Corruption and Governance in India Part II >>Democracy, Corruption and Literacy

Democracy, Corruption and Literacy in India.

warning: Its a long post.. read only if the issue interests you.

Now before we go further, let us define “good” governance. Governance is good if the following happen

• Improvement in basic social development indicators like infant mortality rate, longevity, nutrition, literacy , availability of electricity and water,etc.
• Social justice and Low violent crime rates
• Poverty reduction/ growth in per capita GDP.
• Low or zero corruption at all levels

Interestingly , the first three above can co-exist with corruption, though not high levels of corruption.

So when we Indians discovered that chanting WLD dos not work, we started wondering why because according to time honoured Indian tradition chanting is supposed to work ..in fact it is known to have worked miracles in the days gone by. .. and has a lot of support even today. One can see it on various websites, including this one.

So we theorized that democracy has not worked for India because the voters are illiterate and therefore ignorant of the value of their vote and can err in making a choice. There may be something in that argument, or was till 20 years ago. The current (2011) literacy rate in India is 74% with many states showing a higher percentage. In fact the literacy rate on a nation-wide basis has been 50% or above since 1991 which was a good 20 years ago. So do we have people who are literate and still ignorant ? Probably yes, because literacy in India has been defined with a very low standard and data collection on literacy has had errors.

So can we hope for better governance (and less corruption) when people become literate AND are not ignorant ? From empirical evidence , the answer is encouraging but not entirely encouraging. The two states of Kerala and West Bengal have had high literacy and political awareness for quite sometime now. Interestingly both are also high on social development indicators and have low violent crime rates . Both states have also had Communist governments. But they have not shown economic development much above the national average. Both have virtually no organized industry, partly because of the strong trade unions particularly Communist-backed Trade unions.

There is also the fact that in Kerala, many social reforms (especially in education and equality of women) were initiated by the local ruling family before democracy came. It is therefore difficult to isolate the impact of democracy on good governance in Kerala.

But even if we overlook the pre-democracy interventions in Kerala, political awareness working with democracy has managed to improve life / reduce corruption at the basic needs level but has not contributed to economic growth.

The silver lining is that, multiple research studies across Indian states have established a clear relationship between high literacy rates and low corruption (at the level of obtaining basic government services). As can be expected Kerala has the lowest corruption index.

Bengal , however, is somewhere in the middle for corruption rankings. So again there is some missing factor (besides high literacy and awareness) which contributes to lower corruption.

Several things must also be however noted

• Higher literacy has resulted in low corruption for basic services. But higher literacy rates alone might not be able to stop corruption at the Central govt level (like 2G, CWG etc) or even at the state level like the Adarsh scam in Mumbai or Robert Vadra case in Haryana..
• In terms of governance, Delhi is a good (or bad) example . Literacy is high, but governance in Law and Order is very poor. We have seen a spate of rape cases in the last few months.
• Another glaring example .. Bangalore Municipal Corporation . The people who elect corporators are literate and politically aware , but we don’t see much governance happening. Garbage clearance is a major challenge, forget about good roads

So , while I wanted to end this part on an optimistic note, I am back to square one, i e , we have no clue how to stop corruption and improve governance. Higher literacy / awareness might help in basic services, but will not help elsewhere.
Democracy, Corruption and Literacy in India.

Corruption and Governance In India Part I > WLD

The World's largest Democracy.
I recently attended an event on Corporate Governance. There was a lively talk by the keynote speaker and in the networking afterwards animated discussions took place. The central theme was how do we get rid of corruption. Frankly, though we were all very well-educated and well-intentioned people, no one had a clue on how to prevent / reduce corruption. That’s the trigger for this post. Not everything, mentioned here comes out of that event though.

