Maybe because two years is a long time, but it seems to me that this is the first time I could actually have an outsiders’ perspective on India. I found myself referring to “back home” many a time, and curiously enough, I was referring to my apartment in Amsterdam - strange when I am sitting at a place where I grew up and the place I referred to as home hadn’t even known me for more than a year. I have written many times about the concept of home, so let me leave that contradiction aside for the moment and focus on things that struck me during my trip.

There is optimism everywhere. From the fishmonger whom you can call on his cellphone to check whether he would be by your house in time for you to cook fish for lunch, to the financial advisor who can’t stop ranting about how the 8% GDP growth will make your mutual funds returns soar, everyone seems to be upbeat and ready to go somewhere. There is energy in the air.

Yet, there is also sadness and melancholy and fear everywhere I look. Maybe its just me, and the vulnerability that I feel in a country where I don’t feel like I am in control over my own life, but in the short time I was there, I heard many stories, most of them true ones, of horror and desolation - ranging from the murder of a young boy by his friends, all of them students at the college right behind my house, to the woman who drowned herself and her children after brutally killing her husband, to the never ending tales of corruption, to the soap operas on TV which can’t seem to have an episode devoid to melancholy and yet has everyone glued to them - they never stop coming. As soon as one thinks it can’t get any worse, there’s another one. Its amazing how these are mere snippets in conversation, which weave glibly between the soaring house prices and the execution of Saddam Hussein to the US presidential elections, and everyone just gets along with their life, as if they are everyday occurrences, which they probably are.

Talking about Saddam Hussein, things change so fast here, and if you take a moment to react, you had better have a plan B. No matter that Mr.Hussein was executed in a country far far away and perhaps a vast majority of the local population couldn’t care less, but we had to have what is fashionably called a hartaal - essentially, a shutdown of all shops and traffic. We were out of town, and had planned to head home at around 3pm. At 12:30, we get the news that you can’t be driving on the roads at 3pm. And we had a journey of about 2 hours to make. So what do you do - grab your lunch and run to the car! NOW! Yes, indeed that’s what we did. What follows is hold-on-to-your-dear-life kinda driving that barely manages to get us home in time. And every time we are stopped on the road by goons who had decided to start the hartaal earlier, there is a huge lump of fear in my heart. Whatever for, it makes me wonder. Why, I ask you, do I feel irrational fear in my own country? In a country which proclaims that I am as free as a bird, why would I think twice before walking the streets alone after 9pm? In a country where I blend in with everyone else, where I look like everyone else, where I speak like everyone else, why do I still find myself saying a silent prayer for safe return, every time I or someone dear steps out of the house? Because, for the many things that happen in India, there is no rationality, there is no logic, there is no real reason. And perhaps that’s why there are temples at every street corner and superstitions for pretty much every thing.

The one billion in India can be divided into two - those who help and who are to be helped. If it had been said that no man is an island, in India, it has to be changed to every man is a banyan tree whose roots are entwined with those of the next one and supports a teeming amount of parasitic plants on itself. If someone does well here, he is expected to be there for everyone else. By the same note, you can choose to be a complete loafer and there will be some guardian angel to pick you out of the dirt. The social conscience that makes everyone help each other makes up for the need for any welfare schemes. Yet, I am well aware that my observation doesn’t sit well with the growing distance between the rich and poor. Could it be that sometimes, a conscience just isn’t enough. Or perhaps the above mentioned phenomenon happens only in the communist friendly state of Kerala, where the wealth distribution is not so distorted. Helping thy neighbor is so inbuilt into the lives of everyone, it becomes more of a right of the helped one and less of a favor from the one who is helping.

Money rules here. If you have got enough of it, you get your stuff done. You are more likely to return home safely. You are more likely not to be stopped by cops on the street. You are more likely to jump the queue at your hospital list. Speaking of which, there are just so many hospitals here. A small town with about 300,000 people boasts of five multi-specialty hospitals. Surely, that is excessive. Given that insurance is still such a rarity, why do people run to the doctor for every small little thing? Or are there more sick people here than everywhere else?

Perhaps I went home with lots of expectations - after all, every thing I read about India in popular press seemed to indicate that the country has become radically different. Glowing success stories had been thrown at me from all possible sources. But the truth, at least as I saw it, is that though many things have changed, we are still light years away from becoming what we should be - A nation where I would feel safe. A land where all is fair and just. A country where people are more happy than sad. A place where my whole heart would scream, without a semblance of doubt, I am glad I am home.

