Times of India, July 03, 2005
The sad story of how our callous regulators lost us a world-class university, which I narrated two Sundays ago, has resulted in new discoveries. One of the happier ones is a metamorphosis in the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE). Not only have corrupt officials gone, but it is committed to regulate non-intrusively via the power of information. Last month it posted its initial findings on its website, and all hell broke loose as the masks of important men fell off. Students could now cheerfully begin to distinguish between the good, the bad and the ugly. Not surprisingly, many ugly colleges turned out to be those run by important public figures–ministers, MPs, and wives of powerful officials. The MPs from Andhra, led by a minister, even laid siege on the AICTE’s offices. And more masks are set to fall this month when new data will reveal which universities operate above halvai shops, and which ones charge Rs 50,000 in fees but pay its professors Rs 5000 salary and don’t possess a working toilet.
What do you do when keepers of the law become its oppressors? Since I knew one I decided to confront this eminence grise. He was polite and solicitous in his opulent home in Lutyens’ Delhi. With a straight face, he replied, “What can you do--we live in Kali Yuga?” I chuckled like Markandeya in the Mahabharata. The more mantriji talked the more he sounded like hypocritical Dhritarashtra half heartedly disapproving of Duryodhana’s wicked plan to trap Yudhishthira in the crooked dice game. Soon he began to blame AICTE, which is another law of nature–the guilty will always blame others. Ah, the self-deceptions of great men!
The Right to Information Act is the best thing to happen for improving our day-to-day governance. Our officials should learn from AICTE’s example that the Right to Information doesn’t mean that you must only respond reluctantly to citizens’ queries. It is your duty to pro-actively publish information. Information is also the best ally of markets, who need it like oxygen. The rotten colleges will now either improve or competitive forces will shut them down. If Drona had access to the Internet he would have known that the report of Ashwatthama’s death was only a wicked rumour–a crooked scheme to demoralise him.
The prize for India’s best regulator must go to the Directorate General of Shipping which regulates maritime training institutions. It is one step ahead of the AICTE–not only does it believe in non-intrusive regulation, but also in raising quality. It has asked three highly respected and independent rating agencies, CRISIL, ICRA and CARE, to grade both public and private maritime institutes (and their courses) and post the results on its website. Of course, some institutions don’t need ratings. Hyderabad’s famed Indian School of Business is neither accredited nor rated, but the market so respects its worth that its graduates earn a mean starting salary of Rs 10 lakhs a year. It’s a true testimony to autonomy.
The era of Rs 15 college fees is over as the government has finally realised that higher education is a “non-merit good”. Hence, universities desperately need private funds. But these will only come if colleges are given autonomy—if they are liberated from licence raj, corruption breeding case-by-case approvals, and court induced price controls. The state’s only job should be to ensure mandatory disclosure. Competition and information will take care of the rest. Students will be able to make an informed choice of their college based on ratings by independent agencies and the fees. Now, here is a model of higher education for India’s future!
Sunday, July 03, 2005
Sunday, June 19, 2005
Let minds fly
Times of India, June 19, 2005
It is with anguish that I sit down to write this column. Two years ago I met a distinguished friend in Delhi, who is the president of a prestigious American university that has produced several Nobel laureates. He loves India and he told me with some pride that India is increasingly perceived as a future knowledge capital of the world. He thought he would contribute to this future by setting up a branch campus here so that Indians could acquire his university’s degree at a fourth of the cost in America. I was delighted. Here’s a chance for a world-class education for our young, I thought.
Two years later I heard this tale of woe. His university’s application to the Association of Indian Universities (AIU) for an equivalence certificate went unanswered despite three reminders. Their meeting with the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) resulted in the demand for a huge bribe. Their efforts with the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the Ministry entangled them in miles of red tape. After knocking about like this for a year they concluded that their only hope was to go to Chattisgarh, which allowed private universities. Just as they were about to acquire 25 acres of land and make the Rs 2 crore mandatory deposit came the infamous Supreme Court ban on Chattisgarh universities.
“Infamous”, I say, because the court judgment did not distinguish between good and bad private universities in Chattisgarh. All of them were asked to go and take UGC’s approval. But if UGC had been willing to give approval in the first place, why would they have gone to god forsaken Chattisgarh? And wait--hasn’t UGC, in fact, killed off higher education? Only two dozen out of its 200 plus universities offer reasonable teaching and most of these existed prior to the birth of UGC. For fifty years it has promoted rote learning, incompetent faculty, and mediocrity. It has punished original thinking and failed to create an employable graduate. Hence, students have been pushed into a parallel universe of coaching classes, which ironically take their obligation to students far more seriously. The eminent Prof Yashpal, the former UGC chairman and the mover of the Public Interest Litigation should look himself in the mirror. If he is an honest man, he will confess that UGC has betrayed our trust.
Along with his letter my friend has attached draconian new AICTE guidelines for private universities, which he says “will decide our fees, student intake, and even the size of our buildings, and prosecute us like criminals for non-compliance. Even if we get their approval, it’s only for a year, and meanwhile the courts could overturn things as they have done in Manipal’s case”. Sadly, he concludes that India is a hopeless cause and he has decided to set up a campus in China. After reading his letter I felt like weeping.
Who could be against enlightened regulation of private higher education? We all wish for a body that ensures standards. But if this is how we regulate—with corruption and red tape—isn’t it better to give universities autonomy and leave it to parents and students? A private education costs less than a car, and we don’t protect car customers via AICTE or UGC. Rather than fall into the trap of case-by-case approvals, good regulators everywhere provide lots of information–such as our magazines, who now rate colleges by polling students and faculty. These ratings are not precise but they help students make an informed choice. A free society must offer autonomy to its universities--only then will minds be able to fly.
It is with anguish that I sit down to write this column. Two years ago I met a distinguished friend in Delhi, who is the president of a prestigious American university that has produced several Nobel laureates. He loves India and he told me with some pride that India is increasingly perceived as a future knowledge capital of the world. He thought he would contribute to this future by setting up a branch campus here so that Indians could acquire his university’s degree at a fourth of the cost in America. I was delighted. Here’s a chance for a world-class education for our young, I thought.
Two years later I heard this tale of woe. His university’s application to the Association of Indian Universities (AIU) for an equivalence certificate went unanswered despite three reminders. Their meeting with the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) resulted in the demand for a huge bribe. Their efforts with the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the Ministry entangled them in miles of red tape. After knocking about like this for a year they concluded that their only hope was to go to Chattisgarh, which allowed private universities. Just as they were about to acquire 25 acres of land and make the Rs 2 crore mandatory deposit came the infamous Supreme Court ban on Chattisgarh universities.
“Infamous”, I say, because the court judgment did not distinguish between good and bad private universities in Chattisgarh. All of them were asked to go and take UGC’s approval. But if UGC had been willing to give approval in the first place, why would they have gone to god forsaken Chattisgarh? And wait--hasn’t UGC, in fact, killed off higher education? Only two dozen out of its 200 plus universities offer reasonable teaching and most of these existed prior to the birth of UGC. For fifty years it has promoted rote learning, incompetent faculty, and mediocrity. It has punished original thinking and failed to create an employable graduate. Hence, students have been pushed into a parallel universe of coaching classes, which ironically take their obligation to students far more seriously. The eminent Prof Yashpal, the former UGC chairman and the mover of the Public Interest Litigation should look himself in the mirror. If he is an honest man, he will confess that UGC has betrayed our trust.
Along with his letter my friend has attached draconian new AICTE guidelines for private universities, which he says “will decide our fees, student intake, and even the size of our buildings, and prosecute us like criminals for non-compliance. Even if we get their approval, it’s only for a year, and meanwhile the courts could overturn things as they have done in Manipal’s case”. Sadly, he concludes that India is a hopeless cause and he has decided to set up a campus in China. After reading his letter I felt like weeping.
Who could be against enlightened regulation of private higher education? We all wish for a body that ensures standards. But if this is how we regulate—with corruption and red tape—isn’t it better to give universities autonomy and leave it to parents and students? A private education costs less than a car, and we don’t protect car customers via AICTE or UGC. Rather than fall into the trap of case-by-case approvals, good regulators everywhere provide lots of information–such as our magazines, who now rate colleges by polling students and faculty. These ratings are not precise but they help students make an informed choice. A free society must offer autonomy to its universities--only then will minds be able to fly.
Monday, June 06, 2005
A flat world?
Times of India, June 5, 2005
“When I was growing up, my parents told me, ‘Finish your dinner. People in China and India are starving. I now tell my daughters, ‘Finish your homework. People in India and China are starving for your job.’” Tom Friedman, the influential columnist of the New York Times recounts this in his new book, The World is Flat: a Brief History of the Twenty-first Century. He argues that technology and market reforms are fast flattening the playing field in the global economy, where India and China have emerged as early winners. If things keep going like this, we may soon realise Adam Smith’s dream of a world in which standards of living will converge.
This is Friedman’s flat, democratic, connected world. Without a trace of irony Friedman compares himself to Christopher Columbus, who set sail in 1492 for the riches of India, but found America instead; yet he declared that the world was round. 512 years later, Friedman flies east to Bangalore once again seeking India’s wealth, but discovers that the world is flat. By "flat" he means "level," as in the level playing field on which virtually any nation can now compete, thanks to the explosion of global telecommunications, especially the Internet, which is levelling all kinds of hierarchies. The riches he finds is India’s brainpower–rapidly taking away the West’s jobs.
From the Indian perspective this is indeed an age of unprecedented opportunity. Never before could a young Indian with ambition and smarts rise to the top regardless of where he or she started. Not even the babu can stop him now. Eight of our top ten companies today are run by persons who did not inherit wealth and half of these came from humble backgrounds, not unlike some of our cricketers. Make no mistake, however--India’s rising prosperity is due to the liberal global order. It is General Electric, for example, that invented the outsourcing of white-collar jobs to India. Instead of reviling multinationals, we ought to do what the Chinese do--take full advantage of them.
Ironically, it was Marx who first predicted that the inexorable march of technology and capital would dissolve all feudal, religious, and national barriers. Now that it is happening, it is the West that is complaining. Anxiety about globalisation is the reason behind the negative French vote last week. The French want to protect their 35 hour week when Indian and Chinese workers are willing to work 35 hours a day. Having preached globalisation to the world, Westerners find that they prefer the unequal, unflat world after all. They will now have to earn the high salaries to which they are addicted. They are suffering from the withdrawal symptoms of an undue sense of entitlement.
Global competitive markets are helping to flatten urban India but what about our hierarchical villages? Thanks to Lalu and Mayawati, our backward castes certainly have more confidence and higher social esteem. But I don’t think village India will flatten until it gets better schools, health clinics, and every child gets a chance. Nor is it a problem of money either. The dirty truth is that government teachers, doctors, and nurses in villages don’t perform and we don’t sack them. Our state has failed utterly to deliver services to the village. Prof Nirvikar Singh’s fieldwork shows that even a single Internet kiosk in a village can lower transaction costs, provide education and health, and raise the village’s productivity. Perhaps that is the straw we ought to clutch. In the end, the Chinese can depend on their state, but we will always have to depend on ourselves to flatten India.
“When I was growing up, my parents told me, ‘Finish your dinner. People in China and India are starving. I now tell my daughters, ‘Finish your homework. People in India and China are starving for your job.’” Tom Friedman, the influential columnist of the New York Times recounts this in his new book, The World is Flat: a Brief History of the Twenty-first Century. He argues that technology and market reforms are fast flattening the playing field in the global economy, where India and China have emerged as early winners. If things keep going like this, we may soon realise Adam Smith’s dream of a world in which standards of living will converge.
This is Friedman’s flat, democratic, connected world. Without a trace of irony Friedman compares himself to Christopher Columbus, who set sail in 1492 for the riches of India, but found America instead; yet he declared that the world was round. 512 years later, Friedman flies east to Bangalore once again seeking India’s wealth, but discovers that the world is flat. By "flat" he means "level," as in the level playing field on which virtually any nation can now compete, thanks to the explosion of global telecommunications, especially the Internet, which is levelling all kinds of hierarchies. The riches he finds is India’s brainpower–rapidly taking away the West’s jobs.
From the Indian perspective this is indeed an age of unprecedented opportunity. Never before could a young Indian with ambition and smarts rise to the top regardless of where he or she started. Not even the babu can stop him now. Eight of our top ten companies today are run by persons who did not inherit wealth and half of these came from humble backgrounds, not unlike some of our cricketers. Make no mistake, however--India’s rising prosperity is due to the liberal global order. It is General Electric, for example, that invented the outsourcing of white-collar jobs to India. Instead of reviling multinationals, we ought to do what the Chinese do--take full advantage of them.
Ironically, it was Marx who first predicted that the inexorable march of technology and capital would dissolve all feudal, religious, and national barriers. Now that it is happening, it is the West that is complaining. Anxiety about globalisation is the reason behind the negative French vote last week. The French want to protect their 35 hour week when Indian and Chinese workers are willing to work 35 hours a day. Having preached globalisation to the world, Westerners find that they prefer the unequal, unflat world after all. They will now have to earn the high salaries to which they are addicted. They are suffering from the withdrawal symptoms of an undue sense of entitlement.
Global competitive markets are helping to flatten urban India but what about our hierarchical villages? Thanks to Lalu and Mayawati, our backward castes certainly have more confidence and higher social esteem. But I don’t think village India will flatten until it gets better schools, health clinics, and every child gets a chance. Nor is it a problem of money either. The dirty truth is that government teachers, doctors, and nurses in villages don’t perform and we don’t sack them. Our state has failed utterly to deliver services to the village. Prof Nirvikar Singh’s fieldwork shows that even a single Internet kiosk in a village can lower transaction costs, provide education and health, and raise the village’s productivity. Perhaps that is the straw we ought to clutch. In the end, the Chinese can depend on their state, but we will always have to depend on ourselves to flatten India.
Monday, May 23, 2005
The enabling state/It’s in the attitude, my dear
Times of India, May 22, 2005
Good news comes quietly, and it did two weeks ago on a typical May evening as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced a new system to evaluate the IAS officer. Our real failures, I have always believed, are managerial and not political. Laloo may grab the headlines but good governance lies in the ubiquitous daily interface between the lowest babu and the public. It is not a good thing for a whole generation to grow up despising public servants, and this new performance based report card is the first in a series of administrative reforms that could begin to cure our sick bureaucracy. It replaces the subjective Annual Confidential Report and if implemented well, it could make our officers accountable, motivating the honest and punishing the lazy and corrupt. A similar system has helped improve performance of private and public sector bureaucracies around the world. Our bureaucrat too is basically careerist and he ought to respond to the right incentives.
There are two kinds of individuals in government. One is helpful; the other entangles you in red tape. My neighbour’s aunt goes to collect her pension every month in person, and if the first type is at the window, she quickly gets her money and returns home happy. If it is the second, she gets the run around, and her whole week is often ruined. So, it comes down to a matter of attitude, which percolates down from the top to the lowest official. I am pleased that the new system will also assess attitude (at least once every five years.)
In the private sector the competitive spirit helps create an attitude of service. A saree shopkeeper will show you 50 sarees even if you don’t buy one because he fears his competitor. Studies confirm that high performing companies create an environment that rewards employees with a helpful attitude. Such employees, they know, win customers and raise the organisation’s morale. Hence, they often hire people for their attitudes and train them in skills. It is difficult to uncover attitudes in a single interview, however, which is why an investment bank like Goldman Sachs interviews a candidate 17 times on the average, even when she is A+ from Harvard. It is looking for character, which is revealed not in how a person treats his superior but his subordinate or a stranger. I am delighted that peers, subordinates, and clients will also now help assess an officer. There are many proven ways to uncover attitudes and the UPSC would also do well to adopt them when recruiting new officers.
At the end of his book, Governance: and the sclerosis that has set in, Arun Shourie explains how the nature of the Indian state has changed. In the 1950s Jawaharlal Nehru made an effort to fashion the state into an engine of growth. In the following three decades the Indian state became the “Great Monitor”, which authorized, banned, channelled every step that we citizens took. Today it is being refashioned by economic reforms to into an enabling state--a state that enables its citizens to do what they can do best.
Motivated senior officials with the right attitude are crucial to creating an enabling state. This new appraisal system is thus a good beginning. The next step is to link good performance with faster promotions and slow or stop the promotions of bad officers. Many more such reforms are urgently needed. Meanwhile, coming as this does on the heels of the new Right to Information Bill, gives us reason to cheer that the much abused Indian public may finally get a chance at good governance.
Good news comes quietly, and it did two weeks ago on a typical May evening as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced a new system to evaluate the IAS officer. Our real failures, I have always believed, are managerial and not political. Laloo may grab the headlines but good governance lies in the ubiquitous daily interface between the lowest babu and the public. It is not a good thing for a whole generation to grow up despising public servants, and this new performance based report card is the first in a series of administrative reforms that could begin to cure our sick bureaucracy. It replaces the subjective Annual Confidential Report and if implemented well, it could make our officers accountable, motivating the honest and punishing the lazy and corrupt. A similar system has helped improve performance of private and public sector bureaucracies around the world. Our bureaucrat too is basically careerist and he ought to respond to the right incentives.
There are two kinds of individuals in government. One is helpful; the other entangles you in red tape. My neighbour’s aunt goes to collect her pension every month in person, and if the first type is at the window, she quickly gets her money and returns home happy. If it is the second, she gets the run around, and her whole week is often ruined. So, it comes down to a matter of attitude, which percolates down from the top to the lowest official. I am pleased that the new system will also assess attitude (at least once every five years.)
In the private sector the competitive spirit helps create an attitude of service. A saree shopkeeper will show you 50 sarees even if you don’t buy one because he fears his competitor. Studies confirm that high performing companies create an environment that rewards employees with a helpful attitude. Such employees, they know, win customers and raise the organisation’s morale. Hence, they often hire people for their attitudes and train them in skills. It is difficult to uncover attitudes in a single interview, however, which is why an investment bank like Goldman Sachs interviews a candidate 17 times on the average, even when she is A+ from Harvard. It is looking for character, which is revealed not in how a person treats his superior but his subordinate or a stranger. I am delighted that peers, subordinates, and clients will also now help assess an officer. There are many proven ways to uncover attitudes and the UPSC would also do well to adopt them when recruiting new officers.
At the end of his book, Governance: and the sclerosis that has set in, Arun Shourie explains how the nature of the Indian state has changed. In the 1950s Jawaharlal Nehru made an effort to fashion the state into an engine of growth. In the following three decades the Indian state became the “Great Monitor”, which authorized, banned, channelled every step that we citizens took. Today it is being refashioned by economic reforms to into an enabling state--a state that enables its citizens to do what they can do best.