Here is a mish-mash of facts, myths, opinions, hopes and theories.. even nonsense. I leave you to decide .. sift the fact from opinion and nonsense.
India is the world’s largest democracy (shortened to WLD) . And so it is. We all know it. The world knows it. Of late even the US Presidents have been singing this tune (Obama and Bush, both said that when they came to sell stuff to us). Other visiting Heads of State too routinely chant it…unless of course they are heading countries which are not themselves democracies.

Now, if only by chanting this WLD mantra (a la the Gayatri mantra) we could help all Indians to get a decent life !! Alas the gods did not want it so easy for us. But many of us anyway chant it. I guess we have so little positive happening at the moment that “India is the world’s largest democracy” is the one of the few things we can feel good about. The other perennial is of course “India is a 5000 year old civilization”.

So what does it mean for the common man ? This being a part of the WLD ? Very little I am afraid: A visit from politicians at election time and for the poorest, some minimal government support/ subsidy.

The point I am making is that while democracy may be better than monarchy, it has not been doing much good in India for quite some time now.. and one needs to ask why. The alternate model of Single party rule, as in China , seems to have yielded better overall results for the common man.

I have no answers for why democracy is not doing well in India. But I have a viewpoint. It is something I read in a book.

What we have is not the WLD , but the world’s largest election-o-cracy. We have election after election which are mostly fair, but that’s it. The less said the better about what happens before elections ( dynastic candidates, candidates with criminal backgrounds, use of black money funding, etc) and after elections (more corruption, and yet more corruption).

Aum WLD , aum WLD, aum WLD… repeat after me … aum WLD !!

An estimate of the cost of corruption in project cost in India.. it was 15% about 20 yrs back. It is now 45% ! Aum WLD, aum WLD !!!

To be continued…

Nostradamus meets Joan of Arc in Switzerland

Nostradamus meets Joan of Arc in Switzerland

I suspect that this post may make me look “superior” or holier-than thou, but the intention is not to look down on anyone. This is something really funny that happened and I am compelled to recall the anecdote.

I had just changed trains at some small place in Switzerland. It was a weekday and afternoon and the train was nearly khali (completely un-occupied). In the cubicle next to me were 3 Indians: a couple and one man, all in late 20’s or early 30’s. It seemed that they were not traveling together. They seemed to be techies from the south, but not from the same state as they were conversing in English and not Tamil or Telugu or Malayalam or Kannada.

Since I was sitting quite close to them and was not otherwise busy with anything other than the Swiss scenery, I could not avoid hearing them talk. It looked like both the couple and the single man ha been to Paris separately and were comparing notes. One of them mentioned the beautiful church they ha seen and was trying to recall the name of the place. After a few seconds he said Nostradamus, when he obviously meant the cathedral of Notre Dame. I had some trouble stopping my laughter, but I managed.

Their conversation then moved on to some other tourist spot. Now someone mentioned the beautiful and grand arch which looks like India Gate in Delhi. The same guy who had resurrected Nostradamus, now Said Joan of Arc, when he obviously meant Arc de Triomphe !! Now this double-promotion converted the simple event to an anecdote…and here it is.

The (very) positive side of this is, as India integrates with the global economy, and especially in the IT sector, more and more Indians get a chance to travel and see the world and gain a wider perspective. So the people who mix Notre Dame with Nostradamus might well (and in all likelihood will) BE the parents of future global Indians.

Incidentally Nostradamus is not all that far from Notre Dame. He was French and in French the name is spelt as Nostredame (Michel de Nostredame).

Mr. Agrawal, I presume !!

Mr. Agrawal, I presume !!

It is my habit to watch people, especially at airports and railway stations.  TO look at their faces and guess where they come from. Or to look at their clothes and guess what they do for a living. I have also met several people who also do this people-watching.

What I try and do is to look at someone and guess where (which state/ region) the person comes from. Over a period of time I think I am correct about 70% of the time.  In the case of women, I find it easier to guess if they haven’t cut their hair short.

I have mentioned my guessing-game and my results (of 70 %) to several friends, but most have been skeptical about this. Now I am clear it is not a psychic ability. It is more like observation and logic put together.