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow
domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the
dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought
and action–
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

— Rabindranath Tagore

Any executive running a publicly traded business would have either formal training that equips him for the job or years of apprenticeship working at various levels in the company or long experience in the industry or in many cases, all the three above. But what about our dear politicians who make million dollar decisions affecting the lives of billions? Even though India likes to claim that she has highly educated politicians based on two data points, arguably the most important two (P and PM), you and I both know that they are more the exception than the norm. There is nothing in our political system that makes sure that people who make the decisions know what they are deciding about, or even that they are competent enough to understand the options before them.

In the interest of ensuring every citizen of the country has an equal chance at governing us, let us introduce no pre-screening (though, I am very tempted to argue in favour of this). Imagine the elections are over, and the reality of what they promised their voters have just hit the candidates. When it comes to election campaigns, the feasibility and economic soundness of a policy ranks way below their probability of increasing a politician’s popularity. This probably means that in many cases, they have no clue what lies ahead. Or they have a skewed one-track mind. What could be a solution to the issue at hand?

Indian Institute of Politics: There is an undeniable need to establish a Indian Institute of Politicians (IIP) - an educational institution aimed at India’s politicians, run by academics and experienced practitioners, accredited by a university, with a curriculum transparent to the public and media. The mission of the institute would be to ensure that our politicians have the necessary skills to do their job.

Skills assessment: Before any politician is allowed to make a decision that changes the course of our future forever, they should pass a basic skills asssesment test. The test would assess them on the fundamentals of public policy, their understanding of the processes and their awareness of the impact of their decisions. Everyone needs to pass this test before they can be sworn in / appointed to top posts.

In-depth knowledge assessment: For areas they are directly responsible for, every politician should be able to demonstrate a sufficient degree of understanding of the issues, concerns, options and challenges as well as the history of all policies made so far, along with their outcomes. Now, this may be tough for someone just elected to power, though I see no reason why someone would take up a job they are ill-equipped to do. In the spirit of generosity, we could let them attend classes for three hours a day, five days a week for one whole month, where the academics at the Indian Institute of Politics would teach them, methodically, all they need to know. Till then, they can do their usual chores of smiling for photographers, attending ceremonies, kissing babies and whatever else they do, while spending a fair portion of their day studiously attending classes and reading books, so they can start their real job - the first salary slip depends on their receiving satisfactory grades (anyone has any ideas on controlling access to bribes till they pass their test?)

Continuing education: Throughout the course of their tenure, politicians will be aided through regular training. Every decision maker needs to attend two relevant training sessions of one week each, every year. Politicians will have regular access to the university where academicians can help them to identify what courses would best suit their needs, and tailor programs for specific departments.

Communication skills: In addition, every politician should be taught basic communication skills, chief among them being the virtue of brevity and the use of facts to make arguments. Too many of us have been tormented by rhetorical speeches which contain no substance and seem to go on forever. We would even be open to the use of power points to accompany speeches, as long as packs are kept to less than 20 slides per session.

If you think all this is far-fetched, I urge you to take a look at the professional development department of any major company. And then compare the impact of a decision made by, say, a brand manager against that of a nation’s policy maker. I have no doubt that you would agree with me that the investments would be well worth it. Even from the politician’s perspective, they deserve on-the-job training, just like the rest of us, so that they can develop professionally and be better at what they do.

For our better lives and better future, IIP is not an option, but a necessity.

But here is a different perspective. It says that India has done well in many industries because it has not followed the norms, and often tried and tested methods, of similar industries elsewhere.

They’ve learned to question the basic concepts of their industries, an attitude born of collective experience. For decades after achieving independence in 1947, India imposed severe restrictions on the capital private companies could tap, the technologies they could import, and the foreign exchange they could hold. So the best ones learned how to devise ingenious, low-cost solutions to their problems and even reimagine industries such as software services.

I tend to agree. India is different and things that work there often tend to be different from those elsewhere. Acknowledging, accepting and using those differences to the best advantage have been instrumental in many of India’s success stories. The article goes onto cite many examples of radical Indian business models, including Bharati’s deep outsourcing strategy, Tata’s On-Demand cars and ITC’s e-chaupal (electronic town square).

Even if you dig one level deeper and look at the day to day workings of a company, India is different and in my opinion, that has stood us in good stead. A friend who works in an MNC and has to deal with countries all over the world used to gripe that all their businesses in all countries can be compared in one single excel table, save India - because India has to be measured by different metrics and almost always had anomalies. Systems that Indian subsidiaries of MNCs use tend to be home developed rather than the usual one-fit-all model that is forced upon every other country - because development is cheaper in India and the end product is much better customized for local needs. Often faced with lower budgets (before the recent realisation of India’s potential by the rest of the world), Indian companies have really learned to scrape the bottom - “waste not want not” is ingrained into most Indians even at a young age - and they grew up to be great at managing costs and finding new ways to streamline processes to maximise efficiency.