Motivated senior officials with the right attitude are crucial to creating an enabling state. This new appraisal system is thus a good beginning. The next step is to link good performance with faster promotions and slow or stop the promotions of bad officers. Many more such reforms are urgently needed. Meanwhile, coming as this does on the heels of the new Right to Information Bill, gives us reason to cheer that the much abused Indian public may finally get a chance at good governance.
Monday, May 09, 2005
Pursuit of happiness
Times of India, May 08, 2005
We would be pretty sceptical if Laloo Prasad happened to promise us happiness. Most of us sensibly believe that human unhappiness is a private matter, and is the result of things like unhappy marriages, ungrateful children, losing a promotion, or even the lack of faith. We know too well what would happen if our government got into the act: Chidambaram would tax ungrateful children, Sonia Gandhi would ban divorces, Manmohan Singh would create a promotions commission, Arjun Singh would detoxify faith, making atheism illegal. So frankly, I am glad that our wonderful Constitution is silent, unlike America’s, which enjoins the state to the ‘pursuit of happiness’.
Yet governments can help promote happiness. Knowing I will not be attacked when I step out of the house is central to my well being. I am a relaxed entrepreneur if I don’t have to see the excise inspector. I am a contented phoolwalli if I don’t have to pay hafta. I am a happier farmer if I don’t have to bribe the patwari. Seven out of ten Indians live in a village. Even if tiny, most have a parcel of land, and once in their lifetime they must transfer its title when their father dies. Surveys show that it takes 100 days of running around to affect this transfer. It is also a 100 days of humiliation, and by the end one has lost all dignity and self esteem. The insolent revenue official has not changed his attitude since the British Raj and continues to lord it over the helpless peasant.
A 123rd rank on corruption implies, in a sense, that we are behind 122 countries in our chances for happiness. If you are rich money may not bring happiness but it can make a huge difference if you are poor. An effective poverty program can bring many smiles. Good primary schools and health care centres will do the same. Although the state doesn’t have to run them, it needs to be an enabler. Good governance is thus central to my happiness, and the makers of the American Constitution may have had a point.
I had taken Manmohan Singh at his word and had hoped that happiness would have begun spreading across our land by now. On taking office he had promised that governance was his top priority. Well, we have been waiting. Instead, he has gone and broken our hearts and announced the umpteenth administrative reforms commission. Now our only hope for good governance is that our economic reforms continue, the Indian state keeps shedding its illegitimate functions, and government slowly gets out of the way. As this continues, I also hope we will get around to deleting the word “socialism” from our Constitution, one of Indira Gandhi’s pernicious legacies from the Emergency. The word “socialism” has a precise meaning: it is state ownership of all means of production. No one believes in this any longer, not even Karat, the new head of the CPM.
As to personal happiness, I go along with Freud. I believe that if you can get absorbed in your work and love the person you live with, you will be happy. To this recipe I would add Panchatantra’s advice: have a few good friends. It says, “mitra is a two-syllable gem, a shelter against sorrow, grief and fear, and a vessel of love and trust.” Aristotle too had the same idea, although he did not express it as poetically. So, it as simple as that–love your work, love the person you live with, and have a few good friends. Like all things, however, it’s easier thought than achieved.
We would be pretty sceptical if Laloo Prasad happened to promise us happiness. Most of us sensibly believe that human unhappiness is a private matter, and is the result of things like unhappy marriages, ungrateful children, losing a promotion, or even the lack of faith. We know too well what would happen if our government got into the act: Chidambaram would tax ungrateful children, Sonia Gandhi would ban divorces, Manmohan Singh would create a promotions commission, Arjun Singh would detoxify faith, making atheism illegal. So frankly, I am glad that our wonderful Constitution is silent, unlike America’s, which enjoins the state to the ‘pursuit of happiness’.
Yet governments can help promote happiness. Knowing I will not be attacked when I step out of the house is central to my well being. I am a relaxed entrepreneur if I don’t have to see the excise inspector. I am a contented phoolwalli if I don’t have to pay hafta. I am a happier farmer if I don’t have to bribe the patwari. Seven out of ten Indians live in a village. Even if tiny, most have a parcel of land, and once in their lifetime they must transfer its title when their father dies. Surveys show that it takes 100 days of running around to affect this transfer. It is also a 100 days of humiliation, and by the end one has lost all dignity and self esteem. The insolent revenue official has not changed his attitude since the British Raj and continues to lord it over the helpless peasant.
A 123rd rank on corruption implies, in a sense, that we are behind 122 countries in our chances for happiness. If you are rich money may not bring happiness but it can make a huge difference if you are poor. An effective poverty program can bring many smiles. Good primary schools and health care centres will do the same. Although the state doesn’t have to run them, it needs to be an enabler. Good governance is thus central to my happiness, and the makers of the American Constitution may have had a point.
I had taken Manmohan Singh at his word and had hoped that happiness would have begun spreading across our land by now. On taking office he had promised that governance was his top priority. Well, we have been waiting. Instead, he has gone and broken our hearts and announced the umpteenth administrative reforms commission. Now our only hope for good governance is that our economic reforms continue, the Indian state keeps shedding its illegitimate functions, and government slowly gets out of the way. As this continues, I also hope we will get around to deleting the word “socialism” from our Constitution, one of Indira Gandhi’s pernicious legacies from the Emergency. The word “socialism” has a precise meaning: it is state ownership of all means of production. No one believes in this any longer, not even Karat, the new head of the CPM.
As to personal happiness, I go along with Freud. I believe that if you can get absorbed in your work and love the person you live with, you will be happy. To this recipe I would add Panchatantra’s advice: have a few good friends. It says, “mitra is a two-syllable gem, a shelter against sorrow, grief and fear, and a vessel of love and trust.” Aristotle too had the same idea, although he did not express it as poetically. So, it as simple as that–love your work, love the person you live with, and have a few good friends. Like all things, however, it’s easier thought than achieved.
Monday, May 02, 2005
Inglish As She is Spoke
Outlook, May 2, 2005
Two reports appeared recently in my newspaper and they left me bewildered. The first said that the Karnataka government has still not decided to rescind its ban on English in primary schools despite huge popular pressure from parents. In the second report, a Karnataka minister, after a busy visit to China, announced, ‘Members of the Standing Committee of the Jiangsu Provincial People’s Congress wanted the help of the Karnataka government in teaching English in its primary schools’. This was in pursuit of its objective to make every Chinese literate in English by the 2008 Olympics. The contrast between the ambivalence of India and the certainty of China is always instructive.
It does seem bizarre that the state whose capital is Bangalore, the symbol of India’s success in the global economy, and derives its competitive advantage from its mastery of the English language should remain hostage to the deep insecurities of its vernacular chauvinists. This is after more than 15 years when it first banned English from its primary schools in the late 1980s. Meanwhile, Bengal and Gujarat have realised their mistake and have gone back to teaching English after they discovered they had created an unemployable generation.
I thought this debate was over, and English had won. But now I realise that many states, including Kerala and Karnataka, are still in a state of paralytic inaction, interminably discussing the language of school instruction. In a world where a quarter of people already know the world language and where experts predict another half will be English literates within a generation, it is painful to see Indians, who are the envy of many countries for their English skills, being stopped in their tracks by vernacular Stalinists with their bogus arguments, telling parents, ‘You don’t know what’s good for your children. We do.’
As for the Chinese, I try not to feel envious or fearful. While I am confident they will win plenty of medals at the next Olympics, I don’t think learning English will be quite as easy. Even though I cannot help but admire their ambition, I console myself with the thought that India has been spared their earlier ambitions at social engineering, the most prominent being the Cultural Revolution. A Chinese engineer, who is in India to improve his software and English skills, tells me coincidentally that China’s ambitions with regard to English are not only connected with their superpower ambitions but are also driven by envy over India’s facility with English.
I sometimes wonder what language we Indians will be speaking fifty years from now.
If we look beyond the horizon of current events we will see, I think, two trends that are likely to determine our linguistic future. One is the rapid spread of English across India, including the aspiring lower middle classes; the second is the unprecedented popularity of Hindi, even in the South, thanks to blockbuster Hindi movies, along with the universal appeal of certain programs on the Hindi TV channels, such as Indian Idol and Kaun Banega Crorepati, which won respectable ratings in the South.
At the intersection of these two trends is the fashionable collision of the two languages. It is called Hinglish, but should in fact be called Inglish because it is increasingly pan-India’s street language. Mixing English with our mother tongues has been going on for generations, but what is different this time around is that Inglish has become both the aspirational language of the lower and middle middle classes and the fashionable language of drawing rooms of the upper and upper middle classes. Similar attempts in the past were down-market and contemptuously put down by snobbish brown sahibs. But this time Inglish is the stylish language of Bollywood, of FM radio and of national advertising. Advertisers, in particular, have been surprised by the terrific resonance of slogans such as, ‘Life ho to aise, ‘Josh machine’, and ‘Dil mange more’. Radio Mirchi, to its delight, has found the same adoring response from its listeners to: ‘ladki ko mari line, girlfriend boli, I’m fine!’
Unlike my generation, today’s young are more relaxed about English and think it a skill, like learning Windows. No longer does it fly the British or American flags, except in the insecure minds of the Left or the RSS. Bollywood, television, advertising, cricket—indeed, all our mass culture is conspiring to take English to the bazaar. Gone too is the ranting against English by swadeshi intellectuals. Every Indian mother knows that English is the passport to her child’s future—to a job, to entry into the middle class—and this is why English medium schools are mushrooming in city slums and villages across the country, and English has quietly become an Indian language fifty years after the British left our shores. David Dalby, who measures these things in Linguasphere, predicts that by 2010 India will have the largest number of English speakers in the world. Thus, one of the cheerful things happening in India is the quiet democratising of English.
In Inglish, perhaps for the first time in our history, we may have found a language common to the masses and the classes, acceptable to the South and North. We are used to thinking of India in dualisms--upper vs. lower caste, urban vs. rural, India vs Bharat—but the saddest divide, I always thought, is between those who know English and those ‘who are shut out’ (in the phrase of my deaf friend Ursula Mistry in Mumbai, who deeply feels the tragedy of those who can’t participate). The exciting thing about Inglish is that it may be able to unite the people of India in the same way as cricket. We may thus be at a historic moment. One day, I expect, we will also find Inglish’s Mark Twain, the American writer who liberated Americans to write as they thought. Salman Rushdie gave Indians permission to write in English, but Midnight’s Children is not written in Inglish, alas! And this is not surprising for the young Indian mind was not decolonised until the reforms in the1990s.
What exactly is Inglish is not easy to define, and needs empirical research. Is its base English or our vernacular bhashas? If its foundation is bhasha, then it is similar to Franglais, the fashionable concoction of mostly French with English words thrown in that drives purists mad. Or is its support English, with an overlay of bhasha? I think it is both. For the upwardly mobile lower middle class, it is bhasha mixed with some English words, such as what my newsboy speaks: ‘Mein aaj busy hoon, kul bill doonga definitely’. Or my bania’s helper: ‘voh, mujhe avoid karti hai!’ For the classes, on the other hand, the base is definitely English, as in: ‘Hungry, kya?’ or ‘Careful yaar, voh dangerous hai!’ The middle middle class seems to employ an equal combination, as in Zee News’s evening bulletin, ‘Aaj Middle East mein peace ho gai!’ Three Hindi words and three of English.
In contrast to this vibrant new language, the old ‘Indian English’ of our headlines is an anachronism: ‘sleuth nabs man’, ‘miscreants abscond’, and ‘eve-teasers get away’. In the ultimate put down, Professor Harish Trivedi of Delhi University contemptuously says, ‘Indian English? It is merely incorrect English.’ Inglish has parallels with Urdu, which became a naturalised subcontinental language and flourished mainly after the decline of Muslim rule. Originally the camp argot of the country’s Muslim conquerors, Urdu was forged from a combination of the conqueror’s imported Farsi and local bhashas. As Urdu was transported to the Deccan, so is Inglish is riding on the coat tails of Bollywood across India.
So, is Inglish our ‘conquest of English’ to use Salman Rushdie’s famous words? Or is it our journey to ‘conquer the world’ in the words of Professor David Crystal, the author of the Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, who predicts that Indian English will become the most widely spoken variant of English based on India’s likely economic success in the 21st century and the sheer size of its population. ‘If 100 million Indians pronounce an English word in a certain way’, he says, ‘this is more than Britain’s population—so, it’s the only way to pronounce it.’ If British English was the world language at the end of the 19th century, after a century of British imperialism, and American English is the world language today after the American 20th century, then the language of the 21st century might well be Inglish or at least an English heavily influenced by India (and China, to a lesser extent).
What will happen to our mother tongues? This is the insecurity behind the ancient, paralysing debate over teaching English in primary schools. The Vernacular chauvinists believe that our languages and cultures will die under the mesmerizing dominance of the power language, English. They point to Gaelic and Welsh, which were eradicated by English. Vernacularists think we have made a pact with the devil: while fluency in English gives us a competitive advantage, losing our mother tongue impoverishes our personality.
‘Can English satisfy the imaginative hunger of the masses?’ asks Kannada writer, U.R. Anathamurthy.
‘Give me a break’, retorts the poet, Arvind Mehrotra. ‘The masses don’t have imaginative hungers, and who is satisfying them anyway?’
Anathamurthy has proposed that kacca or spoken English be taught from 1st standard to the Kerala government, but the medium of instruction ought to be Malayalam. I do not agree. Unless you acquire the nuances of English before ten, you are disadvantaged. But I have more confidence in our culture. When Indians embrace English in order to win in the global market place, they don’t turn their back on their mother tongue. While English empowers us, our mother tongue continues to give us identity. I agree with Anathamurthy that in our big cities, we retain our ‘home tongues’, while using a ‘street tongue’ and working in the ‘power tongue’.
In a wonderful essay, ‘Cosmopolitan and Vernacular in History’, Sheldon Pollock, a professor of Sanskrit at the University of Chicago, tells that our vernaculars were also ‘created’ and are not primordial, as vernacular nationalists would like to believe. The vernacularisation of Sanskrit began in the 9th century as Kannada and Telugu became the languages of literary and political expression in the courts of the Rashtrakutas and Chalukyas. Hindi was fashioned by Sufi poets in principalities like Orcha and Gwalior in the 15th century. Bearers of these languages were the elite and not the people, as Gramschi and Bakhtin made us believe. Our consciousness of a ‘mother tongue’ did not even appear until the Europeans arrived. Languages are evolving things and we ought not to do too much social engineering. Vernacular nationalism is bad because it goes against people’s wishes for learning English. Instead of encouraging them by creating more English teachers, nationalists thwart their democratic aspirations. Meanwhile, instead of worrying about our phantom losses, let us celebrate our potential gains. Let’s celebrate cool Inglish!
Two reports appeared recently in my newspaper and they left me bewildered. The first said that the Karnataka government has still not decided to rescind its ban on English in primary schools despite huge popular pressure from parents. In the second report, a Karnataka minister, after a busy visit to China, announced, ‘Members of the Standing Committee of the Jiangsu Provincial People’s Congress wanted the help of the Karnataka government in teaching English in its primary schools’. This was in pursuit of its objective to make every Chinese literate in English by the 2008 Olympics. The contrast between the ambivalence of India and the certainty of China is always instructive.
It does seem bizarre that the state whose capital is Bangalore, the symbol of India’s success in the global economy, and derives its competitive advantage from its mastery of the English language should remain hostage to the deep insecurities of its vernacular chauvinists. This is after more than 15 years when it first banned English from its primary schools in the late 1980s. Meanwhile, Bengal and Gujarat have realised their mistake and have gone back to teaching English after they discovered they had created an unemployable generation.
I thought this debate was over, and English had won. But now I realise that many states, including Kerala and Karnataka, are still in a state of paralytic inaction, interminably discussing the language of school instruction. In a world where a quarter of people already know the world language and where experts predict another half will be English literates within a generation, it is painful to see Indians, who are the envy of many countries for their English skills, being stopped in their tracks by vernacular Stalinists with their bogus arguments, telling parents, ‘You don’t know what’s good for your children. We do.’
As for the Chinese, I try not to feel envious or fearful. While I am confident they will win plenty of medals at the next Olympics, I don’t think learning English will be quite as easy. Even though I cannot help but admire their ambition, I console myself with the thought that India has been spared their earlier ambitions at social engineering, the most prominent being the Cultural Revolution. A Chinese engineer, who is in India to improve his software and English skills, tells me coincidentally that China’s ambitions with regard to English are not only connected with their superpower ambitions but are also driven by envy over India’s facility with English.
I sometimes wonder what language we Indians will be speaking fifty years from now.
If we look beyond the horizon of current events we will see, I think, two trends that are likely to determine our linguistic future. One is the rapid spread of English across India, including the aspiring lower middle classes; the second is the unprecedented popularity of Hindi, even in the South, thanks to blockbuster Hindi movies, along with the universal appeal of certain programs on the Hindi TV channels, such as Indian Idol and Kaun Banega Crorepati, which won respectable ratings in the South.
At the intersection of these two trends is the fashionable collision of the two languages. It is called Hinglish, but should in fact be called Inglish because it is increasingly pan-India’s street language. Mixing English with our mother tongues has been going on for generations, but what is different this time around is that Inglish has become both the aspirational language of the lower and middle middle classes and the fashionable language of drawing rooms of the upper and upper middle classes. Similar attempts in the past were down-market and contemptuously put down by snobbish brown sahibs. But this time Inglish is the stylish language of Bollywood, of FM radio and of national advertising. Advertisers, in particular, have been surprised by the terrific resonance of slogans such as, ‘Life ho to aise, ‘Josh machine’, and ‘Dil mange more’. Radio Mirchi, to its delight, has found the same adoring response from its listeners to: ‘ladki ko mari line, girlfriend boli, I’m fine!’
Unlike my generation, today’s young are more relaxed about English and think it a skill, like learning Windows. No longer does it fly the British or American flags, except in the insecure minds of the Left or the RSS. Bollywood, television, advertising, cricket—indeed, all our mass culture is conspiring to take English to the bazaar. Gone too is the ranting against English by swadeshi intellectuals. Every Indian mother knows that English is the passport to her child’s future—to a job, to entry into the middle class—and this is why English medium schools are mushrooming in city slums and villages across the country, and English has quietly become an Indian language fifty years after the British left our shores. David Dalby, who measures these things in Linguasphere, predicts that by 2010 India will have the largest number of English speakers in the world. Thus, one of the cheerful things happening in India is the quiet democratising of English.
