as the “single biggest internal-security challenge” India had ever faced, it has spread rapidly. Maoist guerrillas are now active in over a third of India’s 626 districts, with 90 seeing “consistent violence”. Last year the conflict claimed 998 lives. This month alone the Maoists—or Naxalites, as they are known— slaughtered 24 policemen in West Bengal and 12 villagers in Bihar. "

"Boasting an estimated 14,000 full-time guerrillas, and many more semi-trained sympathisers, they loosely control tracts of Jharkhand, Orissa and Chhattisgarh. They have also overrun a smaller, but spreading, area of West Bengal, where the Maoist struggle began in 1967—in the village of Naxalbari, from which the guerrillas, or Naxalites, take their name."

-Economist (Ending The red Terror | India's Naxalite Insurgency )

Terrorists or Crusaders or someone else?

This is the origin of many disagreements over the whole issue. We have gifted and compelling writers like Arundhati Roy who not only believe that the Maoist insurgents have come from a section of the people who have been sinned against more than sinning -

" If the tribals have taken up arms, they have done so because a government which has given them nothing but violence and neglect now wants to snatch away the last thing they have – their land. Clearly, they do not believe the government when it says it only wants to "develop" their region. Clearly, they do not believe that the roads as wide and flat as aircraft runways that are being built through their forests in Dantewada by the National Mineral Development Corporation are being built for them to walk their children to school on. They believe that if they do not fight for their land, they will be annihilated. That is why they have taken up arms."

but also that government is hell-bent on launching a genocide without any offer of reconciliation -

"In order to keep its better-off citizens absolutely safe from these dangerous people, the government has declared war on them. A war, which it tells us, may take between three and five years to win. Odd, isn't it, that even after the Mumbai attacks of 26/11, the government was prepared to talk with Pakistan? It's prepared to talk to China. But when it comes to waging war against the poor, it's playing hard.

(This obviously is false as time and again the govt has called upon the Naxalites to talk, the latest attempt being only a week ago.)

While Arundhati Roy is nowhere close to being a credible spokesperson on this issue, and not without reasons, her argument about the origin of the conflict is echoed by other more credible people who work in the areas affected by the insurgence. One of them is Dr. Binayak Sen, a noted human rights activist and public health specialist who interprets the Maoist struggle as a 'resistance against dispossession, as a fight for justice, as an attempt to resist genocide' though he unequivocally decries violence as a means to conduct this resistance.

"It’s a response to chronic poverty of which malnutrition is only a part. These communities, which are suffering from this chronic famine that is abroad in this land, have thus far survived because of a fragile and tenuous equilibrium that they have established with their ecosystem and which they are able to maintain because of their access to common property resources like land, water and forests... their fragile existence is threatened to the point where conditions are being created which would fall well within the ambit of the United Nations definitions of genocide."

A number of government reports and independent observations have affirmed that the regions in which the Maoists operate are those that have seen the least development in terms of education, health or employment. Also the claims about exploitation of natural resources of these regions to the detriment of the natives solely to line the pockets of the corporates are not ill-founded either. (Vedanta ruining lives in Orissa, alleges new Amnesty report; Church of England, Trust sells stake in Vedanta).

Hence it can hardly be disputed that a large section of people have been wronged by the government and corporates. The nature of wrongs on the part of government is both of omission and commission.

So we do have a just cause but does having a just cause justify using mindless violence to achieve that. No. But may be they have been driven up hard against the wall. May be they no longer have any faith in the dilly-dallying government and have resorted to violence. So is it justified in that case? Before we take that up lets turn to another related question.

Do the insurgents really represent the people and cause they claim to represent?

This, in my opinion, is an even more important question than the origin of the conflict. A cover story in the Tehelka Magazine observes about the people in Lalgarh, an epicentre of Naxal activities a while ago,

"There are layers: there are the Maoists, the PCAPA, the party workers – CPI(M) cadre, the TMC supporters and Jharkhand Party members. The fourth layer is the ordinary people of Lalgarh – rice and potato farmers dependent on the rains, migrant labourers, shop owners. The PCAPA’s support base comes from them.
And then there are the adivasis – the easiest prey. They are not Maoist supporters – many haven’t heard of Kishenji. They are not PCAPA members or the ordinary people who attended PCAPA rallies. They do not have the luxury of being ordinary. They are at the absolute bottom of the food chain, human algae. Many don’t even speak Bengali, and they are far removed from any political churning."