On a personal front too, I have always felt India is secluded. When I am outside of India, I watch world news. When I am in India, I watch Indian news. And no one really seems to care all that much about what happens outside of India - at least not to the extent that the rest of the world is nosey about the remaining rest of the world. Now, I admit this could be skewed, because when I am in India, I am usually in vacation mode and not really concerned about world events. But then no one else seems to be that concerned either. I cant say if the seclusion and independence of thought has been more good than bad. But if it has in some way contributed to the many indigenous innovations, it certainly is not all bad. And more importantly, the concept of not reinventing the wheel may not be redundant, but at least keep enough distance to see if the wheel is the best fit for your car.

Its great that India’s banking sector is not riddled with as many problems as that of China’s, but we still have a long way to go. Nevertheless, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seems to be quite happy just to be ahead of our next door neighbours:

“If there is one aspect in which we can confidently assert that India is ahead of China, that is in the robustness and soundness of our banking system.”

That said, we are making progress. Albeit slowly. And that in itself a reason to rejoice.

Very many years ago, I used to have a very simplistic exclusive view to what Indian means. “If you live in India, you are an Indian”. period.

One fine day, I had to fill in an application form for a scholarship in Singapore, in which the race column had four choices - Chinese /Malay /Indian/Others. Suddenly, Indian was not a nationality, but a race. That was a new concept to me. And my idea of Indian expanded a bit. As I left India, I still wanted myself to be included as Indian. But I didn’t want to include any Singaporean Indians. So I changed my definition to “If you hold an Indian passport, you are an Indian”.

Years went by. I had lived in Singapore for sometime. Things change. Habits change. Mannerisms change. And this FOB Indian seemed to be in a quandary between Fresher-Of-the-Boat Indians and the Singaporean Indian world. Taxi drivers started complaining to me about how they don’t understand the accent of Indians who come from India - they inferred from my fake Singlish that I was born and brought up there. My old definition still protected me, but I was beginning to empathise a bit with the other side too. So I generously expanded my definition to “If you hold an Indian passport OR If you are an Indian by race and I like you, you are an Indian” (ya, I still couldn’t include everyone and that was my loophole).

More years went by. I attended a job interview in which the interviewer asked me out of the blue whether I would be willing to give up my Indian citizenship. The process for visa for Indians (PS. this is not for Germany) was very tedious and he said it would be easier if I changed my citizenship. I don’t know why, but I said a firm indignant No. (Before we start any employer bashing, I did get the job offer regardless of my less-than-perfect answer, but refused it partly because of the long winded visa process and my unwillingness to wait.) Nevertheless, the incident made me ponder what I would have done if really a great job offer depended on my willingness to forsake my citizenship. The truth is, if it isn’t such a sudden unexpected question and if all other factors are excellent, I may not say No a second time. After all, what is in a passport? Its who you are that counts. And to protect myself from any such possibilities in the future, I arrived at my current definition for Indian, “I think I am an Indian, therefore I am an Indian”.

The concept of Indian is fluid and its precisely in its fluidity that it finds its beauty. We all have different definitions for what it means to be an Indian. In my life so far, I have already gone through four. Who knows how many more there are to come. I don’t think a billion people would ever come to a consensus on what it means to be an Indian. Nevertheless, the topic will still be one close to our hearts.

I would love to write about it more, but just don’t have the time now. So for now, I will just leave you with two links.

Scoot over to Divya’s and she (and the commenters there) have some great arguments.

The second one is on the flip side of this coin. Even as we struggle to be included as Indians, we have to fit in into the environs that we live in. Here is one of my old posts on how far I will go in adjusting to a new place.

Gotta go. More later.

Srijith has one of my favourite pictures of a tapped rubber tree up on his photoblog today. Do check it out here!

India has had a legal system that was ‘kind’ to employees often at the expense of fairness. How else would one explain a decision by an Indian court that said it is too harsh to fire an employee who has displayed a pattern of sleeping on the job? Or even someone who abuses his superior and had displayed violent behavior in the past? At long last, the Supreme court has finally ruled that these decisions were within the rights of the employers!

Having lived in Kerala, I have often experienced first-hand the inordinate power and the resultant arrogance of the labourers, who are protected by labour unions and labour courts. Sure, it is good to protect the labourers - in fact I am very proud of the high standard of living that labourers in Kerala have compared to other Indian states. But fact remains that there needs to be a balance on the scale. And the Supreme court seems to be moving in the right direction to finally reach a more appropriate equilibrium. What the labourers and labour unions need to realise is that, this is not just a capitalist protect-the-companies-only move. With a fairer labour system, the companies will be willing to invest more, be less reluctant in hiring more people. On the long run, it will definitely benefit everyone through more jobs, a more competitive working environment and ultimately, access to a higher standard of living.