In Inglish, perhaps for the first time in our history, we may have found a language common to the masses and the classes, acceptable to the South and North. We are used to thinking of India in dualisms--upper vs. lower caste, urban vs. rural, India vs Bharat—but the saddest divide, I always thought, is between those who know English and those ‘who are shut out’ (in the phrase of my deaf friend Ursula Mistry in Mumbai, who deeply feels the tragedy of those who can’t participate). The exciting thing about Inglish is that it may be able to unite the people of India in the same way as cricket. We may thus be at a historic moment. One day, I expect, we will also find Inglish’s Mark Twain, the American writer who liberated Americans to write as they thought. Salman Rushdie gave Indians permission to write in English, but Midnight’s Children is not written in Inglish, alas! And this is not surprising for the young Indian mind was not decolonised until the reforms in the1990s.
What exactly is Inglish is not easy to define, and needs empirical research. Is its base English or our vernacular bhashas? If its foundation is bhasha, then it is similar to Franglais, the fashionable concoction of mostly French with English words thrown in that drives purists mad. Or is its support English, with an overlay of bhasha? I think it is both. For the upwardly mobile lower middle class, it is bhasha mixed with some English words, such as what my newsboy speaks: ‘Mein aaj busy hoon, kul bill doonga definitely’. Or my bania’s helper: ‘voh, mujhe avoid karti hai!’ For the classes, on the other hand, the base is definitely English, as in: ‘Hungry, kya?’ or ‘Careful yaar, voh dangerous hai!’ The middle middle class seems to employ an equal combination, as in Zee News’s evening bulletin, ‘Aaj Middle East mein peace ho gai!’ Three Hindi words and three of English.
In contrast to this vibrant new language, the old ‘Indian English’ of our headlines is an anachronism: ‘sleuth nabs man’, ‘miscreants abscond’, and ‘eve-teasers get away’. In the ultimate put down, Professor Harish Trivedi of Delhi University contemptuously says, ‘Indian English? It is merely incorrect English.’ Inglish has parallels with Urdu, which became a naturalised subcontinental language and flourished mainly after the decline of Muslim rule. Originally the camp argot of the country’s Muslim conquerors, Urdu was forged from a combination of the conqueror’s imported Farsi and local bhashas. As Urdu was transported to the Deccan, so is Inglish is riding on the coat tails of Bollywood across India.
So, is Inglish our ‘conquest of English’ to use Salman Rushdie’s famous words? Or is it our journey to ‘conquer the world’ in the words of Professor David Crystal, the author of the Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, who predicts that Indian English will become the most widely spoken variant of English based on India’s likely economic success in the 21st century and the sheer size of its population. ‘If 100 million Indians pronounce an English word in a certain way’, he says, ‘this is more than Britain’s population—so, it’s the only way to pronounce it.’ If British English was the world language at the end of the 19th century, after a century of British imperialism, and American English is the world language today after the American 20th century, then the language of the 21st century might well be Inglish or at least an English heavily influenced by India (and China, to a lesser extent).
What will happen to our mother tongues? This is the insecurity behind the ancient, paralysing debate over teaching English in primary schools. The Vernacular chauvinists believe that our languages and cultures will die under the mesmerizing dominance of the power language, English. They point to Gaelic and Welsh, which were eradicated by English. Vernacularists think we have made a pact with the devil: while fluency in English gives us a competitive advantage, losing our mother tongue impoverishes our personality.
‘Can English satisfy the imaginative hunger of the masses?’ asks Kannada writer, U.R. Anathamurthy.
‘Give me a break’, retorts the poet, Arvind Mehrotra. ‘The masses don’t have imaginative hungers, and who is satisfying them anyway?’
Anathamurthy has proposed that kacca or spoken English be taught from 1st standard to the Kerala government, but the medium of instruction ought to be Malayalam. I do not agree. Unless you acquire the nuances of English before ten, you are disadvantaged. But I have more confidence in our culture. When Indians embrace English in order to win in the global market place, they don’t turn their back on their mother tongue. While English empowers us, our mother tongue continues to give us identity. I agree with Anathamurthy that in our big cities, we retain our ‘home tongues’, while using a ‘street tongue’ and working in the ‘power tongue’.
In a wonderful essay, ‘Cosmopolitan and Vernacular in History’, Sheldon Pollock, a professor of Sanskrit at the University of Chicago, tells that our vernaculars were also ‘created’ and are not primordial, as vernacular nationalists would like to believe. The vernacularisation of Sanskrit began in the 9th century as Kannada and Telugu became the languages of literary and political expression in the courts of the Rashtrakutas and Chalukyas. Hindi was fashioned by Sufi poets in principalities like Orcha and Gwalior in the 15th century. Bearers of these languages were the elite and not the people, as Gramschi and Bakhtin made us believe. Our consciousness of a ‘mother tongue’ did not even appear until the Europeans arrived. Languages are evolving things and we ought not to do too much social engineering. Vernacular nationalism is bad because it goes against people’s wishes for learning English. Instead of encouraging them by creating more English teachers, nationalists thwart their democratic aspirations. Meanwhile, instead of worrying about our phantom losses, let us celebrate our potential gains. Let’s celebrate cool Inglish!
Monday, April 25, 2005
Romancing the Arts
Times of India, April 24, 2005
We have had an unusually long spring this year. It is over now, and so is the frenzy of board exams. It is not surprising that thoughts of the young have turned to romance. But not for long for one has to think of a career and making a life. Millions of young Indians as they leave school and head for college, ask: should I study science, arts or commerce? ‘Making a life’ is different from ‘making a living’, and I’ll recount my own experience as I answer that question, not for any other reason but because one person's life, honestly captured, is not only unique, but is the only certain data of history that we possess as human beings.
When I was 16 I got a scholarship to an American college when it was fashionable to go to England, especially to Oxbridge. Like the diligent son of an engineer, I began to study engineering. Inspired by Crick and Watson, who had recently discovered the DNA molecule’s shape, I switched to chemistry. During the summer I came back and saw for the first time India’s grinding poverty. (One has to go away sometimes to notice these things.) Hoping for answers, I switched to economics in my second year. A few months later I was enticed by the humanities–by courses in Greek tragedy, Islamic history, Russian novel, and Sanskrit love poetry. I wanted to study everything, but I couldn’t of course. So, I did the next best thing. I switched to a joint major called History & Literature.
By now my parents in India had begun to despair. My mother didn’t know quite what to tell the neighbours. Adding to her discomfort, I discovered two new temptations at the end of my second year. I was attracted by philosophy, but also by the visual beauty of Bauhaus buildings. So much so that I seriously considered becoming an architect. In the end, two moral philosophers, John Rawls and Isaiah Berlin, prevailed. I wrote my thesis on Aristotle and graduated with a degree in philosophy.
Apart from being a thoroughly confused young man, what this story tells is how a liberal education is a search. One shouldn’t feel that one has the answers. It is enough to know the questions. My unusual college allowed me the freedom to search for what I wanted to be. My parents too were patient and didn’t pressure me to do “something useful”. Our system in India, alas, doesn’t allow for such experimenting. You are called a duffer if you are doing the Arts here–it means you didn’t get into engineering.
My confusion didn’t quite end there. I still didn’t know what I wanted–so, I took a year off and a job selling Vicks Vaporub. And like the man who came to dinner I stayed on. I rose to head the company, and at 50 I took early retirement to become a writer. At first, not having an MBA proved a drawback, but later I discovered, oddly enough, that my liberal education was an advantage. Writing essays had taught me think and write clearly. I had a better understanding of human motivation for I had consumed vast amounts of literature. Stoic philosophy offered a refuge in my many adverse moments. Most of all, my liberal education had given me confidence in my own judgement, and this often allowed me to be innovative. In the end it matters less what one studies in college and more that one acquire the right attitudes. Without realising it I had built a self in college, and I could cope with life’s ambiguity.
We have had an unusually long spring this year. It is over now, and so is the frenzy of board exams. It is not surprising that thoughts of the young have turned to romance. But not for long for one has to think of a career and making a life. Millions of young Indians as they leave school and head for college, ask: should I study science, arts or commerce? ‘Making a life’ is different from ‘making a living’, and I’ll recount my own experience as I answer that question, not for any other reason but because one person's life, honestly captured, is not only unique, but is the only certain data of history that we possess as human beings.
When I was 16 I got a scholarship to an American college when it was fashionable to go to England, especially to Oxbridge. Like the diligent son of an engineer, I began to study engineering. Inspired by Crick and Watson, who had recently discovered the DNA molecule’s shape, I switched to chemistry. During the summer I came back and saw for the first time India’s grinding poverty. (One has to go away sometimes to notice these things.) Hoping for answers, I switched to economics in my second year. A few months later I was enticed by the humanities–by courses in Greek tragedy, Islamic history, Russian novel, and Sanskrit love poetry. I wanted to study everything, but I couldn’t of course. So, I did the next best thing. I switched to a joint major called History & Literature.
By now my parents in India had begun to despair. My mother didn’t know quite what to tell the neighbours. Adding to her discomfort, I discovered two new temptations at the end of my second year. I was attracted by philosophy, but also by the visual beauty of Bauhaus buildings. So much so that I seriously considered becoming an architect. In the end, two moral philosophers, John Rawls and Isaiah Berlin, prevailed. I wrote my thesis on Aristotle and graduated with a degree in philosophy.
Apart from being a thoroughly confused young man, what this story tells is how a liberal education is a search. One shouldn’t feel that one has the answers. It is enough to know the questions. My unusual college allowed me the freedom to search for what I wanted to be. My parents too were patient and didn’t pressure me to do “something useful”. Our system in India, alas, doesn’t allow for such experimenting. You are called a duffer if you are doing the Arts here–it means you didn’t get into engineering.
My confusion didn’t quite end there. I still didn’t know what I wanted–so, I took a year off and a job selling Vicks Vaporub. And like the man who came to dinner I stayed on. I rose to head the company, and at 50 I took early retirement to become a writer. At first, not having an MBA proved a drawback, but later I discovered, oddly enough, that my liberal education was an advantage. Writing essays had taught me think and write clearly. I had a better understanding of human motivation for I had consumed vast amounts of literature. Stoic philosophy offered a refuge in my many adverse moments. Most of all, my liberal education had given me confidence in my own judgement, and this often allowed me to be innovative. In the end it matters less what one studies in college and more that one acquire the right attitudes. Without realising it I had built a self in college, and I could cope with life’s ambiguity.
Monday, April 11, 2005
China's State Vs India's Market
Times of India, April 10, 2005
The Chinese premier’s visit to India is a good thing because it takes our minds off Pakistan. We really have to learn to ignore Pakistan and heed China. Pakistan pulls us down into an abyss of religious fundamentalism, terrorism, and identity politics. China will lift us up, firing our ambition for better roads, schools and health centres.
Ten years ago I used to either admire or fear China. Now, I am more relaxed. Both our economies are among the world’s fastest, and both are on the verge of solving their age-old economic problem. China’s success is induced by the state whereas India’s achievement is due to its private economy. For 25 years China has been growing at 8 percent and India at 6 percent; hence, China is now 20 years ahead, thanks to a purposive state that has reformed faster and invested in infrastructure. We may have ‘law’ but they have ‘order’.
Our different pasts explain a great deal about us. In the last 100 years China suffered devastating violence while India was spoiled by amazing peace. China’s 20th century opened with the ravages of warlords; the Nationalists followed with their butchery in the twenties. Japan’s invasion of Manchuria in the thirties made our British Raj look angelic. In the forties came Mao’s massacres as Communists took power. Mao’s ambitions sacrificed 35 million in the Great Leap Forward in the fifties and brought more misery during the Cultural Revolution. It was not until 1978 that the Chinese breathed easy. And then they went on to create the most amazing spectacle of economic growth in human history.
Saints, on the other hand, created India (in Andre Malraux’s words) and this happened in the shadows of Hitler, Stalin and Mao. Not only did we escape the World Wars, but we became free without shedding an ounce of blood, thanks to Mahatma Gandhi. Yes, half a million died in the Partition riots, but it was not state sponsored violence. Because we were addicted to peace we created the world’s largest democracy. Nehru’s socialism slowed us down for 3 decades, but he did not wipe out our private economy with its invaluable institutions of banks, corporate laws, and the stock market. So, when we broke free from our socialist shackles we had this advantage over China.
This is why India’s recent economic success is driven by its entrepreneurs. The best thing that India’s bungling government is doing is slowly getting out of the way of its dynamic citizens through reforms. India is spawning highly competitive private companies that are likely to become global brand names in the future. Reliance, Jet Airways, Infosys, Wipro, Ranbaxy, Bharat Forge, Tata Motors, Moser Baer and Hindalco are just a few examples. China’s miracle, on the other hand, is based on the success of state enterprises and foreign capital. China’s government is, in fact, suspicious of its entrepreneurs. Only 10% of China’s banking credit goes to the private sector, although it employs 40% of its labour. While Jet Airways has quietly become the undisputed leader of India’s skies after a dozen years, Okay, China’s first private airline just began to fly in February.
We too could grow at 8 percent. We do not because our incompetent governments don’t govern. Democracy too slows us down. If it came to a trade-off, I don’t think anyone in India would give up democracy for a two-percentage points higher growth rate. We have waited 3000 years for this moment to wipe out poverty, and if needed let’s wait another 20 years and do it with democracy. And frankly, life is more than just a race.
Monday, March 28, 2005
The Politics of Envy
Times of India, March 27, 2005
Since I am constantly tripping over my frailties it is a relief to stumble over someone else’s for a change. Last week I read about a woman in Lajpat Nagar in Delhi who had always dreamed of owning a car. After years of working hard and saving money, she finally got a white Maruti. But instead of being happy, she was plunged in sorrow because her best friend got a Zen the same week. It is not easy keeping up with the Khannas in this post-reform age!
Khushwant Singh once wrote that no people are more envious than Indians. He was wrong, of course. Behavioural economists have found that relative wealth matters more than absolute wealth everywhere. A study among Harvard University students shows that they would prefer to earn $50,000 a year (when their peers are earning $25,000) rather than earn $100,000 (when their peers are earning $200,000). CEO compensation in America has been pushed to astronomical levels because each company board wants its CEO to earn more than his competitor. Envy is universal problem, and hence, the proverb: if envy were a fever the whole world would be ill.
Competitiveness seems to be built into our genes, and envy is its nasty face. Even jealousy, envy’s cousin, is excusable because it has the mitigating quality of the potential loss of a loved one. Othello’s jealousy is forgivable because he is afraid of losing Desdemona. But envy is general and arises from the inability to tolerate the good fortune of others. Such as Duryodhana’s uncontrolled envy of the Pandavas, which is the driving emotion of the Mahabharata. If I can’t make it, let me spoil it for the others.
The Left has always had more problems with envy. Marx thought that he would conquer inequality by giving everyone equal income. Yet, the old Soviet Union was reeking with envy because tiny differences, such as a new tablecloth, got exaggerated in the neighbours’ eyes. Lord Richard Layard in a recent book, Happiness: Lessons from a New Science, characterizes income inequality as a psychic wound uniquely worthy of state intervention. He suggests that while those who work excessive hours may improve their own income, they also cause others to feel dissatisfied. The rat race forces people to spend less time with their families and community activities, and reduces the overall contentment of the community. Hence, he recommends the classic (and pathetic!) answer of the Left—tax those who work too hard. This will, he feels, tame the rat race, reduce envy, and improve overall human happiness.
Although I believe that every Indian is equal inside the polling booth, I am quite happy if a few become filthy rich, increase society’s wealth, and help raise our economy’s investible surplus. The rise of inequality after 1971 may be a problem in the West, but in India we should single-mindedly focus on investment and growth, which are the best remedies for lifting the poor. The Indian Left’s obsession with inequality verges on silliness, I think, just as the Left’s obsession with state intervention makes me value my liberty all the more. Although I value liberty over equality, I do believe that everyone ought to get an equal chance. That answer lies in primary education, and India’s tragedy is that the worst minister in every state cabinet becomes the education minister.
The cause of envy is excessive self-regard. This is why Krishna teaches Arjuna nishkama karma or the art of diminishing the ego. If one could somehow learn this art of self-forgetting, without hurting one’s healthy ambition, it would certainly make for a better world.
Since I am constantly tripping over my frailties it is a relief to stumble over someone else’s for a change. Last week I read about a woman in Lajpat Nagar in Delhi who had always dreamed of owning a car. After years of working hard and saving money, she finally got a white Maruti. But instead of being happy, she was plunged in sorrow because her best friend got a Zen the same week. It is not easy keeping up with the Khannas in this post-reform age!
Khushwant Singh once wrote that no people are more envious than Indians. He was wrong, of course. Behavioural economists have found that relative wealth matters more than absolute wealth everywhere. A study among Harvard University students shows that they would prefer to earn $50,000 a year (when their peers are earning $25,000) rather than earn $100,000 (when their peers are earning $200,000). CEO compensation in America has been pushed to astronomical levels because each company board wants its CEO to earn more than his competitor. Envy is universal problem, and hence, the proverb: if envy were a fever the whole world would be ill.
Competitiveness seems to be built into our genes, and envy is its nasty face. Even jealousy, envy’s cousin, is excusable because it has the mitigating quality of the potential loss of a loved one. Othello’s jealousy is forgivable because he is afraid of losing Desdemona. But envy is general and arises from the inability to tolerate the good fortune of others. Such as Duryodhana’s uncontrolled envy of the Pandavas, which is the driving emotion of the Mahabharata. If I can’t make it, let me spoil it for the others.
The Left has always had more problems with envy. Marx thought that he would conquer inequality by giving everyone equal income. Yet, the old Soviet Union was reeking with envy because tiny differences, such as a new tablecloth, got exaggerated in the neighbours’ eyes. Lord Richard Layard in a recent book, Happiness: Lessons from a New Science, characterizes income inequality as a psychic wound uniquely worthy of state intervention. He suggests that while those who work excessive hours may improve their own income, they also cause others to feel dissatisfied. The rat race forces people to spend less time with their families and community activities, and reduces the overall contentment of the community. Hence, he recommends the classic (and pathetic!) answer of the Left—tax those who work too hard. This will, he feels, tame the rat race, reduce envy, and improve overall human happiness.
Although I believe that every Indian is equal inside the polling booth, I am quite happy if a few become filthy rich, increase society’s wealth, and help raise our economy’s investible surplus. The rise of inequality after 1971 may be a problem in the West, but in India we should single-mindedly focus on investment and growth, which are the best remedies for lifting the poor. The Indian Left’s obsession with inequality verges on silliness, I think, just as the Left’s obsession with state intervention makes me value my liberty all the more. Although I value liberty over equality, I do believe that everyone ought to get an equal chance. That answer lies in primary education, and India’s tragedy is that the worst minister in every state cabinet becomes the education minister.
The cause of envy is excessive self-regard. This is why Krishna teaches Arjuna nishkama karma or the art of diminishing the ego. If one could somehow learn this art of self-forgetting, without hurting one’s healthy ambition, it would certainly make for a better world.