The logic goes something like this. In a crowd of people of mixed races (White, Caucasian, Blacks, Indians, Chinese, Japanese etc) it is easy for anyone to make out the Mongoloid people (the most prominent feature is slit eyes). They would usually be from China, Japan, and Korea etc. Now most of us Indians can go no further than the Mongoloid identification. But a Chinese person can distinguish Chinese from Japanese from Korean because each has a bone structure/ skin colour / etc which is slightly different from the other. For instance the Chinese have round faces and a yellowish skin, whereas the Japanese have flatter and longer faces and a whiter skin.

As an example closer home, for most people, it is easy to identify Bengalis in a crowd. The logic is that each ethnic type shares a very high percentage of DNA which results in facial similarities. Interestingly we more easily recognize the similarities in people most dis-similar from us. So Europeans/ Americans think all Japanese people look alike, but to the Japanese all (white) Americans look alike.

I will end this post with a personal experience.

I was at Bangalore airport several years ago on a waitlisted ticket. It was waitlist 4. In those days it was the practice that about 30 minutes before flight departure, check-in would close for confirmed passengers and any available seats then would be allotted to waitlist people. The person at the check-in counter would call out the names of the waitlisted passengers, and if the passenger was present she would identify herself and get a seat.

Along with me I could see several more waitlisted passengers (You could always identify the waitlist passengers by their desperate, expectant and hungry look). There was one person there whom I noticed. He was wearing a jacket and must have been about 45. I looked at him and said to myself, this man has to be an Agrawal.  Soon the girl at the counter started announcing the waitlist.

Mr. XYX.. Mr. XYZ, waitlist Number 1. Well this XYZ had not turned up.

Mr. Agrawal, waitlist 2. Mr. Agrawal, Waitlist 2.

And the 45 yr old Mr. Agrawal in a jacket immediately raised his hand and rushed to the check-in desk!

Rural washing machines and Urban Haircuts

Rural Washing Machines

Some weeks back, in early October, I drove to Mysore from Bangalore. . Unfortunately it was the day that the farmers in Mandya/ Ramanagar were agitating over the Kaveri water dispute with Tamil Nadu. The Bangalore Mysore road was in-accessible after Ramanagar and the police folk diverted us to a Malavalli to reach Mysore. It took an extra two hours (with a few barricaded points) and some bad roads but we reached in one piece.

The agricultural prosperity of the area around Ramanagara/ Malavalli is amazing. The greenery is breathtaking. No wonder the farmers are so agitated over a reduction in the supply of water for irrigation.

The other thing I noticed as we drove through small hamlets, settlements and villages is that a lot (probably most) of the womenfolk wash clothes by hand. I am sure it takes a considerable amount of time and energy. Wonder why the washing machine guys haven’t reached there? The basic models don’t cost much and if a few families joined together they could afford a washing machine. A social (and marketing) revolution is crying to happen. I even thought of writing a short story on this.

Haircut (W)  Vs Haircut(M)

My haircut used to cost Rs 40/- till a couple of months back and now it is Rs 50/-. The barber I go to is admittedly not high-end, but the place is closeby and it’s clean. In contrast a woman’s haircut in Bangalore costs at least 250/-. I have often wondered why there should be so much difference. Someone mentioned a supply-demand situation is responsible, but there are two reasons why this is not correct. Firstly the demand for women’s haircut in Bangalore or any other city in India is about 10 percent of the demand for men’s haircuts. So the demand cannot be pushing up the cost. Secondly there are no barriers to entry of new players and the investment is not high. So a supply constraint is also not the cause for the price difference.

On more thinking, I came to the conclusion that it is a brand thing. For some reason in India a man’s haircut is considered to be a utility whereas a woman’s haircut is fashion.

Anyone else can shed some light on this? And just for the record, women’s haircuts cost   more (usually twice or more) also in USA, Canada, UK and Switzerland.