Kudos to the Supreme Court of India!

But I couldn’t help but notice this:

“It is no longer news that the world economy performed very well in 2004, with possibly the highest rate of expansion in nearly 30 years. The impressive growth of such countries as the United States and China is well-known.”

He goes on to talk about the “undue dependence of global growth on US and China” and he even mentions Europe and Japan.

Why would he not even mention India in his entire speech, when we had chalked up a GDP growth rate of 4.6% in 2004, while US GDP growth rate was 2.9%. And its not just in 2004. In 2002 and 2003, India’s GDP growth rates were 5 and 8% respectively while US was 2% and 3%.

Here their take on India’s economic freedom:
“The results of the May 2004 elections raised concerns that key economic reform measures could be compromised or halted because of the populist demands of coalition partners and leftist parties, and that peace dialogues with Pakistan might languish. The administration of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has closed down the Disinvestment Ministry, set up by the Bharatiya Janata Party, and has stalled the BJP’s proposal to change labor laws to allow companies to lay off workers without state-government permission. The Congress Party and the leftist parties, however, agree that lack of investment resulting from inefficient bureaucracy and regulations hampers progress in the agricultural sector, which accounts for almost 60 percent of India’s economy, as well as in the manufacturing and services sectors; and instead of scrapping the entire privatization process as called for by its leftist allies, the Congress Party remains determined to pursue selective privatization of loss-making state businesses. Prime Minister Singh has stated that India would persist in the BJP-initiated rapprochement with Pakistan, which could funnel long-diverted resources into economic revitalization and reform efforts. India’s fiscal burden of government score is 0.5 point worse this year, but its government intervention score is 0.5 point better. As a result, India’s overall score is unchanged this year.”

Singapore is the world’s second most free economy, losing out only to Hong Kong. Surprisingly, the ascendancy of Lee Hsien Loong to PM has improved Singapore’s economic freedom scores.

US is now ranked 12 - this is the first year that the renowned land of freedom and opportunities has been pushed out of the top 10 list.

Netherlands and Germany are ranked 17 and 18 respectively, but while Netherlands is ranked a free econonmy, Germany is ranked only as mostly free.

I was frantically trying to finish my presentation for tomorrow, when my Polish colleague decided he needs to know more about India, and that too, NOW. The usually peace loving person that I am, I found myself entrapped in an argument and I don’t even remember how a friendly discourse had turned into a heated argument. Maybe it was because I was caught off-guard or because I was half distracted with my work or because it was well past my normal working hours, but I could manage no more than -

1) We are the country with the biggest and most successful democracy in the world.

2) We are the country which invented 0.

3) We are one of the earliest civilizations in the world, with unparalleled contributions to literature and philosophy such as the Vedas, Gita, Mahabharata and Ramayana.

4) Unity in Diversity - We are a land of diverse cultures, languages and traditions which co-exist peacefully and have a single nationalistic identity.

5) We are a country that has had many great scientists, philosophers, writers, artists such as Tagore, Ramanujan, Mother Teresa and so on.

6) We are the country that successfully overthrew the British empire through the novel, non-violent ‘Ahimsa’ movement.

When you are debating with a European, whose image of India is limited to a picture of poverty, colonisation and political instability, you need to do better than this.

How do you say the Vedas are unparalleled, if in the first place he has not even heard about the Vedas? How can you say with conviction that the political instability that is often associated with India cannot be attributed to the democracy we have? If someone thinks 0 is just a numeral, not a philosophical concept to represent the void, how do you convince him otherwise? If he thinks there are constant fights between different religions in India and has read about the Hindu-Muslim riots and Babri Masjid, how do you say that is not the norm? For a country of a billion people, is it only statistical that you have some great achievers. To make matters worse, I could not list an overwhelming concentration that defied the rules of pure statistics. In fact even statistics don’t seem to help much sometimes - Why don’t we win even a single Olympic gold for that matter? Why can’t we solve our ‘issues’ with Pakistan the non-violent way?

Call him ignorant, you sure can. But the best of teachers excel in teaching the worst of students. Call him annoying, I sure did. But all said and done, I am proud of my India and I wish I was better at expressing it. After half an hour, I decided that regardless of whether my Polish neighbour agreed with my views on India or not, getting back to my presentation was no more a matter of choice.

If there are any Indians reading this, did I miss anything? For the “debate” hasn’t ended.