Also, if Maoists really represent the cause of the down-trodden why is it that they attack and kill hapless villagers that refuse to support them. Their recent attacks belie their purported objective of fighting for the opresssed have-nots. Even amongst themselves, they act like an absolute militia- dissenters are dispensed with speedily.

If they really did represent 'their people', they can secure their interests democratically by contesting in elections but this is not what they chose to do. Instead they chose to engage all those who support them, including their women and youth, in a protracted conflict fought in chronic inhumane conditions.

So what has really happened out there and who are the various parties involved?

It is a difficult question especially since there are so many versions of the incidents that happen down there but what seems plausible is that the cause of the masses has been hijacked by a few people who are pursuing their own political aspirations within their society and subsequently at a larger level. They have been successful because of the near total failure of the State to provide respite or inspire faith in the people. This can also explain why the Maoists thwart efforts of the government to further development in the hinterland. The ones at the organisational helm are as far removed from seeking the development of the region and its people as the States and corporates have been.

Aruna Roy says in an interview to Wall Street Journal, India,

"The ideological struggle is for the Maoists. For the people it's different; they are fighting for succor. The people have taken to this ideology because there is no alternative, or they see it as their best alternative. If you give them a better alternative, the people will go there. I would like to quote the Bolivian prime minister Evo Morales here who said, there is the Left and there is the Right, but we are the people."

The Face of the State

Tusha Mittal writes for Tehelka -

" Of this we can be certain – inside the battlefields of Lalgarh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Bihar, the face of the State is more brutal than any other stakeholder. The State is the least attractive option."

Further she points out that -

'In 2008, in a damning judgement, a sessions court judge said: “It is found that from different parts of West Bengal, other chargesheeted, accused persons were arrested and tagged (in this case) only on the ground that the police suspected they belonged to the People’s War Group. [People’s War Group and Maoist Communist Centre later merged to become CPI (Maoist)]. The police tagged these 54 persons in different cases so that they cannot be granted bail and shall be kept in custody for long years. The police falsely arrested them without any evidence. False chargesheets have been submitted against them. The investigation by the police in this case was not apolitical. The conduct of the entire police administration of West Midnapore is always in a partisan manner and politically motivated, which is proved in this case. It is found that people at large are revolting against the police for maltreatment towards the public.” '

In the minds of the non-partisan villagers, the police and central forces evoke the same fear, if not more, as the whimsical Maoists.

Operation Greenhunt?

Valid questions have been raised on the nature and conequences of waging an all out war - operation Greenhunt- against the Maoists.

'How will the security forces be able to distinguish a Maoist from an ordinary person who is running terrified through the jungle? Will adivasis carrying the bows and arrows they have carried for centuries now count as Maoists too? Are non-combatant Maoist sympathisers valid targets?'

Some describe it as operation Blindhunt -

'Imagine a blind hunter at the edge of a jungle. He does not know what his prey looks like, or where it lives, except that it resides somewhere in the deep. Imagine prey that cannot be identified. The State is on a wild chase, firing in the dark. What is killed is on the periphery, not inside the jungle. What has never been inside the jungle is now scurrying towards it for cover.'

The State will only be pushing its own people towards further extremism.

'In a blind hunt to combat those that don’t believe in the Indian Constitution, the government is actually isolating those that do...Decades of armed presence have not yet won “the hearts and minds of the people” in Kashmir, in Manipur. There is no reason to believe they will be successful elsewhere. In the haze of India’s uncertainties, it is not easy to identify who a Maoist is, but it is easy to identify who a Maoist is not. If the war rages on, that last line of certainty will blur.'

But in wake of the recent incidents of Maoists attacking police forces and civilians at will, even when the Home Minister had an offer of negotiations outstanding, it would be tantamount to abdication of the most salient duty of the State of protecting its citizens if it doesnot act to rein in the insurgents pro-actively. With the current attitude of Maoists, a large-scale military response from the State though very unfortunate, seems inevitable. And it will be for almost nothing as most probably it will end in a temporary truce, similar to what existed some time back, but only after hundreds more of casualties and enormous collateral damage.

