The Politics of Destabilization

Failed Protests Targeted Reformist Government

The “India against Corruption” campaign focused somewhat obsessively on corruption in high places. Accordingly, politicians and bureaucrats were labelled corrupt. As such, they have to be brought under the purview of an ombudsman; a body whose powers have to be decided by civil society activists, justices of the various high courts, eminent citizens and whoever else Hazare and his cohorts feel should be included.

The campaign attracted members who work in the modern Indian economy and are among the most obvious beneficiaries of economic reform. Bright and educated, they nevertheless overlooked Hazare’s unconstitutional political demand to override Parliament’s law-making powers, preferring to focus on the larger, more romantic objective of fighting corruption. These are men and women, incensed by reports of corruption and hungry to hitch their wagon to a messiah; much like the programming code they write or use at work to provide quick and effective solutions to problems; never mind that they are complex such as rural poverty, urban squalor, entrenched corruption, inflation, economic growth and poor infrastructure. The messiah will deliver!

Now the drama has ended, the question we must put to Hazare and his supporters is this: isn’t the bribe giver as culpable as the taker? Shouldn’t bribe givers also be brought under the ombudsman? In that case, private sector business and individual citizens will need to be included. Thus the agency would be given powers to haul up citizens, executives, boards of directors, owners. Such a sweeping empowerment holds in its own constitution the possibility of abuse.

Creating a super agency that can be abused or run amok is hardly an effective way to investigate and penalize corruption. If you look at recent allegations of corruption in the allocation of mobile spectrum, in infrastructure development, in mining…you will find these are sectors which are still under government control. To deal with this, the government introduced several bills in Parliament. Of the ones that got passed into law, there is the hugely successful example of financial sector regulation. The rest have been stalled because of the paralysis caused by the Opposition’s questionable tactics of stalling proceedings in Parliament.

As the Prime Minister said, these “second stage” reforms need political consensus. These have to do with land acquisition, environmental protection, financial regulation, education, judicial changes and a series of other difficult tasks in sectors like mining where vested interests hold sway and power, where the entire state-run system is bankrupt.

Hazare's handlers demanded their version of the “Lokpal” bill be adopted by a certain date. This was clearly not in the government’s power to promise because the bill must go before a parliamentary committee. The demand militated against compromise, leave alone consensus. It was divisive and corrosive and seemed to target a duly- elected government. In doing that, the Hazare protest revealed its ultimate goal: to destabilize the UPA government. The agenda seemed to be: create an anarchic situation that the government is unable to control it without resort to force and is thus forced to agree to mid-term elections.

What started out as a political demand to carve for themselves a role in drafting an anti-corruption bill appeared to have grown in scope. Clearly buoyed by incessant and uncritical media coverage that attracted crowds, Hazare's supporters raised the ante: derail the government.

Meanwhile, after initial missteps, the government managed to put a strategy in place to deal with the protest. Aware there was a sizable, perhaps dominant, segment of the population that wanted nothing to do with the Hazare campaign, the government moved to rally support. More and more voices spoke out, on television, in print and online, against the strong-arm nature of the agitation and its “with us or against us” stance. Anyone who challenged, as a respected television anchor did, the demands raised by the agitators, was branded as “pro corruption.”

Faced with adulatory fans in designer T-shirts and Gandhi caps, Hazare’s rhetoric became more self-congratulatory, more truculent and even abusive. He has called the Prime Minister names; the people at his rally used foul language to abuse UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, fuelling renewed suspicion that the RSS may be behind the protest. The crowds also attracted gaggles of hoodlums and petty criminals, resulting in instances of sexual harassment and theft.

Also people started looking into the antecedents of this new messiah. On Facebook, a post quoted from an article on Hazare that appeared in a Reader’s Digest 1986 edition. Among a host of petty dictatorial pronouncements, he banned the sale and use of tobacco and liquor. Those brewers and sellers who did not voluntarily accept the ban found their places of business ransacked. When some three people were caught drinking, Hazare lashed them to pillars in the local temple and flogged them personally with his army belt.