Monday, March 14, 2005
Now, turn to governance
Times of India, March 13, 2005
The Budget has come and gone, and it is time now to turn to governance. It was a good Budget, overall–it should continue our growth momentum. It lowered tariffs, reduced corporate tax rate, raised infrastructure spending via public-private partnerships, and simplified personal income tax. I especially liked some of the reforms buried inside like nuggets: for example, a city like Mumbai will only get funds if it reforms land ceilings, stamp duty and rent control; states will get funds from the horticulture mission only if they disband their dreaded Agricultural Produce Marketing Committees, thus giving farmers freedom to sell anywhere; scholarships will not go schools but to Dalits, who can now choose their school. The folly of the fringe benefits and cash withdrawal taxes has been rightly criticized--it’s a pity that Chidambaram persists in defending the indefensible, and diminishes himself in the process.
Every leader, whether political or business, has two jobs: to deliver results and to build the organization. For a finance minister, the Budget falls in the first category and it will deliver a certain sort of result. It is time now that Chidambaram turns his considerable talent and energy to his second job, which is to reform his three revenue-collecting departments. Despite many honest and hard working officers in income tax, customs and excise, these departments give India a bad name. Surveys show that foreign investors invariably cite them as the chief reason why India is still not a good place to do business.
In the case of Income Tax, a huge opportunity for transparency is waiting to be seized. Government has invested over Rs 1000 crores in creating a powerful computerized Tax Information Network. As with any new IT system, it has plenty of teething troubles and tax collectors and tax payers are tearing their hair out. Part of the reason is that the actors, especially in the banks, have not been trained. In the private sector we have learned that a major IT investment is a great opportunity to change systems and attitudes, and Chidambaram would do well to invest in a massive training program by outside professional, expert change managers and transform the ethos of the dreaded tax officer.
There are similar opportunities for transparency, improved systems and attitudes in Excise and Customs. Now is also the time to begin work on a national VAT and the dream of a borderless India. To small entrepreneurs, the excise collector is our government’s blackest face that holds the unfortunate power to imprison. He unleashes terror daily in honest entrepreneurs’ hearts, and is the symbol of the Inspector Raj that continues to prevent India’s industrial revolution. I applaud Chidambaram’s zeal for revenue, but he must reverse the unintended impression he has given to some officials that he doesn’t care about the means.
This Budget has continued India’s slow, elephant-like pace of reform. While it is frustrating to know that we could grow faster, let’s remember that even slow reforms add up over time, and it is this that has made India one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Prosperity is indeed spreading, and one per cent of our poor have been crossing the poverty line relentlessly for 25 years. Hence, I am confident that India will solve its age-old economic problem within a generation. I am less sure about governance. It is tragic to see the pain inflicted daily on the ordinary citizen by bad governance. This is partly because ministers ignore administrative reform. Ironical, isn’t it, that succeeding finance ministers have made our companies world class while our administrations remain in Jurassic Park?
The Budget has come and gone, and it is time now to turn to governance. It was a good Budget, overall–it should continue our growth momentum. It lowered tariffs, reduced corporate tax rate, raised infrastructure spending via public-private partnerships, and simplified personal income tax. I especially liked some of the reforms buried inside like nuggets: for example, a city like Mumbai will only get funds if it reforms land ceilings, stamp duty and rent control; states will get funds from the horticulture mission only if they disband their dreaded Agricultural Produce Marketing Committees, thus giving farmers freedom to sell anywhere; scholarships will not go schools but to Dalits, who can now choose their school. The folly of the fringe benefits and cash withdrawal taxes has been rightly criticized--it’s a pity that Chidambaram persists in defending the indefensible, and diminishes himself in the process.
Every leader, whether political or business, has two jobs: to deliver results and to build the organization. For a finance minister, the Budget falls in the first category and it will deliver a certain sort of result. It is time now that Chidambaram turns his considerable talent and energy to his second job, which is to reform his three revenue-collecting departments. Despite many honest and hard working officers in income tax, customs and excise, these departments give India a bad name. Surveys show that foreign investors invariably cite them as the chief reason why India is still not a good place to do business.
In the case of Income Tax, a huge opportunity for transparency is waiting to be seized. Government has invested over Rs 1000 crores in creating a powerful computerized Tax Information Network. As with any new IT system, it has plenty of teething troubles and tax collectors and tax payers are tearing their hair out. Part of the reason is that the actors, especially in the banks, have not been trained. In the private sector we have learned that a major IT investment is a great opportunity to change systems and attitudes, and Chidambaram would do well to invest in a massive training program by outside professional, expert change managers and transform the ethos of the dreaded tax officer.
There are similar opportunities for transparency, improved systems and attitudes in Excise and Customs. Now is also the time to begin work on a national VAT and the dream of a borderless India. To small entrepreneurs, the excise collector is our government’s blackest face that holds the unfortunate power to imprison. He unleashes terror daily in honest entrepreneurs’ hearts, and is the symbol of the Inspector Raj that continues to prevent India’s industrial revolution. I applaud Chidambaram’s zeal for revenue, but he must reverse the unintended impression he has given to some officials that he doesn’t care about the means.
This Budget has continued India’s slow, elephant-like pace of reform. While it is frustrating to know that we could grow faster, let’s remember that even slow reforms add up over time, and it is this that has made India one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Prosperity is indeed spreading, and one per cent of our poor have been crossing the poverty line relentlessly for 25 years. Hence, I am confident that India will solve its age-old economic problem within a generation. I am less sure about governance. It is tragic to see the pain inflicted daily on the ordinary citizen by bad governance. This is partly because ministers ignore administrative reform. Ironical, isn’t it, that succeeding finance ministers have made our companies world class while our administrations remain in Jurassic Park?
Monday, February 28, 2005
Making India One
Times of India, Feb 27, 2005
There is really one paramount issue that concerns us all, and we should remember it tomorrow when the Finance Minister gets up to announce the nation’s Budget. Fifty-seven years after Independence India is sadly not a common market where goods and services move smoothly. If Bollywood, cricket and Hinglish unite us, our irrational system of indirect taxes divides us.
Anyone who sells a product across India lives through the nightmare of state sales taxes, central sales tax, entry tax, turnover tax, service tax, excise, octroi—all cascading to make us perhaps the highest indirect taxed nation in the world. Octroi is the worst. Today a truck takes 40 hours to deliver goods from Delhi to Bombay. Of this, only 24 hours are spent driving; the remaining16 hours are spent negotiating bribes at octroi nakas. Thanks to the Golden Quadrilateral, driving time will soon decline to 12 hours as trucks have already begun to move at double the speed. But the pain and corruption of octroi posts will remain.
The answer is to replace this nightmare of taxes by a single flat Goods and Services Tax (GST) that is IT intensive, offers transparent, frictionless interface between taxpayer and collector, and integrates us into one market. As a virtual national VAT, it would tax only the added value at each stage and thus lower our total tax burden. It would discourage cash transactions because no one in the value chain wants to lose credit for taxes already paid. Thus, compliance would rise, taxpayers would swell, and government revenues would multiply. By eliminating the entire plethora of indirect taxes, transaction costs and corruption would also decline, and the nation’s competitiveness would climb. Kelkar’s team had proposed this sensible idea last summer, and I find it shocking that neither CEOs nor the Chambers have fought for it in their pre-Budget dialogues.
This April our states will begin to replace their sales taxes by state VATs. It seems to be a historic first step towards GST, but its design is so flawed that I fear it will give VAT a bad name. It will increase paperwork for taxpayers and tax collectors, multiply checkpoints at borders, cause delays, corruption and invite the wrath of the trade. It is tragic that we are blundering into a paper-based system when technology exists to create a paperless, transparent and corruption free system. Since this VAT is not integrated between states, VAT credits will not flow across borders, and India will not become a common market. As a result, the 20th century’s most important tax innovation, the VAT, may invite a backlash in India.
The answer is not to stop the momentum on state VATs. The solution is for Chidambaram to prove to the states how a modern GST works. The wonderful Tax Information Network (TIN) is now in place, which handles TDS for 350, 000 firms for income tax purposes. It could easily be adapted to manage VAT credits for 100,000 firms. The ensuing transparency will strike a great blow against Excise and India’s entire corrupt indirect tax establishment.
The rub is that the GST requires a buy-in from the states. Since it could usher India’s industrial revolution, the centre ought to sweeten the deal with a gift of Rs 50,000 crores to the states and the nation will still come out ahead. It is tempting to defer big and bold ideas, Mr Chidambaram. Nor is it pleasant to negotiate with our unruly states. It is easier to rationalise by saying that Brazil took 40 years to evolve VAT. But great leaders know they are mortal and won’t get a third chance.
There is really one paramount issue that concerns us all, and we should remember it tomorrow when the Finance Minister gets up to announce the nation’s Budget. Fifty-seven years after Independence India is sadly not a common market where goods and services move smoothly. If Bollywood, cricket and Hinglish unite us, our irrational system of indirect taxes divides us.
Anyone who sells a product across India lives through the nightmare of state sales taxes, central sales tax, entry tax, turnover tax, service tax, excise, octroi—all cascading to make us perhaps the highest indirect taxed nation in the world. Octroi is the worst. Today a truck takes 40 hours to deliver goods from Delhi to Bombay. Of this, only 24 hours are spent driving; the remaining16 hours are spent negotiating bribes at octroi nakas. Thanks to the Golden Quadrilateral, driving time will soon decline to 12 hours as trucks have already begun to move at double the speed. But the pain and corruption of octroi posts will remain.
The answer is to replace this nightmare of taxes by a single flat Goods and Services Tax (GST) that is IT intensive, offers transparent, frictionless interface between taxpayer and collector, and integrates us into one market. As a virtual national VAT, it would tax only the added value at each stage and thus lower our total tax burden. It would discourage cash transactions because no one in the value chain wants to lose credit for taxes already paid. Thus, compliance would rise, taxpayers would swell, and government revenues would multiply. By eliminating the entire plethora of indirect taxes, transaction costs and corruption would also decline, and the nation’s competitiveness would climb. Kelkar’s team had proposed this sensible idea last summer, and I find it shocking that neither CEOs nor the Chambers have fought for it in their pre-Budget dialogues.
This April our states will begin to replace their sales taxes by state VATs. It seems to be a historic first step towards GST, but its design is so flawed that I fear it will give VAT a bad name. It will increase paperwork for taxpayers and tax collectors, multiply checkpoints at borders, cause delays, corruption and invite the wrath of the trade. It is tragic that we are blundering into a paper-based system when technology exists to create a paperless, transparent and corruption free system. Since this VAT is not integrated between states, VAT credits will not flow across borders, and India will not become a common market. As a result, the 20th century’s most important tax innovation, the VAT, may invite a backlash in India.
The answer is not to stop the momentum on state VATs. The solution is for Chidambaram to prove to the states how a modern GST works. The wonderful Tax Information Network (TIN) is now in place, which handles TDS for 350, 000 firms for income tax purposes. It could easily be adapted to manage VAT credits for 100,000 firms. The ensuing transparency will strike a great blow against Excise and India’s entire corrupt indirect tax establishment.
The rub is that the GST requires a buy-in from the states. Since it could usher India’s industrial revolution, the centre ought to sweeten the deal with a gift of Rs 50,000 crores to the states and the nation will still come out ahead. It is tempting to defer big and bold ideas, Mr Chidambaram. Nor is it pleasant to negotiate with our unruly states. It is easier to rationalise by saying that Brazil took 40 years to evolve VAT. But great leaders know they are mortal and won’t get a third chance.
Monday, January 31, 2005
To be worthy of freedom
Times of India, Jan 30, 2005
They tell me that putting my email id at the end of this column is iffy, but when a gem crosses your path, such as this one, it makes it all worthwhile. Last week a female traveller to India wrote this:
“‘We are a filthy people’ was almost right, but the problem appears to be cultural, not governmental. Women manage to find a place to urinate and defecate out of public space. It is the Indian man who has claimed an ascendant status, apparently based upon his right to urinate anywhere…what you don't mention is that hawking and spitting appears to be a national hobby, one that, to a westerner, is as appalling as Indian men using India as a toilet. And why does the Indian man keep looking for his penis? Is it not attached? It is most disconcerting to be speaking to a well-educated Indian when suddenly he goes looking for his penis. This at first was startling to me, but I see that this penis searching is merely a national preoccupation. Touring India is not for the fastidious.
“I've travelled here for almost four months; the people are lovely and charming and beautiful and kind. As I'm in the last few days…and as I'm crossing Howrah Bridge in a taxi, traffic is jammed, all going around a stalled rickshaw. An accident? Mechanical trouble? No: the rickshaw driver had stopped in the middle of the bridge to urinate!”
My reader admonishes me for blaming governance when public filth is a cultural failing. Mahatma Gandhi would have agreed. Everyone was dismayed at a famous AICC Session when he spoke endlessly on the defecating habits of the AICC delegates instead of delivering a rousing speech on swaraj. Gandhi believed that one had to be worthy of freedom and Indians needed to reform personal discipline and public hygiene in order to be worthy.
Last week’s email was equally divided between those who blamed culture and governance. One observed that upscale Khan Market in Delhi has two spotlessly clean toilets, yet men prefer to pee on the toilets’ walls. A second asked: why does the Radhasoami ashram in Beas remain spotlessly clean when the same 250,000 devotees throw trash out of their windows at home? A third looked for answers from American parents, who always remind their kids when they leave home, “Did you go to the bathroom?” He added that civics courses in American schools have helped. A fourth blames governance and is so upset with politicians that he wishes terrorists had succeeded in bombing our Parliament so that we could begin anew.
It is an old debate between those who would change culture versus those who would reform institutions. British colonial officials routinely blamed India’s poverty on our otherworldly spirituality. Max Weber, the sociologist, attributed our backwardness to the caste system. Gunnar Myrdal, the economist, also blamed our unpunctuality and poor work habits on cultural attitudes. Today, however, we are more skeptical of national stereotypes. We have seen that Indian entrepreneurs can be both extremely otherworldly in religion and aggressive in business. The Green Revolution showed that Brahmins with a contempt for manual work ploughed their land vigorously when the incentive system changed.
I prefer to focus on institutional change because it is quicker than cultural change. After all, lots of garbage bins and public toilets combined with a stiff and vigorously enforced penalty did transform Singapore’s culture. Any Indian town could do the same. This is what our reforms are all about: aligning the incentive system of institutions with people’s self-interest will bring good behaviour both from the rulers and the ruled.
They tell me that putting my email id at the end of this column is iffy, but when a gem crosses your path, such as this one, it makes it all worthwhile. Last week a female traveller to India wrote this:
“‘We are a filthy people’ was almost right, but the problem appears to be cultural, not governmental. Women manage to find a place to urinate and defecate out of public space. It is the Indian man who has claimed an ascendant status, apparently based upon his right to urinate anywhere…what you don't mention is that hawking and spitting appears to be a national hobby, one that, to a westerner, is as appalling as Indian men using India as a toilet. And why does the Indian man keep looking for his penis? Is it not attached? It is most disconcerting to be speaking to a well-educated Indian when suddenly he goes looking for his penis. This at first was startling to me, but I see that this penis searching is merely a national preoccupation. Touring India is not for the fastidious.
“I've travelled here for almost four months; the people are lovely and charming and beautiful and kind. As I'm in the last few days…and as I'm crossing Howrah Bridge in a taxi, traffic is jammed, all going around a stalled rickshaw. An accident? Mechanical trouble? No: the rickshaw driver had stopped in the middle of the bridge to urinate!”
My reader admonishes me for blaming governance when public filth is a cultural failing. Mahatma Gandhi would have agreed. Everyone was dismayed at a famous AICC Session when he spoke endlessly on the defecating habits of the AICC delegates instead of delivering a rousing speech on swaraj. Gandhi believed that one had to be worthy of freedom and Indians needed to reform personal discipline and public hygiene in order to be worthy.
Last week’s email was equally divided between those who blamed culture and governance. One observed that upscale Khan Market in Delhi has two spotlessly clean toilets, yet men prefer to pee on the toilets’ walls. A second asked: why does the Radhasoami ashram in Beas remain spotlessly clean when the same 250,000 devotees throw trash out of their windows at home? A third looked for answers from American parents, who always remind their kids when they leave home, “Did you go to the bathroom?” He added that civics courses in American schools have helped. A fourth blames governance and is so upset with politicians that he wishes terrorists had succeeded in bombing our Parliament so that we could begin anew.
It is an old debate between those who would change culture versus those who would reform institutions. British colonial officials routinely blamed India’s poverty on our otherworldly spirituality. Max Weber, the sociologist, attributed our backwardness to the caste system. Gunnar Myrdal, the economist, also blamed our unpunctuality and poor work habits on cultural attitudes. Today, however, we are more skeptical of national stereotypes. We have seen that Indian entrepreneurs can be both extremely otherworldly in religion and aggressive in business. The Green Revolution showed that Brahmins with a contempt for manual work ploughed their land vigorously when the incentive system changed.
I prefer to focus on institutional change because it is quicker than cultural change. After all, lots of garbage bins and public toilets combined with a stiff and vigorously enforced penalty did transform Singapore’s culture. Any Indian town could do the same. This is what our reforms are all about: aligning the incentive system of institutions with people’s self-interest will bring good behaviour both from the rulers and the ruled.
Monday, December 13, 2004
A small matter of the ego
Times of India, Dec 12, 2004
Dhirubhai Ambani’s dreams were born in a one-room chawl in Mumbai’s Kabutarkhana, but they mesmerized the Indian nation for a generation as Reliance Industries went from nothing to become an Rs 100,000 crore petrochemical, energy, and communications giant. The nation watched with awe as Reliance skillfully negotiated the minefields of the License Raj, beat its competitors in the marketplace, and became one of India’s largest and best performing companies. For the past three weeks, however, the same nation has been fearfully worried as this empire threatened to unravel in a soap opera of sibling rivalry.
The first thing to say about this affair is that it is not another failure of corporate governance like Enron. Even though the media has been clamoring on behalf of the small shareholder, there is no case for government intervention. Shareholders have always known that this was a family run company and they ought to have discounted the risk of family trouble in the share price. Besides, Reliance has always treated its shareholders well. There are, however, issues about the opacity in the family’s shareholding, but these are a separate matter, and the bureaucrats at SEBI and Company Affairs ought to relax for the time being.
What then is the problem? I think it is a simple matter of the human ego. Let’s face it--sibling rivalry is the soft underbelly of familial capitalism. Even though Reliance affects millions of lives, there is very little we can do but watch the awesome drama unfold, with horror and pity, like spectators in a Greek tragedy, and learn once again the lesson of the Mahabharata—that it is difficult to be good in this world!
