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.

A Samosa by any other name

A Samosa by any other name

I love samosas.. and if the accompaniment is chutney and chai.. the combination is unbeatable. I have been eating samosas on and off for at least 40 years, but only recently it struck me that though ubiquitous (and I did not quite know just how ubiquitous) and seemingly simple to make, not everyone can get it right.

The filling  has to be just right in ingredients and quantity. Too much filling and you feel as if you are eating a potato cutlet and if it is  too little, you feel you have been short-changed. The crust has to be made of maida (refined flour) and fried just right. Now I have eaten samosas in Pune, and the Puneites while good at Shrikhand  , can never get the samosa right. They use aatta for the crust.. and that makes it a very poor samosa…or an almost-samosa. And for some reason I am not able to quite fathom, in Pune it is called a Punjabi samosa. Luckily Punjabis are large hearted (and not uptight like Maharashtrians) , and haven’t filed a PIL against the Marathis for insulting them with this prefix “Punjabi” to the almost- samosa.

Further south, In Bangalore, the various Darshinis and Sagars (restaurants that serve South Indian food/ snacks ) also serve samosas. They don’t call it a Punjabi samosa, but they also can’t get it right. The crust is (as in Pune) is done in aatta and the ever present curry leaves are added to the potato masala. Well, this is also an almost-samosa.

Yet there are at least a couple of places I know  that you can get the the genuine article in Bangalore. One is Bhagatram on Comemrcial Street and another is Lakshmi Sweets in Marathahalli. I am sure here are many more. I think what makes the difference is the ethnic origin of the shop owner or cook. I have eaten samosas in Whitehall, London in a  Pakistani eatery, and hey were quite good.

Now thats what brings me to the second part. Where exactly did the word Samosa come from ? The word  does  not quite sound like Hindi / Sanskrit, nor is it Punjabi or any South Indian Language. So I looked up my friend Google Srinivasan. And here is what I was not-so surprised to find.

The word (and therefore the eatable) originated probably in Iran where it is called  sanbosag in Persian It is also seen in other countries : Sambosa in Afghanistan, sanbusak/ sanbusaj in Arab countries, samboosa in Tajikistan, samusa in Burma and sambusa in Horn of Africa (Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti).

Samosas have been around for about a 1000 years now. Amir Khusro (1253–1325), a scholar and the royal poet of the Delhi Sultanate, wrote in around 1300 that the princes and nobles enjoyed the "samosa prepared from meat, ghee, onion and so on". Ibn Battuta, the 14th-century traveller and explorer, describes a meal at the court of Muhammad bin Tughluq where the samushak or sambusak, a small pie stuffed with minced meat, almonds, pistachio, walnuts and spices, was served before the third course, of pulao..

 It is only in India , that the samosa is for the most part a vegetarian snack. Elsewhere it is usually filled with mince lamb or beef.

Have you ever been conned ? Part 2.

Have you ever been conned ? Part 2.

I am not writing this blog to expose the group of people who conned me, but just to record their ingenuity and acting abilities.

I guess this too happened within a few months of the first one. We were living in Domlur and late evening I had driven to the nearby market to buy veggies. This was before the traffic-mess days, so one was allowed to actually park there. It was dusk, actually more than dusk, just the last bit of light before night. I saw a slot that I could park into, but a man was sitting there. He was sitting on his haunches and looked like a villager. As I backed into the space, he got up and I parked.

 He had meanwhile joined a group of people, which had at least two women (in 30’s) two kids and one man. They had a number of bags with them, as if they were traveling. Just as I got out of the car, one of the men approached me and asked me if I knew Hindi. He explained that they were from some place in Maharashtra (their clothes confirmed this) and were labourers at some construction site. Their contractor had defaulted on wages and they wanted some money to buy tickets to go home as there was some festival (Diwali ?) approaching. They just wanted 200 rupees. It was a convincing story. Unfortunately I had only 50 with me. So I actually went to a kirana/ grocery  shop that I regularly bought from and borrowed 100 bucks and gave it them. Then I went back home and told my wife what had happened. We thought that I should go back and give them some more money. So I went back. But they were nowhere to be seen. I drove around but there was no sign of them. They had vanished. It surprised me because it looked like they would definitely have needed more than a 100 bucks to buy tickets and I had expected them to be still around asking other people for help. Anyway, they were not to be found and I came home.

Some time later, maybe more than an year, a similar group again approached me. They may even have been the same people. The size and composition of the group, their approach (do you know Hindi ? the contractor has not paid, etc), the timing (dusk) and their clothes immediately flashed the earlier experience to me, and I knew I had been conned then! Of course I wasn’t going to be fooled twice.

Since then I have been approached twice again (once in Ahmedabad!) by similar groups and in a complete action replay, and have on several occasions seen someone else being approached. It’s a neat trick and seems to work wonderfully well. 

I sometimes wonder if some enterprising person has an IPR on this and is franchising the whole con.