Many were embarrassed by his low-level comments about the Prime Minister, whom he called a ‘liar.” It is this lack of restraint that he and his aides demonstrated that people began to find disturbing. Hitler and Mussolini used the same tactics to discredit the political process in Germany and Italy. His methods came to be seen as Goebbelsian: pitch it as a fight against corruption when it really is an assault on the Constitution; pitch it as apolitical when it is truly a campaign to dislodge the government.

Hazare's managers became so besotted with media driven popularity that they could not see they were losing ground. The Parliament bailed them out by passing a resolution that allowed them to claim victory. In the end, India's constitutional democracy proved mature and resilient. Completely outmaneuvered, Hazare and his horde will return to the dark spaces from whence they emerged.

Not being much of a chip-on-the-shoulder patriot, on this occasion I want to shout from the rooftops: Jai Hind!

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And Accountability For All

This article appeared in The Times of India, April 21, 2010.

In many ways, the government has embarked on a path-breaking route, in terms of both domestic and foreign policy. For instance, some time ago, the issue of fertiliser subsidies came up. In one fell swoop, the government changed the game by targeting subsidies on the basis of nutrients. Thanks to the policy change, farmers will look to nutrients other than urea. This will increase yields dramatically. Urea-based fertilisers were once good and government policies championed their use. Over the years, it became clear that they had passed the point of diminishing returns. Everywhere in the world, governments have promoted suplhur-based and other nutrients in the mix to increase yields and protect the soil.

With all the noise about food inflation, the government has pointed to the exploitative role of middlemen in the journey farm products make from the fields to the market. In recent times, the finance minister has made several references to the need for organised retail in the grocery business, most recently at the CII national meeting in Delhi.

Coming to taxes, the finance minister cut individual taxes while increasing some indirect levies. The idea is sterling: put more money in the hands of middle-class families and let them decide what they can or cannot afford. If i am considering buying a car and it costs a few thousand rupees more, it is my call. By putting economic decisions in the citizens' hands, the government has been making a major paradigm shift.

The emphasis on infrastructure is also welcome. Roads, ports, airports and railroads are being built. The trouble is that modern infrastructure is at the disposal of government agencies and citizens with zero ethics or civic consciousness. Thus, it gets caught up in bottlenecks caused by lackadaisical enforcement and citizens who habitually violate the law.

For instance, many cities now have modern airports. They are like white elephants because, the minute you step outside, there is total chaos. It's the same thing for highways. We recently travelled to Chandigarh from Delhi. The road is a work-in-progress and there are significant flyovers and wide pavements. But there is total traffic chaos.

Even as you rev to the top speed of 90 km per hour, you find yourself having to deal with vehicles going the wrong way, underpowered trucks, three-wheeled vehicles, bullock carts, cycle rickshaws, handcarts, herds of cows and sheep and, scariest of all, daredevil pedestrians trying to cross the highway. They make the journey a nightmare. There is simply no policing, no signage or other facilities that go with modern highways. It's almost as though modern amenities are made available to citizens with a pre-modern mindset by officials with no clue about modernity.

The tragedy is that the police have no authority to enforce the law. Even worse, they don't even know the law. Just recently, I stopped a police car on the spanking new expressway that connects Delhi and Gurgaon to the airports. I told the police officer that the unchecked use of the expressway by two- and three-wheeled vehicles was a major traffic violation and that there were signs that these vehicles were not allowed. He told me to mind my own business. The government needs to show its hard-headedness in such matters as much as it is doing with the Maoists in central India.

Talking of internal security, the government has made major moves. It has taken on the Maoist movement with force. True, there are complaints of security forces riding roughshod over the ultras. But then, the Maoists are not known for grace and diplomacy either. A tough approach will not only contain the insurgents but also send a clear message that this is a hard government that will not stomach violent agitations.