Flaws in Current Approaches to the problem

The most glaring flaw in the current approach of the government (and apparently of the Maoists as well) is its George Bush-like attitude of 'You are either with us or against us'. Both the State and Maoists are wrong and have been wronged. So if someone like Dr. Binayak Sen or Mrs. Aruna Roy says that the State is guilty of atrocities committed on the people of the so-called Red Corridor it should not and cannot be taken to mean that they are Maoists or support their violent insurgence. By doing so the State is distancing itself from precious interlocutors who can help us to overcome the 'nation's single biggest internal-security challenge'.

The second flaw concerns with the lack of understanding of what it is that the tribals want. We simply assume that they want 'development' in our sense of the word. Education and health-care are certainly desirable but apart from that, when you come to think of it, why would they want to convert their green habitat into something which is as polluted and unfriendly as our cities.

Sanjeev Sanyal, President of Sustainable Planet Initiative, makes a rare but astute observation-

"...take the Naxalite insurrection in eastern India. Conventional wisdom is that this is due to the lack of jobs and the so-called “development”. In reality, it is about property rights and the exploitation of the region’s natural resources with the active connivance of the state.They merely did not want to sell their land to a government that was arbitrarily using its powers of eminent domain."

The whole issue of land rights has been absent from the public debate. The tribals are attached to their surroundings not only agriculturally but also culturally and emotionally.

"So, while for the adivasis the mountain is still a living deity, the fountainhead of life and faith, the keystone of the ecological health of the region ... From the corporation's point of view, the bauxite will have to come out of the mountain."

So what's the solution?

The solution obviously cannot be simple. The government will have to follow a multi-pronged strategy with a paradigm-shift if it hopes to resolve the menace.

The Economist notes,

"The right approach is to focus on improving both policing and general administration. Better policing would protect poor people from Naxalite bandits and extortionists. Better local administration, providing roads, water, schools and health care, would give a stake in the Indian state to people who at present have none. It would be a huge task anywhere in India, and especially in areas plagued by Naxalites. Yet the alternative is a potentially endless conflict that causes untold human suffering, further marginalises millions of India’s poorest citizens and deters investment in some of its most mineral-rich areas. "

And as for the paradigm-shift, as long as the process of utilization of land does not have the approval of the inhabitants it is bound to cause resentment. And if someone doubts on the ability of the natives to take care of their eco-system and natural resources, he only needs to look at the adivasi or tribal village of Mendha (or Mendha Lekha), in Gadchiroli district, Maharashtra, which in December 2009 became the first village in the country to get a legal record of rights to manage its forests, water and forest produce under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest-Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006.

"The manner in which the village has managed its affairs over the years lends credence to the belief that forest-dwelling communities, given the right inputs, can best manage their environment as they depend on it for their long-term survival."

Also,

"While it is true that the country needs minerals for infrastructure development, it is equally true that over-consumption by one section of society is destroying the livelihoods and environments of another section, which is at the receiving end of mining. Decades of mining have not contributed much to the economic betterment of local populations and this is particularly true of marginalised groups such as the adivasis. Poor development and marginalisation create conditions for social tensions. Mining is an activity that needs to be strictly controlled at all stages. Above all, people living in mining areas should have the capacity to take fully-informed decisions on allowing mining in their territories or decide on how to carry out the activity and ensure environmental conservation and social justice. The new National Mineral Policy (2008) needs to examine these issues with a sense of urgency. The policy itself needs to be brought to centrestage and widely discussed."

References:

1. Economist : India's Naxalite Insurgency
2. Economist : Ending The Red Terror
3. Arundhati Roy [Guardian] : The Heart of India is under Attack
4. Binayak Sen with Karan Thapar on Devil's Advocate
5. Tehelka Cover Story : Operation Blind Hunt
6. Aruna Roy @ Wall Street Journal, India Edition
7. Vedanta Ruining lives in Orissa: Amnesty Report
8. Tribal Village first to get right to manage its forest resources
9. New Mineral Policy will usher in gloom for Adivasis
10. Sanjeev Sanyal : At 60 - Rethinking the Indian State