Anil Ambani wrote on December 4th about nishkama karma and the virtue of humility. For two thousand years Indians have been trying to figure out if it is possible for ordinary people to act from a sense of duty, without wanting to take the credit. Self-forgetting is not easy. Most of us can do it for short periods, I think, when we are absorbed in something we like, and then we forget our egos. Artists and athletes in this state talk about losing themselves in the ‘zone’, as indeed Mukesh and Anil must feel when they are absorbed in their work. But what happens after the work is done? Then the nasty little ego asserts itself, and asks, why is my office two inches smaller than his?
I generally don’t read business books, but the Economist recommended Jim Collins’, Good to Great, which has sold 1.5 million copies in hardback, breaking the record set by the 1982 classic, In Search of Excellence, by Tom Peters and Robert Waterman. Collins has identified outstanding companies—defined as those who generated cumulative share returns 7 times better than the general stock market over a 15-year period. One of the secrets of the success of these companies is that their leaders were all self-effacing, modest, and wilful. They sacrificed their personal goals to those of their organization and they did it for love. So, nishkama karma may well be the right way to go for Anil and Mukesh Ambani.
Two weeks ago I raised Draupadi’s dharma question in relation to the bad state of our public governance. The subtext of Draupadi’s question was: in what sense does a wife belong to a husband? In the Ambani’s case, the dharma question is: if you are so proud of Reliance’s professionalism and its ability to compete internationally, then why don’t you control your egos and collaborate? A prolonged legal battle will damage your rightful claim to professionalism.
Dhirubhai Ambani’s dreams were born in a one-room chawl in Mumbai’s Kabutarkhana, but they mesmerized the Indian nation for a generation as Reliance Industries went from nothing to become an Rs 100,000 crore petrochemical, energy, and communications giant. The nation watched with awe as Reliance skillfully negotiated the minefields of the License Raj, beat its competitors in the marketplace, and became one of India’s largest and best performing companies. For the past three weeks, however, the same nation has been fearfully worried as this empire threatened to unravel in a soap opera of sibling rivalry.
The first thing to say about this affair is that it is not another failure of corporate governance like Enron. Even though the media has been clamoring on behalf of the small shareholder, there is no case for government intervention. Shareholders have always known that this was a family run company and they ought to have discounted the risk of family trouble in the share price. Besides, Reliance has always treated its shareholders well. There are, however, issues about the opacity in the family’s shareholding, but these are a separate matter, and the bureaucrats at SEBI and Company Affairs ought to relax for the time being.
What then is the problem? I think it is a simple matter of the human ego. Let’s face it--sibling rivalry is the soft underbelly of familial capitalism. Even though Reliance affects millions of lives, there is very little we can do but watch the awesome drama unfold, with horror and pity, like spectators in a Greek tragedy, and learn once again the lesson of the Mahabharata—that it is difficult to be good in this world!
Anil Ambani wrote on December 4th about nishkama karma and the virtue of humility. For two thousand years Indians have been trying to figure out if it is possible for ordinary people to act from a sense of duty, without wanting to take the credit. Self-forgetting is not easy. Most of us can do it for short periods, I think, when we are absorbed in something we like, and then we forget our egos. Artists and athletes in this state talk about losing themselves in the ‘zone’, as indeed Mukesh and Anil must feel when they are absorbed in their work. But what happens after the work is done? Then the nasty little ego asserts itself, and asks, why is my office two inches smaller than his?
I generally don’t read business books, but the Economist recommended Jim Collins’, Good to Great, which has sold 1.5 million copies in hardback, breaking the record set by the 1982 classic, In Search of Excellence, by Tom Peters and Robert Waterman. Collins has identified outstanding companies—defined as those who generated cumulative share returns 7 times better than the general stock market over a 15-year period. One of the secrets of the success of these companies is that their leaders were all self-effacing, modest, and wilful. They sacrificed their personal goals to those of their organization and they did it for love. So, nishkama karma may well be the right way to go for Anil and Mukesh Ambani.
Two weeks ago I raised Draupadi’s dharma question in relation to the bad state of our public governance. The subtext of Draupadi’s question was: in what sense does a wife belong to a husband? In the Ambani’s case, the dharma question is: if you are so proud of Reliance’s professionalism and its ability to compete internationally, then why don’t you control your egos and collaborate? A prolonged legal battle will damage your rightful claim to professionalism.
Monday, December 06, 2004
The respect they Deserve
Time Magazine, 6 December 2004
There will always be rich people and poor, but a good society Aristotle says, is the one “where the middle class is in control and outnumbers both the other classes." Yes, India has its share of billionaires, and a quarter of its people are poor, but the most striking characteristic of today’s India is the explosive growth in the middle class.
For the past 23 years India’s GDP has grown at an average annual 6% real rate, making it one of the fastest growing economies in the world. While slower than China's, it is almost double the growth rate of the previous 30 years, and double the rate at which the West created its Industrial Revolution. As a result, the middle class has more than tripled to 250 million people. While the number of rich has certainly grown, but 1% of the poor have also been crossing the poverty line each year--210 million people over 23 years. The lower castes have risen through the ballot box and seized political power in many states. Thus, pervasive upward mobility may help explain why India is reasonably free of social resentment.
In 1947 when India became free, the nation’s wealth resided with the landed gentry, the zamindars, who lorded over impoverished peasants. There were a few trading and industrial families to be sure--some had avidly supported Mahatma Gandhi and the freedom movement. After independence, the new government took over the princely states and abolished zamindari. The industrial families thought their time had come, but their hopes were short lived. Nehru’s socialist government shackled them with the most stifling controls and tax rates became extortionate. Hence, wealth did not shift from zamindars to the business class, but went instead to finance state enterprises.
With the coming of the reforms in 1991, making money again became respectable, and the old business houses now acquired the esteem that had eluded them. However, socialist controls had so emasculated them that they didn’t how to respond to the new competitive climate. Some joined the Bombay Club and began to clamor for protection; a third just died. But a new group of millionaires took their place. They were professionals, who made their fortunes in IT and the knowledge economy, and they reflect a new social contract of post-reform India where talent, hard work and managerial skill have replaced inherited wealth. Men like Azim Premji and Narayana Murthy are ‘secular ascetics’, who live frugally and engage in philanthropy. Hence, for the first time, the rich are looked up to with pride and reverence.
Indians have not traditionally accorded a high place to making money. The merchant or bania is placed third in the four-caste hierarchy, behind the brahmin and the kshatriya, and only a step ahead of the laboring shudra. Since the economic reforms making money has become increasingly respectable and the sons of brahmins and kshatriyas are getting MBAs and want to become entrepreneurs. India is in the midst of a social revolution rivaled, perhaps, only by the ascent of Japan’s merchant class during the 1868 Meiji Restoration.
Many in the old economy have also done well--Ambanis, Tatas, Aditya Birla group and others have created globally competitive companies. But the nation’s pride is Laxmi Mittal, who has become the world’s largest steel maker. No longer is India Inc run by joint families, and it is resigned to the Indian wisdom, ‘haveli ki umar saath saal’, the life of a business family is sixty years. Accordingly, the first generation makes the money and naturally flaunts it, like Laxmi Mittal. The second doesn’t want more money; it wants power, which might explain Anil Ambani’s curious decision to join politics. Born into money and power, the third generation usually squanders the fortune. Thomas Mann’s wonderful novel, Buddenbrooks, makes the same point.
To return to the point where I began: in any society, the top 15 per cent of the people will do well; the bottom 15 per cent will fail and will need to be looked after. In between is the 70 per cent, which in successful economies becomes the middle class. In India, socialist policies suppressed economic growth and middle class opportunities for decades. Hence, the middle class was barely 8% of the population in 1980, and even now it is only 25%. But if the present rate of growth continues, India should reach Aristotle’s ideal by 2025. Middle class mobility and new meritocratic wealth have made inequality more acceptable--the rich do not excite envy but hope and aspiration.
There will always be rich people and poor, but a good society Aristotle says, is the one “where the middle class is in control and outnumbers both the other classes." Yes, India has its share of billionaires, and a quarter of its people are poor, but the most striking characteristic of today’s India is the explosive growth in the middle class.
For the past 23 years India’s GDP has grown at an average annual 6% real rate, making it one of the fastest growing economies in the world. While slower than China's, it is almost double the growth rate of the previous 30 years, and double the rate at which the West created its Industrial Revolution. As a result, the middle class has more than tripled to 250 million people. While the number of rich has certainly grown, but 1% of the poor have also been crossing the poverty line each year--210 million people over 23 years. The lower castes have risen through the ballot box and seized political power in many states. Thus, pervasive upward mobility may help explain why India is reasonably free of social resentment.
In 1947 when India became free, the nation’s wealth resided with the landed gentry, the zamindars, who lorded over impoverished peasants. There were a few trading and industrial families to be sure--some had avidly supported Mahatma Gandhi and the freedom movement. After independence, the new government took over the princely states and abolished zamindari. The industrial families thought their time had come, but their hopes were short lived. Nehru’s socialist government shackled them with the most stifling controls and tax rates became extortionate. Hence, wealth did not shift from zamindars to the business class, but went instead to finance state enterprises.
With the coming of the reforms in 1991, making money again became respectable, and the old business houses now acquired the esteem that had eluded them. However, socialist controls had so emasculated them that they didn’t how to respond to the new competitive climate. Some joined the Bombay Club and began to clamor for protection; a third just died. But a new group of millionaires took their place. They were professionals, who made their fortunes in IT and the knowledge economy, and they reflect a new social contract of post-reform India where talent, hard work and managerial skill have replaced inherited wealth. Men like Azim Premji and Narayana Murthy are ‘secular ascetics’, who live frugally and engage in philanthropy. Hence, for the first time, the rich are looked up to with pride and reverence.
Indians have not traditionally accorded a high place to making money. The merchant or bania is placed third in the four-caste hierarchy, behind the brahmin and the kshatriya, and only a step ahead of the laboring shudra. Since the economic reforms making money has become increasingly respectable and the sons of brahmins and kshatriyas are getting MBAs and want to become entrepreneurs. India is in the midst of a social revolution rivaled, perhaps, only by the ascent of Japan’s merchant class during the 1868 Meiji Restoration.
Many in the old economy have also done well--Ambanis, Tatas, Aditya Birla group and others have created globally competitive companies. But the nation’s pride is Laxmi Mittal, who has become the world’s largest steel maker. No longer is India Inc run by joint families, and it is resigned to the Indian wisdom, ‘haveli ki umar saath saal’, the life of a business family is sixty years. Accordingly, the first generation makes the money and naturally flaunts it, like Laxmi Mittal. The second doesn’t want more money; it wants power, which might explain Anil Ambani’s curious decision to join politics. Born into money and power, the third generation usually squanders the fortune. Thomas Mann’s wonderful novel, Buddenbrooks, makes the same point.
To return to the point where I began: in any society, the top 15 per cent of the people will do well; the bottom 15 per cent will fail and will need to be looked after. In between is the 70 per cent, which in successful economies becomes the middle class. In India, socialist policies suppressed economic growth and middle class opportunities for decades. Hence, the middle class was barely 8% of the population in 1980, and even now it is only 25%. But if the present rate of growth continues, India should reach Aristotle’s ideal by 2025. Middle class mobility and new meritocratic wealth have made inequality more acceptable--the rich do not excite envy but hope and aspiration.
Monday, November 29, 2004
Draupadi's question
Times of India, Nov 28, 2004
Every Indian child knows that Yudhisthira loses everything--his kingdom, his brothers, himself and even his wife, Draupadi-- during the epic game of dice in the Mahabharata. Duryodhana then orders Draupadi brought to the assembly to humiliate her. She refuses and sends the messenger back to find out if her husband lost her first or himself. The implication is that if he had lost himself first then he was no longer free and couldn’t stake her. Draupadi’s prashna unsettles everyone in the assembly. It forces them to think about dharma, about right and wrong, and who has the authority to decide this. This is the central theme of the Mahabharata. They confront too the Faustian question about what it means to wager one’s soul, says Alf Hiltebeitel in his admirable book, Rethinking the Mahabharata: a Reader’s Guide to the Education of the Dharma Kings.
Draupadi has been on our minds recently ever since the Congress spokesperson compared her to the equally defiant Uma Bharati, who walked out of the BJP conclave just before Diwali. Draupadi’s question is relevant to our governance as well, and why so many public servants behave as badly as the Kauravas. Manmohan Singh knows this only too well, which is why he keeps promising that improving governance is his first priority. Well, the nation waits, and impatiently, to hear how he is going to redeem his promise.
What makes Draupadi’s question admirable is her concern for dharma, for doing the right thing. There will always be nasty types--Shakuni, Duryodhana, Duhshasana—but good institutions are designed to punish them and to reward decent behaviour. Why then does the opposite happen so often? To find out, read Arun Shourie’s new book, Governance and the sclerosis that has set in. Each day we look to the government for justice, for solving our basic problems, but insolent bureaucrats respond by cloaking these behind miles of red tape. Instead of attending to us, Shourie recounts how 4 departments took 12 months of endless meetings to decide if an official may use green or red ink in place of the usual blue or black for noting on a file. He gives new meaning to Franz Kafka’s bureaucratic nightmare, and one official I know hung his head in shame and wept after reading the book.
Similarly in the epic, no one answers Draupadi’s question. The most moral Yudhisthira--incapable of telling a lie yet addicted to gambling--he remains silent. Vidura, a most sympathetic character, also endangers dharma when he doesn’t speak up. The good Bhishma gets away by proclaiming that dharma is subtle (sukshma), and hence not easy to know. True, it is often difficult to tell right from wrong. This difficulty seems to hang over the entire epic, and Yudhisthira is still trying to fathom it till the end. This is also why I prefer the Mahabharata--it is about our lives, about good people acting badly. The Ramayana, on the other hand, is tiresome—an ideal king, his ideal wife, his ideal brother, ideal subjects; even the villain is ideal, says Iravati Karve.
A few weeks ago I warned Mr. Chidambaram, our finance minister, that his excellent work in policy reform might come to nought by the bad behaviour of a few income tax, customs and excise officers. Hence, I pleaded with him to devote his considerable talent and energy to improving systems and processes in his revenue departments, and bring more transparency in the citizen-official interface. As for our officials—they too should stop and ponder over Draupadi’s question, over dharma, each time they plan to entangle us in their red tape.
Every Indian child knows that Yudhisthira loses everything--his kingdom, his brothers, himself and even his wife, Draupadi-- during the epic game of dice in the Mahabharata. Duryodhana then orders Draupadi brought to the assembly to humiliate her. She refuses and sends the messenger back to find out if her husband lost her first or himself. The implication is that if he had lost himself first then he was no longer free and couldn’t stake her. Draupadi’s prashna unsettles everyone in the assembly. It forces them to think about dharma, about right and wrong, and who has the authority to decide this. This is the central theme of the Mahabharata. They confront too the Faustian question about what it means to wager one’s soul, says Alf Hiltebeitel in his admirable book, Rethinking the Mahabharata: a Reader’s Guide to the Education of the Dharma Kings.
Draupadi has been on our minds recently ever since the Congress spokesperson compared her to the equally defiant Uma Bharati, who walked out of the BJP conclave just before Diwali. Draupadi’s question is relevant to our governance as well, and why so many public servants behave as badly as the Kauravas. Manmohan Singh knows this only too well, which is why he keeps promising that improving governance is his first priority. Well, the nation waits, and impatiently, to hear how he is going to redeem his promise.
What makes Draupadi’s question admirable is her concern for dharma, for doing the right thing. There will always be nasty types--Shakuni, Duryodhana, Duhshasana—but good institutions are designed to punish them and to reward decent behaviour. Why then does the opposite happen so often? To find out, read Arun Shourie’s new book, Governance and the sclerosis that has set in. Each day we look to the government for justice, for solving our basic problems, but insolent bureaucrats respond by cloaking these behind miles of red tape. Instead of attending to us, Shourie recounts how 4 departments took 12 months of endless meetings to decide if an official may use green or red ink in place of the usual blue or black for noting on a file. He gives new meaning to Franz Kafka’s bureaucratic nightmare, and one official I know hung his head in shame and wept after reading the book.
Similarly in the epic, no one answers Draupadi’s question. The most moral Yudhisthira--incapable of telling a lie yet addicted to gambling--he remains silent. Vidura, a most sympathetic character, also endangers dharma when he doesn’t speak up. The good Bhishma gets away by proclaiming that dharma is subtle (sukshma), and hence not easy to know. True, it is often difficult to tell right from wrong. This difficulty seems to hang over the entire epic, and Yudhisthira is still trying to fathom it till the end. This is also why I prefer the Mahabharata--it is about our lives, about good people acting badly. The Ramayana, on the other hand, is tiresome—an ideal king, his ideal wife, his ideal brother, ideal subjects; even the villain is ideal, says Iravati Karve.
A few weeks ago I warned Mr. Chidambaram, our finance minister, that his excellent work in policy reform might come to nought by the bad behaviour of a few income tax, customs and excise officers. Hence, I pleaded with him to devote his considerable talent and energy to improving systems and processes in his revenue departments, and bring more transparency in the citizen-official interface. As for our officials—they too should stop and ponder over Draupadi’s question, over dharma, each time they plan to entangle us in their red tape.
Monday, November 15, 2004
UNATTAINABLE IDEALS
Times of India, Nov 14, 2004
Ever since May 13, when the Left rose from the dead, we have heard constant carping about inequality and other talk reminiscent of our pre-1991 days. It amuses visitors that we are debating what was settled long ago with the death of communism. A thoughtful French academic observed the irony — while India talks about the poor, China talks about getting rich. He said, "While you debate if growth is pro or anti poor, the Chinese get on with the job, deliver growth and lift millions out of poverty. The Chinese must chuckle at your CMP — it's a sure way to keep Indians poor and India weak. If the same money went into productive investment rather than subsidies, you would create sustainable jobs and raise your growth rate. Why can't your government courageously tell the Left to back off, unless they also provide a method to deliver subsidies without losing 80 per cent on the way?"
It is true that many of us are sickened by the inequality in our society. We dislike the vast differences in the life prospects of our fellow citizens. We are even uneasy over nature's unfairness. Why should a prettier face get rewarded during the marriage season? Why should a person who happens to be born brighter also earn more? Neither's reward is as well-deserved as say a person who works hard. Looking back, communism's great appeal was its promise of equality. Certainly our path of democratic capitalism since 1991 leaves much to be desired. But it doesn't mean all our social and economic arrangements are unsatisfactory. It only means that our path does not live to an ideal. While equality is desirable, most sensible Indians will agree that the quest is hopelessly idealistic.
Unattainable ideals create their own problems — too often they give someone a stick to beat others into submission.