On national security, the government has embarked on a new course. Even while initiating talks with Pakistan, it authorised a major air force exercise some time ago in the Rajasthan desert to demonstrate its fighting capabilities. It was a brilliant move to invite the defense attaches of major diplomatic missions, leaving out the representatives of China and Pakistan. The idea was to exhibit hard power.

To reinforce the government's hard line, the prime minister went to Saudi Arabia and urged its authorities to weigh in with Pakistan to control terrorist groups operating from there. It is clear Pakistan's government has neither the wherewithal nor the will to rein in various terrorist groups with a free run within the country's borders. A Saudi nudge could go a long way to boost the crippled civilian government against rogue elements within the army and intelligence agency.

In the end, however, you have in India an enlightened government beset by a crude political class, a malignant bureaucracy and a pre-modern citizenry. Also, the ship of state seems unable to deal with casteism, communalism and corruption. Bureaucrats blame crass politicians and the ignorant citizenry. Politicians castigate the bureaucracy. Citizens berate politicians and bureaucrats. It's a sort of beggar-thy-neighbour view enabling the entire system to elude responsibility. If everyone's to blame, nobody is accountable. What's clear is that citizens have to take on responsibility; blaming the government and politicians is not enough.

Copyright Rajiv Desai 2011.

Breaking News: Drowning Out a Tragedy

Blasts Show Up Television News

What exactly were the television news crews after when they fanned out in the broken precincts of Bombay on the evening of the serial bomb blasts? They were intrusive, unmindful of the privacy of injured citizens and the grief of relatives of dead victims. Screaming and shouting, they collared eyewitnesses to ask them what they had seen. Worse, they tramped into hospital emergency rooms to focus on blood and gore. The result was a jumble of accounts. Piecing the fragments together, the picture that emerged was distorted, like looking at a high definition satellite television picture in a rainstorm.

As the news spread via television, the confusion seemed to grow. The jumbled pictures and stray, disjointed comments from shell-shocked citizens did little to reveal the dimensions of the tragedy. Amid the hysterics, rumors emerged to heighten public anxiety. Emergency services took time to get to the blast sites; police officers at the venues appeared clueless and the government response hesitant.

The next day, July 14, the focus changed completely. News channels seemed to have decided to go a step beyond reporting the news. Instead, they came up with an angle: enough of praising Bombay’s resilience; time to hit out at politicians, bureaucrats and policemen for failing to prevent the attacks. Their reporters waded into trains, scoured the city, looking for the “man in the street.” They ambushed hapless citizens and made them perform to a script.

There are two problems with this: one, can journalists in reporting an event come to it with a premeditated slant? Can editors accept their reporters passing off opinions as facts? Man-on-the-street interviews are useful as local color but they can’t be the story. Or chasing celebrities for their views on the tragedy? This latter approach can only be in pursuit of ratings.

Two, what does it mean when you say Bombay is resilient? A city can have a character and Bombay certainly does have a business-like approach to life. Residents of this city carry on efficiently despite crumbling infrastructure, slums, the underworld, housing shortages, milling crowds and a general sense of decay. That is resilience but it is on display everyday, not just at times of crisis.

It appears that the day after the blasts, the channels decided that “resilience” was an old bromide with no traction among viewers. You would have thought they would have upbraided their reporters for hyping the tragedy. Instead, they sent them, armed with a line, to barge into the tragedy once again: hectoring citizens to read from their script. The crews set out afresh to interview citizens in different parts of the city, asking leading questions. The story angle was clear: left to its own devices, resilient Bombay was angry.

“This city has been the victim of many terrorist blasts. Aren’t you angry and tense? Aren’t you tired of being called resilient and left to fend for yourself? Aren’t you tired of being taken for granted by the government?” The questions flew thick and fast as did the changing headlines on television screens. “Resilient, tired, angry,” they screamed. The television news channels seemed to have decided on the line; their field reporters goaded citizens into “confirming” the story in front of the cameras.