This is the unhappy story of the 20th century. Hannah Arendt famously said, "You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs; but you can break a great many eggs without making an omelet." She was referring in part to 20th century's attempts to create an egalitarian society. All of these grand revolutions failed spectacularly, killed millions of people and caused great sorrow. Fortunately, we in India escaped the most violent outrages, but we did pay a great price in missed opportunities during the lost decades of Nehruvian socialism and the Licence Raj. Now we are more humble in our attempts to cure nature. No one talks about abolishing private property, because we know people's personal motivations will not shrink that far.
So, let's forget this talk of inequality unless we are willing to produce great crimes or suffer great costs in its name. The idea of a world in which all good things exist is not only unattainable but it is dangerous. Those who allow themselves to come under the spell of dogma, religious or secular, become victims of myopia and in the end become less human. Spontaneity is the fundamental human quality, and it's not compatible with ‘total solutions', as Isaiah Berlin said. Yet, we cannot just give up: I think we must do everything we can to reduce hunger, fight against injustice, and resist state-induced suffering, such as torture and wars. While not ruling out the unlikely possibility that human motivation might change one day and we might end the tyranny of inequality, today I think we have to "reaffirm unambiguously that open markets and rules based trade are the best engine to lift living standards, reduce environmental destruction, and build shared prosperity." Bill Clinton said this and he was right.
Ever since May 13, when the Left rose from the dead, we have heard constant carping about inequality and other talk reminiscent of our pre-1991 days. It amuses visitors that we are debating what was settled long ago with the death of communism. A thoughtful French academic observed the irony — while India talks about the poor, China talks about getting rich. He said, "While you debate if growth is pro or anti poor, the Chinese get on with the job, deliver growth and lift millions out of poverty. The Chinese must chuckle at your CMP — it's a sure way to keep Indians poor and India weak. If the same money went into productive investment rather than subsidies, you would create sustainable jobs and raise your growth rate. Why can't your government courageously tell the Left to back off, unless they also provide a method to deliver subsidies without losing 80 per cent on the way?"
It is true that many of us are sickened by the inequality in our society. We dislike the vast differences in the life prospects of our fellow citizens. We are even uneasy over nature's unfairness. Why should a prettier face get rewarded during the marriage season? Why should a person who happens to be born brighter also earn more? Neither's reward is as well-deserved as say a person who works hard. Looking back, communism's great appeal was its promise of equality. Certainly our path of democratic capitalism since 1991 leaves much to be desired. But it doesn't mean all our social and economic arrangements are unsatisfactory. It only means that our path does not live to an ideal. While equality is desirable, most sensible Indians will agree that the quest is hopelessly idealistic.
Unattainable ideals create their own problems — too often they give someone a stick to beat others into submission.
This is the unhappy story of the 20th century. Hannah Arendt famously said, "You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs; but you can break a great many eggs without making an omelet." She was referring in part to 20th century's attempts to create an egalitarian society. All of these grand revolutions failed spectacularly, killed millions of people and caused great sorrow. Fortunately, we in India escaped the most violent outrages, but we did pay a great price in missed opportunities during the lost decades of Nehruvian socialism and the Licence Raj. Now we are more humble in our attempts to cure nature. No one talks about abolishing private property, because we know people's personal motivations will not shrink that far.
So, let's forget this talk of inequality unless we are willing to produce great crimes or suffer great costs in its name. The idea of a world in which all good things exist is not only unattainable but it is dangerous. Those who allow themselves to come under the spell of dogma, religious or secular, become victims of myopia and in the end become less human. Spontaneity is the fundamental human quality, and it's not compatible with ‘total solutions', as Isaiah Berlin said. Yet, we cannot just give up: I think we must do everything we can to reduce hunger, fight against injustice, and resist state-induced suffering, such as torture and wars. While not ruling out the unlikely possibility that human motivation might change one day and we might end the tyranny of inequality, today I think we have to "reaffirm unambiguously that open markets and rules based trade are the best engine to lift living standards, reduce environmental destruction, and build shared prosperity." Bill Clinton said this and he was right.
Monday, November 01, 2004
THE ENGLISH TEACHER
Times of India, Oct 31, 2004
An attractive lady from Shanghai showed up in Delhi last week in a Chinese delegation and told us proudly about her government’s mission to teach English to every Chinese by 2008. She was confident they would succeed, just as they would win the most medals at the next Olympics. I tried not to feel envious or fearful. Although, I didn’t think learning English would be so easy, I couldn’t help but admire the ambition. I consoled myself with a hope that in India the market might succeed in teaching us English where our government had failed
One of the cheerful things happening around us is the quiet democratising of English. It has, of course, been our ‘power language’ for 200 years, but it was always the pursuit of the classes. Even after Independence, mothers yearned to teach English to their children, thinking it a ticket to the middle class. But its spread remained limited, as the middle class was tiny--as late as 1980, it was only 8 percent of the population. Now, of course, the middle class is around 25 percent and it’s growing rapidly. By 2020, in more than half our states the middle class is expected to reach 50 percent of the population. Moreover, with call centre jobs at the end of the tunnel, Indians of all types are rushing to learn English.
Unlike my generation, today’s young are more relaxed about English and think it a skill, like learning Windows. No longer does it fly the British or American flags except in the minds of the Left or the RSS. Bollywood, television, advertising, cricket—indeed, all our mass culture is conspiring to take English to the masses. Hinglish has become the language of our bazaar. Gone, too, is the ranting against English by swadeshi intellectuals and politicians. Although English is now an Indian language, the ‘English teacher’ is the main impediment to its spread. Which reminds one of RK Narayan’s charming novel of the same name. This sad, Chekhovian tale of gentle humour about the ‘sweet and bitter fruits of life’ is still a worthy read.
Today’s English teacher earns big sums giving coaching classes, even in small towns, for there is a link to jobs. Generally, when there are profits to be made, the market responds by increasing supply, but this is not happening fast enough. Hence, call centres report that 97 out of 100 candidates get rejected--which is truly heart breaking! I am surprised that cable channels haven’t discovered this entrepreneurial opportunity because the BBC made good money teaching English to the Chinese on television, topping up with revenues from books and CD Roms. In India, NIIT is struggling to teach English in the bazaar with the aid of technology through its famed franchisee model. Rajendra Pawar, its CEO, says that teaching English is proving more difficult than teaching programming for a language is embedded in culture and needs constant use. This is why Japanese kids still can’t speak English after 150 years of trying ever since the Meiji Reforms.
In India, the Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages in Hyderabad is the institution officially charged with spreading English. I spent half a day there recently, and found that it had not had a Vice-Chancellor for two years. Under these circumstances, I cannot think of a better use for the two percent Education Cess that we are all paying than to pass it on to private schools to create English teachers, especially to teach Dalits, and nip at the same time the insane demand for extending reservations to the private sector.
An attractive lady from Shanghai showed up in Delhi last week in a Chinese delegation and told us proudly about her government’s mission to teach English to every Chinese by 2008. She was confident they would succeed, just as they would win the most medals at the next Olympics. I tried not to feel envious or fearful. Although, I didn’t think learning English would be so easy, I couldn’t help but admire the ambition. I consoled myself with a hope that in India the market might succeed in teaching us English where our government had failed
One of the cheerful things happening around us is the quiet democratising of English. It has, of course, been our ‘power language’ for 200 years, but it was always the pursuit of the classes. Even after Independence, mothers yearned to teach English to their children, thinking it a ticket to the middle class. But its spread remained limited, as the middle class was tiny--as late as 1980, it was only 8 percent of the population. Now, of course, the middle class is around 25 percent and it’s growing rapidly. By 2020, in more than half our states the middle class is expected to reach 50 percent of the population. Moreover, with call centre jobs at the end of the tunnel, Indians of all types are rushing to learn English.
Unlike my generation, today’s young are more relaxed about English and think it a skill, like learning Windows. No longer does it fly the British or American flags except in the minds of the Left or the RSS. Bollywood, television, advertising, cricket—indeed, all our mass culture is conspiring to take English to the masses. Hinglish has become the language of our bazaar. Gone, too, is the ranting against English by swadeshi intellectuals and politicians. Although English is now an Indian language, the ‘English teacher’ is the main impediment to its spread. Which reminds one of RK Narayan’s charming novel of the same name. This sad, Chekhovian tale of gentle humour about the ‘sweet and bitter fruits of life’ is still a worthy read.
Today’s English teacher earns big sums giving coaching classes, even in small towns, for there is a link to jobs. Generally, when there are profits to be made, the market responds by increasing supply, but this is not happening fast enough. Hence, call centres report that 97 out of 100 candidates get rejected--which is truly heart breaking! I am surprised that cable channels haven’t discovered this entrepreneurial opportunity because the BBC made good money teaching English to the Chinese on television, topping up with revenues from books and CD Roms. In India, NIIT is struggling to teach English in the bazaar with the aid of technology through its famed franchisee model. Rajendra Pawar, its CEO, says that teaching English is proving more difficult than teaching programming for a language is embedded in culture and needs constant use. This is why Japanese kids still can’t speak English after 150 years of trying ever since the Meiji Reforms.
In India, the Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages in Hyderabad is the institution officially charged with spreading English. I spent half a day there recently, and found that it had not had a Vice-Chancellor for two years. Under these circumstances, I cannot think of a better use for the two percent Education Cess that we are all paying than to pass it on to private schools to create English teachers, especially to teach Dalits, and nip at the same time the insane demand for extending reservations to the private sector.
Monday, October 18, 2004
WHAT IF…
Times of India, Oct 17, 2004
I have been visiting the Far East regularly now for the past thirty years, and each visit has left behind the taste of a sweet and sour Chinese dish. I have marvelled at the sweetness of their economic achievements, watching poverty vanish from country after country. The sourness comes from an unhappy comparison with India and from the sadness of our missed opportunities. Last week’s visit to Hong Kong was no different. Like many an Indian before me, I asked wistfully, what if in 1947 the British had kept the island of Mumbai for fifty years? And what if Mumbai had become like Hong Kong?
Well, for starters, there would have been a policeman on the street when you needed him and he would treat each citizen equally and politely. The roads would have been clean, nicely paved and lit at night. An impartial judge could be trusted to interpret the law fairly and speedily. A diligent teacher would have been insistently present in the government school to teach my child, and so would a doctor in a clean government hospital if I were sick. Today’s Hong Kong offers all this. Although Hong Kong does not offer political liberty or democracy, the average citizen’s life is paradoxically freer, more benign, and happier than the average Mumbaikar’s. The reason is that Hong Kong delivers far better governance and far more economic liberty. The combination of the two raises the quality of life to a level that is the stuff of ‘Bombay Dreams’.
Indians are also impressed with Hong Kong’s wealth, and for good reason. Its per capita income is higher than England’s; its exports are more than twice India’s; its reserves are also higher than the whole of India; its currency is stronger than the rupee and the Hong Kong businessman commands greater respect.
However, if Mumbai had become Hong Kong, its greatest gift would have been to fuel India’s industrial revolution, as Hong Kong has done for China. Mumbai would have kept open our window to the world when the rest of India shut down during our dark socialist decades of the License Raj. It would have kept alive our great trading traditions, as it went on to become one of the world’s financial capitals. And when India began integrating with the world economy after 1991, it would have brought not only capital for India’s industrial revolution, but also trusted relationships with customers in the global market. Smart businessmen understand that anyone can put up a factory, but it takes real talent to perceive unfulfilled needs of customers in a competitive market and success lies in satisfying and retaining their loyalty. This was Hong Kong’s great bequest to China--it not only invested financial capital in China, but it brought trusted relationships with customers that it had cultivated over decades. This is a crucial but less appreciated reason behind China’s industrial take-off.
This thought game is not a mere academic exercise. Even today, when we are struggling to unshackle the chains of state control over industry, our Leftists are determined to stop those reforms. Instead of amending our labour laws to bring us on par with our competitors, the Left wants to burden our under-performing industry by extending reservations to the private sector. I would humbly request our honourable Leftists to take the new Delhi-Shanghai flight at state expense to learn how to compete in the global economy and how to wipe out poverty in a sustainable way through growth and not subsidies. Only then will they realise the damage they are doing by returning us to the Jurassic Park of the Licence Raj.
I have been visiting the Far East regularly now for the past thirty years, and each visit has left behind the taste of a sweet and sour Chinese dish. I have marvelled at the sweetness of their economic achievements, watching poverty vanish from country after country. The sourness comes from an unhappy comparison with India and from the sadness of our missed opportunities. Last week’s visit to Hong Kong was no different. Like many an Indian before me, I asked wistfully, what if in 1947 the British had kept the island of Mumbai for fifty years? And what if Mumbai had become like Hong Kong?
Well, for starters, there would have been a policeman on the street when you needed him and he would treat each citizen equally and politely. The roads would have been clean, nicely paved and lit at night. An impartial judge could be trusted to interpret the law fairly and speedily. A diligent teacher would have been insistently present in the government school to teach my child, and so would a doctor in a clean government hospital if I were sick. Today’s Hong Kong offers all this. Although Hong Kong does not offer political liberty or democracy, the average citizen’s life is paradoxically freer, more benign, and happier than the average Mumbaikar’s. The reason is that Hong Kong delivers far better governance and far more economic liberty. The combination of the two raises the quality of life to a level that is the stuff of ‘Bombay Dreams’.
Indians are also impressed with Hong Kong’s wealth, and for good reason. Its per capita income is higher than England’s; its exports are more than twice India’s; its reserves are also higher than the whole of India; its currency is stronger than the rupee and the Hong Kong businessman commands greater respect.
However, if Mumbai had become Hong Kong, its greatest gift would have been to fuel India’s industrial revolution, as Hong Kong has done for China. Mumbai would have kept open our window to the world when the rest of India shut down during our dark socialist decades of the License Raj. It would have kept alive our great trading traditions, as it went on to become one of the world’s financial capitals. And when India began integrating with the world economy after 1991, it would have brought not only capital for India’s industrial revolution, but also trusted relationships with customers in the global market. Smart businessmen understand that anyone can put up a factory, but it takes real talent to perceive unfulfilled needs of customers in a competitive market and success lies in satisfying and retaining their loyalty. This was Hong Kong’s great bequest to China--it not only invested financial capital in China, but it brought trusted relationships with customers that it had cultivated over decades. This is a crucial but less appreciated reason behind China’s industrial take-off.
This thought game is not a mere academic exercise. Even today, when we are struggling to unshackle the chains of state control over industry, our Leftists are determined to stop those reforms. Instead of amending our labour laws to bring us on par with our competitors, the Left wants to burden our under-performing industry by extending reservations to the private sector. I would humbly request our honourable Leftists to take the new Delhi-Shanghai flight at state expense to learn how to compete in the global economy and how to wipe out poverty in a sustainable way through growth and not subsidies. Only then will they realise the damage they are doing by returning us to the Jurassic Park of the Licence Raj.
Monday, October 04, 2004
NOW’S YOUR CHANCE, MANI
Times of India, Oct 3, 2004
Mani Shankar Aiyar is my friend. I don’t hold it against him for going to the wrong school. Nor do I grudge him his failure to learn economics from his sensible brother. I also ignore his juvenile scraps, such as the Savarkar affair. I even overlook his feudal bouts of sycophancy for the first family. With all his flaws, I like him because he is wilful. He is headstrong like Arun Shourie, and only determined people make history.
What I especially like about Mani is his passion for the Panchayati Raj. And this is why I am going to give him the best advice of his life this Sunday. It is to give up the ephemeral attractions of the no-win Oil Ministry and become instead a full time Minister for Local Government. If you don’t want to go the way of the forgettable Ram Naik, and if you want to be remembered as the man who brought good governance of India, I say, go and breathe life into Panchayati Raj.
We need determined people to fight the vested interests in the states that prevent the rightful devolution of power and funds to the panchayats. Don’t cop out by saying, it is a state subject. You know as well as I that the centre controls the purse strings, which means the clout to get things done. Panchayats need the authority to sack (or at least transfer) teachers that don’t show up in school; they need to withhold the salary of doctor and nurses who are absent from primary health centres. They need funds to dig wells for drinking water and build bunds for irrigation. The politicians and the bureacrats in the state capitals are naturally dragging their feet in passing on these powers to the panchayats, who now own them by law. Hence, there’s a man’s job waiting for you—go and implement the law.
In comparison, political suicide awaits you at the Oil Ministry. With oil prices at a historic high you will be the sacrificial lamb who will only be remembered for raising prices. Moreover, the only new idea to come out from your Oil ministry is a bad one, which is to merge the oil companies. We need the opposite. We need vibrant competition between companies, both government and private, to give us an efficient oil sector. We have seen time and again, whether in airlines or telephones or TV, competition has improved services and brought down prices. What is less well understood is that intense rivalry in the marketplace also makes companies stronger. Competition is a school where companies learn to improve products and lower costs--Michael Porter of Harvard taught this lesson to the world in the 1980s. For this reason we have competing brands within P&G, such as Ariel and Tide detergent. At J&J, they used to spin off an autonomous division when its sales crossed $100 million. Competition is the lifeblood of industry; so don’t merge the PSUs.
The ancient Greeks taught us the value of realizing our human capabilities. This is a theme that Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum have also taken up in recent years. The tragedy of modern India is that so many young people don’t realize their capabilities because they lack access to quality education and health care. With a single-minded focus on Panchayati Raj, you can improve governance on the ground and help millions realise their capabilities. It is the only moral thing to do. Besides, a man can either do one thing brilliantly or two things in a mediocre way. So, follow your passion, dear Mani
Mani Shankar Aiyar is my friend. I don’t hold it against him for going to the wrong school. Nor do I grudge him his failure to learn economics from his sensible brother. I also ignore his juvenile scraps, such as the Savarkar affair. I even overlook his feudal bouts of sycophancy for the first family. With all his flaws, I like him because he is wilful. He is headstrong like Arun Shourie, and only determined people make history.
What I especially like about Mani is his passion for the Panchayati Raj. And this is why I am going to give him the best advice of his life this Sunday. It is to give up the ephemeral attractions of the no-win Oil Ministry and become instead a full time Minister for Local Government. If you don’t want to go the way of the forgettable Ram Naik, and if you want to be remembered as the man who brought good governance of India, I say, go and breathe life into Panchayati Raj.
We need determined people to fight the vested interests in the states that prevent the rightful devolution of power and funds to the panchayats. Don’t cop out by saying, it is a state subject. You know as well as I that the centre controls the purse strings, which means the clout to get things done. Panchayats need the authority to sack (or at least transfer) teachers that don’t show up in school; they need to withhold the salary of doctor and nurses who are absent from primary health centres. They need funds to dig wells for drinking water and build bunds for irrigation. The politicians and the bureacrats in the state capitals are naturally dragging their feet in passing on these powers to the panchayats, who now own them by law. Hence, there’s a man’s job waiting for you—go and implement the law.