The journalistic practices of the television news media could be the subject of scholarly analysis some distance from “breaking news.” What is of immediate concern is that such ambulance-chasing tactics stoked public insecurities. Television reporters instigated citizens to berate the government in prime time.

This is not to suggest that criticism of the government is unacceptable. Indeed, authorities must be held answerable if they fail or are slow to respond. To do this, reporters need to ferret out hard facts. The analysis can only be effective at some distance from the events. Instant judgments spread fear and rumor at a time when public anxiety is running high.

Where they had a chance to calm things down, bring people together in the face of a major terrorist attack, the news channels took a lowly road. They hyped the events and indulged in the worst kind of speculation and rumor. Sensationalism reigned supreme.

In the face of shrill attempts by news channels to show up its inadequacies, the government response was restrained. The home minister and the prime minister winged their way to Bombay within 24 hours of the incidents. The prompt steps by the leadership blunted the edge of the media’s hysterical coverage.

Finally, Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan made an appearance on all major channels and made some candid remarks about the strengths and limitations of government. His bravura performance took the wind out of media hysterics. His direct manner did much to defuse the media hype. His comments went much further than anyone in the Congress or the Opposition reckoned. Chavan was a refreshing voice on television. He spoke with a sincerity that has never been seen before. He appeared at once humble and fully in control, candid and unafraid to speak his mind.

Finally, it is a matter of some irony that the media hype may have actually denied the perpetrators of the Bombay blasts their day in the sun. Maybe India has found a way to deal with terrorism: bury it in hype, trample it in public debate. If only real people didn’t die or get injured!

Copyright Rajiv Desai 2011

English: An Indian Language

So here we go again. Language chauvinists in Goa have launched disruptive protests against the state government’s proposal that will allow primary and secondary schools to offer English as a medium of instruction. This is in addition to Marathi and Konkani.

A bunch of rabble, associated with the Hindutva forces, stopped traffic in Panjim and threatened to hold the state hostage to their misbegotten worldview. It’s not just about Goa, it’s all over India. Same people who protested against the screening of the film Slumdog Millionaire; same people who assaulted women coming out of a bar in Mangalore; same people who renamed the airport and the railway terminus in Bombay; same people who renamed Bombay, Madras and Calcutta.

English, both the language and our cultural heritage, is a convenient horse to flog. Increasingly, though, the burgeoning middle class is embracing it as the key to success in a modernizing country. Thus, while politicians go on renaming sprees, “Indianizing” names of city streets and entire cities, real estate developers across the country sell their projects with Western-sounding names such as “Provence,” “Belvedere” and what have you. In Ahmedabad, Gujarat, I have actually seen commercial and residential properties called “Manhattan” or “White House.”

Coming back to the Goa language disturbances, even the normally rational Manohar Parrikar, opposition leader and erstwhile chief minister, backed the obscurantist protest. He said if children are educated in English, they look down on their parents who don’t speak the language. He is right.

The problem with the English language is it subversive. To accept it is to accept the cultural and philosophical worldview of the Enlightenment. For example: reason, courtesy, egalitarianism and dissent. In the Hindutva worldview, these are not values that are accepted. Instead the focus is on superstition, indulgence, exclusivity and conformism. Children schooled in the English language do not easily buy into backwardness.

If you look around today, journeyman classes that offer students English-language proficiency are burgeoning everywhere. Parents and their children know that to make their way in the world, English is essential. They have no time for chauvinist arguments against the language. They just want their children to get ahead and like all solid middle class Indians place their faith in education.

This is why the Goa government’s bold move is admirable. Clearly, the state government understands that people want the choice to choose English as a medium of instruction. Given the state’s high level of literacy and per capita income, the pro-English segment is sizable and has rallied behind the government.

English has always been an Indian language. In recent years, the number of people who use English as the lingua franca has increased exponentially. A new form of the language has taken shape that incorporates Indian idioms. We are like this only. And it is increasingly accepted. R K Narayan is an early example; Salman Rushdie thrived on it.

Today global literary salons celebrate Indian writers in English bringing Indian cultural flavours to the world. I can name at least a dozen and their number is probably in the hundreds. So it is bit of madness for people in India to dismiss English as a foreign language. Supreme Court judgments are in English as are government policies. They may be translated into various languages but in the first draft they are written in English.

Vernacular chauvinists, who disparage the use of English in India, are products of a feudal mindset that portrays India as a long-suffering victim of colonial oppression. They draw inspiration from the jingoist ranting of M S Golwalkar in his aptly titled book, “Bunch of Thoughts” and amazingly enough also from the Luddite fulminations of Mohandas Gandhi in “Hind Swaraj.” Their India is a closed and diffident victim of unchaste foreigners. Today, such postures appear ridiculous and out of touch with the new, resurgent India.

Protests like the one in Goa flare up now and again, led by fringe groups that are communal and chauvinist. But they fly in the face of what citizens want. The protestors assume that the vast majority of the Indian population has no use for English. They are right; only a small section of the population use English in their lives. However, English is the language of aspirations. Even a semi-literate family in the rural areas knows that for their children to get out of the rut, the passport is proficiency in English.

Unlike yesteryear, when the language of Milton and Shakespeare was a mark of elite status, in the new India, English is the language of upward mobility. As such, it has captured the imagination of a new dynamic and youthful generation that values merit and effort as determinants of success. Its importance is gauged not from numbers but from its grip on the imagination of the burgeoning middle class.

English was introduced as a medium of instruction nearly two centuries ago by British liberals, hoping to “instruct” generations of Indian youth so they could become adequate civil servants in service of the Crown. Many young people from traditional upper caste families eagerly embraced English and parlayed it into a comfortable livelihood with steady incomes and various privileges.

As India enters a new phase, going from a uniquely-won independence to global recognition, English is again the agent of aspiration and change. And it gives me pause to think about just how prescient Thomas Babington Macaulay was when he said in his “Minute on Education:”

“Whether we look at the intrinsic value of our literature, or at the particular situation of this country, we shall see the strongest reason to think that, of all foreign tongues, the English tongue is that which would be the most useful to our native subjects.”

Curiously, today’s chauvinists who protest the use of English reserve their worst for those who celebrate it as a dynamic Indian language. They call us the children of Macaulay; one of several “M’s” they hate including Marx, Modernity and Muslims.

An edited version of this article appeared in Education World, July 2011.

Copyright Rajiv Desai 2011

Beyond the corruption battle

Let us not get carried away by the crusade of the self-appointed guardians of public interest

First, a "fast unto death" fueled by Information Technology; now, another one inspired by Yoga. Two of India's major exports have come home to roost, cheered by hyperventilating television news channels. Combating corruption is the larger cause that Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev advocate. And damned be him that first cries, 'Hold, enough!'

Never mind the Constitution; a pox on all politicians, Hazare says. The good people of India are on the move. By the sheer goodness of their lifestyles, by the shining nobility of their intent, they will cleanse the body politic. Girding his high-minded campaign is a bare-knuckle political demand swaddled in Gandhian homespun: give my chosen people a say in the framing of the Lokpal bill.

Who elected you? We nominated ourselves by virtue of Magsaysay awards and membership in "peoples' movements." What about the Constitution? Ours is a higher cause.

Ramdev's demands are too absurd to be given any sort of respectability. His potent mix of religiosity and postmodernism threatens, nevertheless, to overwhelm the Hazare protest. His followers are true believers, seeking to achieve perfect communion of the self with the universal truth.

In contrast, the cappuccino-swilling denizens of cyberspace, who form the bulk of Hazare's supporters, are causerati; tomorrow they will turn their attention to the dangers of cellphone use or the hazards of nuclear power. Small wonder then that Hazare, despite being "unwell", has said he will be present at Delhi's Ramlila Maidan in solidarity with the godman.