In comparison, political suicide awaits you at the Oil Ministry. With oil prices at a historic high you will be the sacrificial lamb who will only be remembered for raising prices. Moreover, the only new idea to come out from your Oil ministry is a bad one, which is to merge the oil companies. We need the opposite. We need vibrant competition between companies, both government and private, to give us an efficient oil sector. We have seen time and again, whether in airlines or telephones or TV, competition has improved services and brought down prices. What is less well understood is that intense rivalry in the marketplace also makes companies stronger. Competition is a school where companies learn to improve products and lower costs--Michael Porter of Harvard taught this lesson to the world in the 1980s. For this reason we have competing brands within P&G, such as Ariel and Tide detergent. At J&J, they used to spin off an autonomous division when its sales crossed $100 million. Competition is the lifeblood of industry; so don’t merge the PSUs.
The ancient Greeks taught us the value of realizing our human capabilities. This is a theme that Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum have also taken up in recent years. The tragedy of modern India is that so many young people don’t realize their capabilities because they lack access to quality education and health care. With a single-minded focus on Panchayati Raj, you can improve governance on the ground and help millions realise their capabilities. It is the only moral thing to do. Besides, a man can either do one thing brilliantly or two things in a mediocre way. So, follow your passion, dear Mani
Monday, September 20, 2004
THE POWER AND THE GLORY
Times of India, Sept 19, 2004
Some say that the last government’s great triumph was to open a dialogue with Pakistan; others think it is our dramatically improved relationship with America; still others point to the success in building highways. But I say Vajpayee’s crowning feat was to unleash the telecom revolution, which has done more to improve the Indian citizen’s daily life than anything else in the past five years. This is how history remembers great leaders—by one big hit. We remember Lincoln for abolishing slavery, Churchill for defying Hitler, Gandhi for India’s Independence.
What will be your ‘big hit’, Dr Manmohan Singh? I suggest your path to glory lies in electric power. Nothing diminishes us Indians more than our power shortages. They make a mockery of our lives and remind us daily that we are a third world country. If you could usher a power revolution in the next five years, all Indians would love you and re-elect your party. It will not be easy, however, because the action here, unlike telecom, lies in states.
Our telecom success holds two lessons for power reforms—one, the crucial importance of competition; two, reforms cannot be entrusted to the incumbent. For ten years the Department of Telecom used every trick in the book to retain its monopoly. Finally, Vajpayee got so disgusted--he virtually removed the reforms out of the ministry. He appointed a group of ministers headed by Jaswant Singh, which made the crucial decision to switch from licence fees to revenue sharing. In one stroke this made the private companies viable, who began to compete like crazy, rapidly multiplying telephones and dropping prices to unbelievable levels. The rest, as they say, is history.
Similarly, the power ministries in the states and the centre will not bring in competition. This is not because they are bad people, but because they are protectors of their State Electricity Boards (SEB), NTPC, etc. It is like asking Tendulkar to be player and umpire at the same time. Or a thief to be defendant and judge! This has been the fatal flaw in our reform process, which explains why our reforms are so painfully slow.
Fortunately, the excellent new Electricity Act 2003 is committed to open access and competition. It encourages anyone to generate and sell power to anyone, thus liberating us from the monopolistic clutches of the SEB. The same thing is happening around the world, as country after country is breaking the monopoly of its utilities, with the result that services everywhere are improving and rates are declining. It is not happening in India because our states are not implementing this fine law. Admittedly, the law gives them five years to give open access, but they will use every trick to subvert this reform. They don’t want to lose a cash cow that lets them give free power to farmers, connive in power theft, and benefit from huge SEB purchases and contracts.
Alas, Dr Manmohan Singh, you will have to take away power reforms from the power ministry, and execute a tough carrot and stick policy that will force the states’ hands. The PM’s committee to monitor infrastructure progress, I fear, may not be good enough. The new empowered Planning Commission does have considerable carrots—the states depend on it for central funds. It can wield the stick and stop funds going to states that don’t implement open access. This will need ferocious resolve and persistence. But then great leaders are wilful. They are one-pointed in pursuit of their ‘big hit’. They have an uncanny ability to be one-pointed while seeming to do hundreds of things in the routine of the day.
Some say that the last government’s great triumph was to open a dialogue with Pakistan; others think it is our dramatically improved relationship with America; still others point to the success in building highways. But I say Vajpayee’s crowning feat was to unleash the telecom revolution, which has done more to improve the Indian citizen’s daily life than anything else in the past five years. This is how history remembers great leaders—by one big hit. We remember Lincoln for abolishing slavery, Churchill for defying Hitler, Gandhi for India’s Independence.
What will be your ‘big hit’, Dr Manmohan Singh? I suggest your path to glory lies in electric power. Nothing diminishes us Indians more than our power shortages. They make a mockery of our lives and remind us daily that we are a third world country. If you could usher a power revolution in the next five years, all Indians would love you and re-elect your party. It will not be easy, however, because the action here, unlike telecom, lies in states.
Our telecom success holds two lessons for power reforms—one, the crucial importance of competition; two, reforms cannot be entrusted to the incumbent. For ten years the Department of Telecom used every trick in the book to retain its monopoly. Finally, Vajpayee got so disgusted--he virtually removed the reforms out of the ministry. He appointed a group of ministers headed by Jaswant Singh, which made the crucial decision to switch from licence fees to revenue sharing. In one stroke this made the private companies viable, who began to compete like crazy, rapidly multiplying telephones and dropping prices to unbelievable levels. The rest, as they say, is history.
Similarly, the power ministries in the states and the centre will not bring in competition. This is not because they are bad people, but because they are protectors of their State Electricity Boards (SEB), NTPC, etc. It is like asking Tendulkar to be player and umpire at the same time. Or a thief to be defendant and judge! This has been the fatal flaw in our reform process, which explains why our reforms are so painfully slow.
Fortunately, the excellent new Electricity Act 2003 is committed to open access and competition. It encourages anyone to generate and sell power to anyone, thus liberating us from the monopolistic clutches of the SEB. The same thing is happening around the world, as country after country is breaking the monopoly of its utilities, with the result that services everywhere are improving and rates are declining. It is not happening in India because our states are not implementing this fine law. Admittedly, the law gives them five years to give open access, but they will use every trick to subvert this reform. They don’t want to lose a cash cow that lets them give free power to farmers, connive in power theft, and benefit from huge SEB purchases and contracts.
Alas, Dr Manmohan Singh, you will have to take away power reforms from the power ministry, and execute a tough carrot and stick policy that will force the states’ hands. The PM’s committee to monitor infrastructure progress, I fear, may not be good enough. The new empowered Planning Commission does have considerable carrots—the states depend on it for central funds. It can wield the stick and stop funds going to states that don’t implement open access. This will need ferocious resolve and persistence. But then great leaders are wilful. They are one-pointed in pursuit of their ‘big hit’. They have an uncanny ability to be one-pointed while seeming to do hundreds of things in the routine of the day.
Monday, September 06, 2004
THE LAST MILE
Times of India, Sept 05, 2004
The 'last mile' is a nice way to think about governance, and I was happy when Finance Minister Chidambaram used this phrase in his budget speech. The last mile is the place where the state meets the citizen, a space that our impudent public servants would prefer to forget. Chidambaram has proposed the sensible idea to maximise returns from existing investments in irrigation by completing the last mile in dozens of incomplete projects across the country.
My engineer father also used to talk about the last mile when I was young. He had in mind feeder canals from Bhakra Dam that he would build to irrigate farmers' fields. It was a simple, logical idea, which his 12-year-old son grasped easily, but no one told the boy that callous, insolent politicians will do everything but the logical.
The Narmada flows serenely across Madhya Pradesh. In the 1970s, the state government began to harness the river. It built a dam near Jabalpur, at Bargi, submerged 162 villages, displaced thousands of people, but forgot to build the canals. So far, it has spent Rs 2,800 crore on this project but realised only 14 per cent of its irrigation potential — just 56,000 hectares have received water instead of the promised 400,000. Lakhs of people in the districts of Jabalpur, Katni, Narsinghpur, Satna are still waiting for water that is so near and yet so far. By spending another 25 per cent this vast area would have been bursting with prosperity and become the granary of central India. Instead, it remains arid and poor.
What went wrong is that succeeding chief ministers diverted Bargi's funds for projects in their own constituencies. The first one started a dam at Bansagar in northeast Madhya Pradesh. Before he could finish it, the second deflected Bargi's and Bansagar's funds to his constituency in Chattisgarh. A third came along and rerouted the funds to his Khandwa district. In the latter, Rs 5,369 crore Indira Sagar project, the dam has again been built, but there is no irrigation in sight. The water table in Khandwa keeps falling and people feel betrayed.
The 12 year old inside me wants to know why they don't build canals at the same time as the dam? It is what they did at Bhakra and at Sardar Sarovar next door in Gujarat. If they had built canals simultaneously in Bargi, Bansagar and Khandwa the face of poor Madhya Pradesh would have been transformed. Droughts would have been averted and peoples' incomes would have doubled to the levels of the Punjab. The tragedy is that they spent 75 per cent of the funds on each project and yet the farmers did not benefit.
The lesson from this story is simple: we, as citizens, must work relentlessly to minimise the power of public servants in a democracy. It is evil behaviour of this sort that resulted in the collapse of communism. It is nastiness of this variety that has driven countries across the globe to privatise their economies. If the Narmada Valley Development Authority of Madhya Pradesh had behaved like a private company, it would have been accountable to shareholders and lenders for results. Nowhere will shareholders tolerate three incomplete projects without returns. I wonder if there is a way to enforce more accountability of irrigation projects by making beneficiaries behave like shareholders. Could we mobilise the Panchayati Raj and the Right of Information Act to this end? Politicians and bureaucrats will naturally oppose this reform as well. But let's always remember that good people, when they become public servants and have to deal with other peoples' money, become bad.
The 'last mile' is a nice way to think about governance, and I was happy when Finance Minister Chidambaram used this phrase in his budget speech. The last mile is the place where the state meets the citizen, a space that our impudent public servants would prefer to forget. Chidambaram has proposed the sensible idea to maximise returns from existing investments in irrigation by completing the last mile in dozens of incomplete projects across the country.
My engineer father also used to talk about the last mile when I was young. He had in mind feeder canals from Bhakra Dam that he would build to irrigate farmers' fields. It was a simple, logical idea, which his 12-year-old son grasped easily, but no one told the boy that callous, insolent politicians will do everything but the logical.
The Narmada flows serenely across Madhya Pradesh. In the 1970s, the state government began to harness the river. It built a dam near Jabalpur, at Bargi, submerged 162 villages, displaced thousands of people, but forgot to build the canals. So far, it has spent Rs 2,800 crore on this project but realised only 14 per cent of its irrigation potential — just 56,000 hectares have received water instead of the promised 400,000. Lakhs of people in the districts of Jabalpur, Katni, Narsinghpur, Satna are still waiting for water that is so near and yet so far. By spending another 25 per cent this vast area would have been bursting with prosperity and become the granary of central India. Instead, it remains arid and poor.
What went wrong is that succeeding chief ministers diverted Bargi's funds for projects in their own constituencies. The first one started a dam at Bansagar in northeast Madhya Pradesh. Before he could finish it, the second deflected Bargi's and Bansagar's funds to his constituency in Chattisgarh. A third came along and rerouted the funds to his Khandwa district. In the latter, Rs 5,369 crore Indira Sagar project, the dam has again been built, but there is no irrigation in sight. The water table in Khandwa keeps falling and people feel betrayed.
The 12 year old inside me wants to know why they don't build canals at the same time as the dam? It is what they did at Bhakra and at Sardar Sarovar next door in Gujarat. If they had built canals simultaneously in Bargi, Bansagar and Khandwa the face of poor Madhya Pradesh would have been transformed. Droughts would have been averted and peoples' incomes would have doubled to the levels of the Punjab. The tragedy is that they spent 75 per cent of the funds on each project and yet the farmers did not benefit.
The lesson from this story is simple: we, as citizens, must work relentlessly to minimise the power of public servants in a democracy. It is evil behaviour of this sort that resulted in the collapse of communism. It is nastiness of this variety that has driven countries across the globe to privatise their economies. If the Narmada Valley Development Authority of Madhya Pradesh had behaved like a private company, it would have been accountable to shareholders and lenders for results. Nowhere will shareholders tolerate three incomplete projects without returns. I wonder if there is a way to enforce more accountability of irrigation projects by making beneficiaries behave like shareholders. Could we mobilise the Panchayati Raj and the Right of Information Act to this end? Politicians and bureaucrats will naturally oppose this reform as well. But let's always remember that good people, when they become public servants and have to deal with other peoples' money, become bad.
Monday, August 23, 2004
TEACHING WITH A BROKEN HEART
Times of India, Aug 22, 2004
I met a dear old friend last week. She had gone abroad as a young girl, and there made a big success as an educator. Twenty years later she returned, full of idealism, and invested her life's savings to start a school. I later heard that her school had become truly outstanding. So, when we met I had expected the scent of success; instead, I saw a woman with a broken heart.She confessed she had needed 11 permissions to start her school, and each one required a bribe. Almost 10 per cent of her savings went to pay bribes when she began, and 5 per cent of her running budget goes into graft each year. She shivers each time she faces an official, and something dies inside her when she has to pay off.
This is why I was saddened by the Supreme Court's decision requiring Delhi's government to regulate private school fees, further increasing the bureaucrats' hold over schools. I am an unabashed admirer of our highest Court, which has courageously upheld our wonderful Constitution even in our darkest days. But honourable justices are also fallible and in this case they have made a terrible mistake in compromising the autonomy of schools by reversing the TMA Pai judgement. Ironically, industry won freedom from Licence Raj in 1991, but it flourishes in education. The Court is right, however, in pronouncing that schools that were given cheap land and had agreed to provide free seats to the poor must live up to that contract.
There are sharks in education as well, and we need sensible governance to catch the guilty without harassing the innocent. But price controls do not work - every country has learned the lesson the hard way. It is one of the reasons why socialism failed and communism collapsed. Only in the case of natural monopolies are price controls needed. For the rest, competition is the best price control. Private schools are not natural monopolies and parents do have a choice. Our objective should be to increase that choice. Since demand for good schools greatly exceeds their supply, fees will rise naturally. If 100 children want to study and there are only 80 seats in a school, lowering school fees will not achieve justice. You will always disappoint 20 students. But if another good school comes up, everyone will find a place and fees will not rise. The answer then is to increase the supply of good schools.
Why don't more good schools come up? It's not easy to start a school. The bureaucracy puts huge obstacles in the way. According to the Centre for Civil Society, it takes 14 licenses and permits to open a school in Delhi, and each approval comes with a price. This naturally discourages honest, idealistic, and philanthropic persons, who are often the ones who start schools. Although my friend did not give up, many do. And this is a great tragedy, for it is products of these very schools that have succeeded on the world stage and made us proud.
The quickest way to increase the supply of good schools is to reform our government schools. They are so rotten that even the poor are abandoning them. Some think that it is impossible to reform state schools. They should look at our excellent Central and Navodaya schools. So, instead of ruining private schools, our babus should do their own job and fix their own schools. Meanwhile, who will wipe away the tears of my dear friend and of the million Indians that daily fall victim to our callous and arrogant bureaucracy?
I met a dear old friend last week. She had gone abroad as a young girl, and there made a big success as an educator. Twenty years later she returned, full of idealism, and invested her life's savings to start a school. I later heard that her school had become truly outstanding. So, when we met I had expected the scent of success; instead, I saw a woman with a broken heart.She confessed she had needed 11 permissions to start her school, and each one required a bribe. Almost 10 per cent of her savings went to pay bribes when she began, and 5 per cent of her running budget goes into graft each year. She shivers each time she faces an official, and something dies inside her when she has to pay off.
This is why I was saddened by the Supreme Court's decision requiring Delhi's government to regulate private school fees, further increasing the bureaucrats' hold over schools. I am an unabashed admirer of our highest Court, which has courageously upheld our wonderful Constitution even in our darkest days. But honourable justices are also fallible and in this case they have made a terrible mistake in compromising the autonomy of schools by reversing the TMA Pai judgement. Ironically, industry won freedom from Licence Raj in 1991, but it flourishes in education. The Court is right, however, in pronouncing that schools that were given cheap land and had agreed to provide free seats to the poor must live up to that contract.
There are sharks in education as well, and we need sensible governance to catch the guilty without harassing the innocent. But price controls do not work - every country has learned the lesson the hard way. It is one of the reasons why socialism failed and communism collapsed. Only in the case of natural monopolies are price controls needed. For the rest, competition is the best price control. Private schools are not natural monopolies and parents do have a choice. Our objective should be to increase that choice. Since demand for good schools greatly exceeds their supply, fees will rise naturally. If 100 children want to study and there are only 80 seats in a school, lowering school fees will not achieve justice. You will always disappoint 20 students. But if another good school comes up, everyone will find a place and fees will not rise. The answer then is to increase the supply of good schools.
Why don't more good schools come up? It's not easy to start a school. The bureaucracy puts huge obstacles in the way. According to the Centre for Civil Society, it takes 14 licenses and permits to open a school in Delhi, and each approval comes with a price. This naturally discourages honest, idealistic, and philanthropic persons, who are often the ones who start schools. Although my friend did not give up, many do. And this is a great tragedy, for it is products of these very schools that have succeeded on the world stage and made us proud.
The quickest way to increase the supply of good schools is to reform our government schools. They are so rotten that even the poor are abandoning them. Some think that it is impossible to reform state schools. They should look at our excellent Central and Navodaya schools. So, instead of ruining private schools, our babus should do their own job and fix their own schools. Meanwhile, who will wipe away the tears of my dear friend and of the million Indians that daily fall victim to our callous and arrogant bureaucracy?
Tuesday, August 17, 2004
Bureaucracy Crippling India
Financial Times, August 17, 2004
On Sunday, Manmohan Singh, India's earnest new prime minister, declared to the nation that his top priority was to change the way government runs and improve the provision of services to the poor. This happy focus on governance is one of the unexpected consequences of the change in government in New Delhi.
For the past two months, the left has smugly spread the myth that the election verdict was a revolt of the poor against the rich. Nothing could be further from the truth. It was, quite simply, a vote against day-to-day failures of governance. Local governments in India are so eaten away by corruption and mismanagement that they cannot provide basic services to the poor such as decent schools, primary health centres and drinking water.
My cousin says that her tap began to run dry this summer just as she went in for a bath, and that is when she decided to switch her vote. What matters to the rickshaw driver is that policemen do not take away a sixth of his daily earnings. The farmer wants a clear title to his land without having to bribe the village headman. His wife wants the doctor to be there when she takes her sick child to the health centre. She also wants the teacher to show up at her village school.