The question arises though: if civil society activists inspired by grandiosity and true believers mesmerised by a godman can demand a say in the way laws are made and the government is run, then why not business associations like the CII and Ficci? Or trade unions? Or for that matter, Rotary and Lions Clubs? What makes Hazare and Ramdev and their acolytes so special?

What is alarming about the hunger strikes is that the people who support them seem to have no time for political processes and constitutional restraint. Indian democracy has managed to negotiate the mind-numbing diversity that could have splintered the country; the Constitution is a charter that legitimises and separates the role of the executive, the legislature and the judiciary. Despite the obvious governance deficit, there prevails a modicum of the rule of law.

Changes are needed to usher in the idea of a government not as a master but in service of the people. A corollary to the notion of government as master is that of bureaucrats and politicians as a rentier class that extorts money from hapless citizens to provide services and permissions as favours rather than as due process. This is the source of corruption in all socialist systems where the dead hand of government smothers entrepreneurship and opportunities to make a dignified living.

India took a giant step two decades ago when it scrapped the licence-permit raj. Its emergence as a significant global player can be traced back to the reforms of 1991. Loosening controls is easier than the second stage of reform: to provide effective governance. Political stability is a key element in second-stage reforms.

In the UPA's first turn, we had the unseemly spectacle of an arrogant Left combining with a peeved BJP in an effort to oust the government over a foreign policy initiative: the strategic partnership with the US. The UPA survived and in the 2009 election went on to win bigger. The Left and the BJP saw their influence shrink dramatically.

But political uncertainty persisted as the UPA was confronted with accusations of corruption in telecom deals, the Commonwealth Games and various other projects. Today's challenges come not from opposition political parties but self-appointed guardians of the public interest: righteous activists and now, a slippery godman. Dealing with such groups is problematic because they don't abide by the Constitution but owe allegiance to a "higher cause".

TV news channels and to a lesser extent, the print media are obsessed by these protests. They convey the impression of a corruption-singed government at sea in the face of this 'uprising'. Overwhelmed by deafening din of TV reporters without the slightest sense of objectivity, I fled to the sanity of international journalism. There I found the following stories:

• The Indian government has drawn up ambitious plans to double exports to $500 billion in the next three years. The trade-to-GDP ratio has already increased from 15% in 1990 to 35% today.
• With supportive government policies, India's pharmaceutical sector has emerged as a global force, supplying low-cost, high-quality off-patent medicine to the developed as well as developing nations.
• India has become the world center for 'frugal engineering', manufacturing low-cost products that are resistant to tough environments while maintaining high quality standards.

This is not to suggest that the protests should not be covered; only that it should not lead to a situation in which the adversarial nature of the relationship between the media and the government is twisted so much that a duly-elected government is portrayed an enemy of the people.

It would be fair if Indian journalists could also track other stories as well: of an India that is rapidly finding its metier on the world stage; of the rising aspirations of young India confronting the victim mindsets that enervate the older generation.

This article appeared in The Economic Times, June 4, 2011.

Copyright Rajiv Desai 2011

Goa Journal

The Anxiety of Freedom

Panjim: The beginning is mundane. You arrive at a jetty on this capital city’s iconic waterfront, tumble out of the car, make an awkward climb to a floating jetty and jump into the boat. After that, it is a liberating experience.

Within minutes, the speedboat set off to explore the Mandovi River and its backwaters. We flitted in and out of waterways and their littorals, the mangroves that seemed to eat into the river as our boat maneuvered past overhanging branches through the twisting, winding backwaters. A calm descended on us; the outside word ceased to exist.

For a fleeting moment of schadenfreude, we thought about friends in Delhi and Bombay, stuck in traffic jams and all manner of urban discomfiture. As we floated through the backwaters, it seemed to me we had chanced upon an undiscovered world. And as we emerged from this mysterious water world back into the mainstream, we were confronted by sweeping vistas on offer by the mighty Mandovi.