This is how government touches ordinary peoples' lives, and the sobering lesson from India's dramatic election result is that decent economic growth is not enough in a democracy. India's economy had grown at 8.1 per cent in 2003 - 0.3 per cent in the last quarter, surpassing China for the first time - and, not surprisingly, the ruling National Democratic Alliance, led by the nationalist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), tried to capitalise on this feel-good factor with its "India Shining" advertising campaign. But it failed to win the election.
India's gross domestic product has been growing at close to a 6 per cent real rate for 23 years, making it one of the fastest-expanding major economies in the world. While this is slower than China, it is almost double India's growth rate of the preceding 30 years, and double the rate at which the west grew during the Industrial Revolution. More recently, India's population growth has also begun to slow; in 1998 it was down to 1.6 per cent, compared to a historic 2.2 per cent annual growth rate. And literacy has begun to climb - it reached 65 per cent in 2000 compared to 52 per cent in 1990. Almost 190m Indians have risen out of destitution since 1980 and the middle class has more than tripled to around 250m. Had India's GDP growth continued to chug along at the pre-1980 rate, Indian incomes would only have reached America's present per-capita income level by 2250; at the current rate, they will reach today's American income levels by 2066 - 184 years earlier.
The amazing thing is that all this growth is happening alongside the most appalling governance. In the midst of a booming private economy, Indians despair over the simplest public goods. The contrast between power and telecommunications is obvious to everyone. After a successful reform programme, we are in the middle of a telecoms revolution that is as profound as China's. The number of telephones has increased from 5m in 1990 to 75m and is growing by 2m a month. But power remains a "public good", as reforms have failed, and people whine about daily power cuts applied by the state monopolies.
No single institution has disappointed us more than our bureaucracy. When we were young we bought the cruel myth of the "steel frame" - a stable system that would provide continuity. We were told that Britain was not as well-governed as India because it did not have the Indian Civil Service. Today our bureaucracy has become the single biggest obstacle to development. Indians think of their bureaucrats as self-serving, obstructive, and corrupt. Instead of shepherding through economic reforms, they are responsible for blocking them.
In the 1950s, the idealistic Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister, wanted a regulatory framework for his "mixed economy", but instead, in the holy names of socialism, the bureaucrats created a thousand controls and killed our industrial revolution at birth. In my 30 years in business I did not meet a single bureaucrat who really understood my business, yet each had the power to ruin it. In the end, ourfailures have been due less to ideology and more to poor management.
Why have civil servants let us down so badly? Why do employees of India's central, state, and local governments not do their jobs? Many Indians are convinced that lifetime employment is the reason. Labour laws protect them, so they are no longer accountable. Yet we have excellent examples of good execution right under our noses - the building of the Delhi Metro, or the exemplary project management for the fast expanding National Highways system, or the running of the muncipalities of Surat and Thane. These may be exceptions, but they prove that it can be done.
Manmohan Singh believes the answer lies in sweeping administrative reform. Perhaps, he should look to Britain, where we are told 40 per cent fewer people work in the government than in 1979, and that this has not only saved more than GBP 1bn a year but improved governance. He cannot easily cut down our government, but he can certainly orient it more towards results and make it more responsive to citizens. Cynical Indians, however, have heard this song before. They think the bureaucracy is too clever and will sabotage his efforts, as it has done every time such reform has been attempted in the past 50 years.
On Sunday, Manmohan Singh, India's earnest new prime minister, declared to the nation that his top priority was to change the way government runs and improve the provision of services to the poor. This happy focus on governance is one of the unexpected consequences of the change in government in New Delhi.
For the past two months, the left has smugly spread the myth that the election verdict was a revolt of the poor against the rich. Nothing could be further from the truth. It was, quite simply, a vote against day-to-day failures of governance. Local governments in India are so eaten away by corruption and mismanagement that they cannot provide basic services to the poor such as decent schools, primary health centres and drinking water.
My cousin says that her tap began to run dry this summer just as she went in for a bath, and that is when she decided to switch her vote. What matters to the rickshaw driver is that policemen do not take away a sixth of his daily earnings. The farmer wants a clear title to his land without having to bribe the village headman. His wife wants the doctor to be there when she takes her sick child to the health centre. She also wants the teacher to show up at her village school.
This is how government touches ordinary peoples' lives, and the sobering lesson from India's dramatic election result is that decent economic growth is not enough in a democracy. India's economy had grown at 8.1 per cent in 2003 - 0.3 per cent in the last quarter, surpassing China for the first time - and, not surprisingly, the ruling National Democratic Alliance, led by the nationalist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), tried to capitalise on this feel-good factor with its "India Shining" advertising campaign. But it failed to win the election.
India's gross domestic product has been growing at close to a 6 per cent real rate for 23 years, making it one of the fastest-expanding major economies in the world. While this is slower than China, it is almost double India's growth rate of the preceding 30 years, and double the rate at which the west grew during the Industrial Revolution. More recently, India's population growth has also begun to slow; in 1998 it was down to 1.6 per cent, compared to a historic 2.2 per cent annual growth rate. And literacy has begun to climb - it reached 65 per cent in 2000 compared to 52 per cent in 1990. Almost 190m Indians have risen out of destitution since 1980 and the middle class has more than tripled to around 250m. Had India's GDP growth continued to chug along at the pre-1980 rate, Indian incomes would only have reached America's present per-capita income level by 2250; at the current rate, they will reach today's American income levels by 2066 - 184 years earlier.
The amazing thing is that all this growth is happening alongside the most appalling governance. In the midst of a booming private economy, Indians despair over the simplest public goods. The contrast between power and telecommunications is obvious to everyone. After a successful reform programme, we are in the middle of a telecoms revolution that is as profound as China's. The number of telephones has increased from 5m in 1990 to 75m and is growing by 2m a month. But power remains a "public good", as reforms have failed, and people whine about daily power cuts applied by the state monopolies.
No single institution has disappointed us more than our bureaucracy. When we were young we bought the cruel myth of the "steel frame" - a stable system that would provide continuity. We were told that Britain was not as well-governed as India because it did not have the Indian Civil Service. Today our bureaucracy has become the single biggest obstacle to development. Indians think of their bureaucrats as self-serving, obstructive, and corrupt. Instead of shepherding through economic reforms, they are responsible for blocking them.
In the 1950s, the idealistic Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister, wanted a regulatory framework for his "mixed economy", but instead, in the holy names of socialism, the bureaucrats created a thousand controls and killed our industrial revolution at birth. In my 30 years in business I did not meet a single bureaucrat who really understood my business, yet each had the power to ruin it. In the end, ourfailures have been due less to ideology and more to poor management.
Why have civil servants let us down so badly? Why do employees of India's central, state, and local governments not do their jobs? Many Indians are convinced that lifetime employment is the reason. Labour laws protect them, so they are no longer accountable. Yet we have excellent examples of good execution right under our noses - the building of the Delhi Metro, or the exemplary project management for the fast expanding National Highways system, or the running of the muncipalities of Surat and Thane. These may be exceptions, but they prove that it can be done.
Manmohan Singh believes the answer lies in sweeping administrative reform. Perhaps, he should look to Britain, where we are told 40 per cent fewer people work in the government than in 1979, and that this has not only saved more than GBP 1bn a year but improved governance. He cannot easily cut down our government, but he can certainly orient it more towards results and make it more responsive to citizens. Cynical Indians, however, have heard this song before. They think the bureaucracy is too clever and will sabotage his efforts, as it has done every time such reform has been attempted in the past 50 years.
Sunday, August 08, 2004
PAPER BARRIERS OF GRIEF
Times of India, Aug 7, 2004
One of the better things to come from this new government is a welcome focus on governance. The Left's strident threat to raise government spending on poverty and social programmes so terrified everyone — raising the spectre of blowing away the nation's hard earned savings — that our sensible prime minister quickly responded. In his first address to the nation he declared that his top priority is to change the way government runs. He followed this up with a strong letter to the CMs urging them to improve the delivery of services to the poor. Next, he got his cabinet secretary working on key administrative reforms to improve implementation by the bureaucracy.
Manmohan Singh is aware that eliminating unwanted laws or simplifying them is a powerful way to improve governance. Ten years ago when he was finance minister, he set up a group under Bibek Debroy precisely to examine this. The group made an exhaustive study of central laws and concluded that 1,500 out of 3,500 laws were obsolete. If they were scrapped or significantly modified the citizen's life would improve. Known as Project LARGE, the group brought out 30 reports and seven books that Allied published between 1994 and 1998. Arun Jaitley, as law minister, scrapped 350 of these laws. Now is the time, Dr Manmohan Singh, to follow through with the good work you began.
Although our PM thinks that most delivery problems are in the states, there are plenty at the centre too, and I shall illustrate with two examples. There is a Protector of Emigrants, an office created in the 1980s when Indians began working in large numbers in the Middle East. Meant to protect our workers from being exploited, it has become in reality a paper barrier of grief for poor Indians going abroad. Obtaining the prized ECNR stamp (Emigrant Check Not Required) on the passport is as difficult as getting a passport, and a poor worker is forced to fill the pockets of touts and corrupt officials. Graduates have little difficulty in getting the stamp, and it is now planned to exempt those who have passed high school (10+2). But why not get rid of it completely? The law never made sense — when millions work in miserable conditions at home, why should the government set standards in which Indians work abroad? The law could not prevent the Malta boat tragedy, nor stop Indian mercenaries fighting in Iraq. If the PM scraps the law, he will bring joy to many grateful Indians who want to work overseas, including his fellow Sikhs in the districts of Punjab.
A second example is a law that harasses thousands of idealistic young people engaged in volunteer work. To receive funds from abroad, charity groups and NGOs need clearance under Foreign Contributions Regulations Act (FCRA), which was enacted during the Emergency in 1976 by Indira Gandhi to stop foreign money going to the opposition, especially to Jayaprakash Narayan's movement. Today, the FCRA is a paper barrier used by bureaucrats mainly to extract bribes. It has not stopped a single terrorist from getting foreign funds. Isn't it time we abolished FCRA in the same spirit as we scrapped FERA? The liberalisation of controls will give a huge fillip to philanthropy in India and improve the lives of voluntary workers and the poor who benefit from their work.These two examples illustrate the real task of government. This is what the BJP should reflect upon in its chintan baithaks; this is what the Leftists should rant about on the tube; this is what will reduce corruption; and this is what will win elections.
One of the better things to come from this new government is a welcome focus on governance. The Left's strident threat to raise government spending on poverty and social programmes so terrified everyone — raising the spectre of blowing away the nation's hard earned savings — that our sensible prime minister quickly responded. In his first address to the nation he declared that his top priority is to change the way government runs. He followed this up with a strong letter to the CMs urging them to improve the delivery of services to the poor. Next, he got his cabinet secretary working on key administrative reforms to improve implementation by the bureaucracy.
Manmohan Singh is aware that eliminating unwanted laws or simplifying them is a powerful way to improve governance. Ten years ago when he was finance minister, he set up a group under Bibek Debroy precisely to examine this. The group made an exhaustive study of central laws and concluded that 1,500 out of 3,500 laws were obsolete. If they were scrapped or significantly modified the citizen's life would improve. Known as Project LARGE, the group brought out 30 reports and seven books that Allied published between 1994 and 1998. Arun Jaitley, as law minister, scrapped 350 of these laws. Now is the time, Dr Manmohan Singh, to follow through with the good work you began.
Although our PM thinks that most delivery problems are in the states, there are plenty at the centre too, and I shall illustrate with two examples. There is a Protector of Emigrants, an office created in the 1980s when Indians began working in large numbers in the Middle East. Meant to protect our workers from being exploited, it has become in reality a paper barrier of grief for poor Indians going abroad. Obtaining the prized ECNR stamp (Emigrant Check Not Required) on the passport is as difficult as getting a passport, and a poor worker is forced to fill the pockets of touts and corrupt officials. Graduates have little difficulty in getting the stamp, and it is now planned to exempt those who have passed high school (10+2). But why not get rid of it completely? The law never made sense — when millions work in miserable conditions at home, why should the government set standards in which Indians work abroad? The law could not prevent the Malta boat tragedy, nor stop Indian mercenaries fighting in Iraq. If the PM scraps the law, he will bring joy to many grateful Indians who want to work overseas, including his fellow Sikhs in the districts of Punjab.
A second example is a law that harasses thousands of idealistic young people engaged in volunteer work. To receive funds from abroad, charity groups and NGOs need clearance under Foreign Contributions Regulations Act (FCRA), which was enacted during the Emergency in 1976 by Indira Gandhi to stop foreign money going to the opposition, especially to Jayaprakash Narayan's movement. Today, the FCRA is a paper barrier used by bureaucrats mainly to extract bribes. It has not stopped a single terrorist from getting foreign funds. Isn't it time we abolished FCRA in the same spirit as we scrapped FERA? The liberalisation of controls will give a huge fillip to philanthropy in India and improve the lives of voluntary workers and the poor who benefit from their work.These two examples illustrate the real task of government. This is what the BJP should reflect upon in its chintan baithaks; this is what the Leftists should rant about on the tube; this is what will reduce corruption; and this is what will win elections.
Sunday, July 25, 2004
THE SERIOUSLY RICH
Times of India, July 25, 2004
I didn't get the 20-page invitation cased in silver for Laxmi Mittal's daughter's wedding. I read about it in the papers, and like many, I was left with ambivalent feelings about the Rs 200 crore celebration near Paris. I told myself that he is, after all, a self-made billionaire and a British citizen and he can certainly do what he wants with his money. Yet, there are nagging doubts that something was wrong here.
A few weeks earlier, I had met some seriously rich American billionaires in Chicago. I was struck by their unassuming, modest manners and their desire to hide their money. They spoke little about their companies, more about their philanthropies. Their heart seemed to be in giving their money away rather than in making it. In this company it would have been coarse to talk about spending conspicuously, on a wedding for example. I was left feeling that seriously wealthy Americans, at least after the first generation, seem to have taken Andrew Carnegie's admonition to heart, "Anybody who dies rich, dies disgraced." Bill Gates, the richest of the rich, symbolises this ethic — he is busy giving away most of his fortune while he is still alive.
We have a saying in North India, haveli ki umar saath saal, (the life of a business family is sixty years). The first generation makes the money and naturally wants to flaunt it, like Laxmi Mittal. The second doesn't want more money; it wants power, which might explain Anil Ambani's curious decision to join politics. Born into money and power, the third generation dedicates itself to art, or more likely just squanders the fortune. The Kennedys, Rockefellers, and others illustrate this cycle. Thomas Mann, the great German writer, made the same point in Buddenbrooks, my favourite novel about a business family. In this saga of three generations, the scruffy and astute patriarch works hard and makes the family fortune; his son becomes a senator; but his aesthetic and physically weak grandson only wants to play the violin; thus, a grand family comes to an end. This rule also explains why business families break up in the third generation.
Dutch burghers amassed great wealth in Holland's golden age, but they spent it on social good as Simon Schama describes in his charming book, The Embarrassment of Riches. Similarly, most wealthy Jain families that I know are not ostentatious and devote their money to social uplift. Thus, they help to soften capitalism, making its unequal outcomes less offensive. Capitalism becomes acceptable if everyone feels they can become a millionaire. Our recent software millionaires prove this. They did not inherit wealth, nor did they have a family name. They rose because of merit, and reflect a new social compact for post-reform India, where talent, skill, and hard work have replaced inherited wealth. Inequality is accepted in Bangalore because it does not excite envy, but hope and aspiration.
I admire Laxmi Mittal for his business acumen. He has created enormous value and jobs around the world out of sick steel companies. I always wished he would invest in India, but he says he is afraid of India's red tape. If India is a hostile place to do business, I dearly wish that he would emulate Bill Gates and spend his millions in India doing good for the poor. It is this that will win him the respect of the world. Many men can get rich but only a few can be good. And, that is a legacy worth fighting for! Who wants to be remembered as the sad Indian Gatsby who dropped Rs 200 crores on a wedding?.
I didn't get the 20-page invitation cased in silver for Laxmi Mittal's daughter's wedding. I read about it in the papers, and like many, I was left with ambivalent feelings about the Rs 200 crore celebration near Paris. I told myself that he is, after all, a self-made billionaire and a British citizen and he can certainly do what he wants with his money. Yet, there are nagging doubts that something was wrong here.
A few weeks earlier, I had met some seriously rich American billionaires in Chicago. I was struck by their unassuming, modest manners and their desire to hide their money. They spoke little about their companies, more about their philanthropies. Their heart seemed to be in giving their money away rather than in making it. In this company it would have been coarse to talk about spending conspicuously, on a wedding for example. I was left feeling that seriously wealthy Americans, at least after the first generation, seem to have taken Andrew Carnegie's admonition to heart, "Anybody who dies rich, dies disgraced." Bill Gates, the richest of the rich, symbolises this ethic — he is busy giving away most of his fortune while he is still alive.
We have a saying in North India, haveli ki umar saath saal, (the life of a business family is sixty years). The first generation makes the money and naturally wants to flaunt it, like Laxmi Mittal. The second doesn't want more money; it wants power, which might explain Anil Ambani's curious decision to join politics. Born into money and power, the third generation dedicates itself to art, or more likely just squanders the fortune. The Kennedys, Rockefellers, and others illustrate this cycle. Thomas Mann, the great German writer, made the same point in Buddenbrooks, my favourite novel about a business family. In this saga of three generations, the scruffy and astute patriarch works hard and makes the family fortune; his son becomes a senator; but his aesthetic and physically weak grandson only wants to play the violin; thus, a grand family comes to an end. This rule also explains why business families break up in the third generation.
Dutch burghers amassed great wealth in Holland's golden age, but they spent it on social good as Simon Schama describes in his charming book, The Embarrassment of Riches. Similarly, most wealthy Jain families that I know are not ostentatious and devote their money to social uplift. Thus, they help to soften capitalism, making its unequal outcomes less offensive. Capitalism becomes acceptable if everyone feels they can become a millionaire. Our recent software millionaires prove this. They did not inherit wealth, nor did they have a family name. They rose because of merit, and reflect a new social compact for post-reform India, where talent, skill, and hard work have replaced inherited wealth. Inequality is accepted in Bangalore because it does not excite envy, but hope and aspiration.
I admire Laxmi Mittal for his business acumen. He has created enormous value and jobs around the world out of sick steel companies. I always wished he would invest in India, but he says he is afraid of India's red tape. If India is a hostile place to do business, I dearly wish that he would emulate Bill Gates and spend his millions in India doing good for the poor. It is this that will win him the respect of the world. Many men can get rich but only a few can be good. And, that is a legacy worth fighting for! Who wants to be remembered as the sad Indian Gatsby who dropped Rs 200 crores on a wedding?.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