Rivers play an important role in the life of India. They are considered sacred but modern India treats them as sewers, dumping waste and poisons in them. Most rivers in India are dirty and dying. The Mandovi is, in stark contrast, clean and is used for commerce and transport. Now, it is being increasingly used for pleasure.

And so it was for pleasure that we found ourselves rolling on the river. With the wind upon our faces and wonder in our eyes, we floated in the waters and saw a Goa that is mind-boggling; away from the beaches and the tourist spots. Time stood still here and the two hours stretched to an eternity.

The Mandovi tidal basin is an intricate system of wetlands, marshes and paddy fields, intersected by canals, dykes, bays, lagoons and creeks. The river and the backwaters are governed by regular tides that reach up to 20 miles upstream.

Our two-hour long experience on the Mandovi filled us with reverence for the majesty of nature. The river seems eternal; I use the word “seems” because it is impossible to grasp and define eternity in terms of years, centuries or millennia. And understanding this, the use of “seems,” puts you face to face with spirituality and its temporal offshoots: faith and communion.

Herman Hesse in his book Siddhartha wrote about “the restless departures and the search for stillness at home; the diversity of experience and the harmony of a unifying spirit; the security of religious dogma and the anxiety of freedom."

Over the years, I have come to celebrate diversity, to value harmony. Now I am concerned about religion and its effect on, “the anxiety of freedom.” These imponderables have occupied my thoughts. I have often wondered, wouldn’t it be so much simpler to be a man of faith?

But where do you place your faith?

Of all the religions, I have always been intrigued by Catholicism and its celebration of faith and communion, week after week; generation after generation; across communities, nations and cultures. Each Sunday, believers go to church and reaffirm the dogma that Christ was born of Immaculate Conception; He was crucified and rose from the dead. This they call proclaiming the mystery of faith. They receive the wafer and wine believing them to be the body and blood of Jesus Christ, which they call the Holy Communion, the Eucharist, the thanksgiving.

That afternoon on the boat, contemplating the majesty of the river and its various branched waterways, I began to get a glimmer of the spirituality of faith and the mystery of communion.

And no, I have not found religion. I still remain firmly a skeptic. But that experience on the Mandovi will make me a tad slower to challenge matters of faith. Call it the anxiety of freedom.

On our way back to the dock, we stopped midstream for a libation and a view of Panjim as the lights came on. It was a spectacular sight; the neat laidback city on the estuary came alive with its nocturnal personality. It was not Manhattan or Chicago but from the darkness enveloping the river, it was a sign of civilization. In the end, despite the majesty of nature, the lights of Panjim were comforting, a sign that in the end, civilization is what this world is about.

As we returned to shore, we were forced to contemplate mundane problems like where to have dinner. We settled on a restaurant in Candolim, the hip and happening place in north Goa. When we reached there, a solo singer was in attendance.

When we walked in, he launched into the Louis Armstrong 1968 classic vocal that celebrates nature, humanity, eternity: the wondrous mystery of life: What a wonderful world...yeah!

Copyright Rajiv Desai 2011

Fast Times in Modern Democracy?

Anna Hazare’s “fast unto death” is a throwback to more innocent times when the oppressor was colonial, clearly identified and vilified. Today, it is infinitely more complex. Hazare on a protest fast may evoke a longing for the black and white simplicity of yesteryear. The nostalgic appeal has sparked a cyber rush among young chatterati who wander aimlessly through the hills and dales of social networks, seeking company, making connections, buying and selling ideas and products.

If you cut back to the 1080i high definition picture of modern life with its 5.1 surround sound track, you’ll find that Hazare and his handlers have cleverly manipulated an old symbol made famous by Mohandas Gandhi. Calling it a fast against corruption, Hazare has touched a chord among young cyber savvy Indians, who see in the old man’s protest a chance to fulfill their youthful aspirations to revolt against the system. Budapest in the 1950s; Paris and Chicago in the 1960s; Beijing in the 1980s; Prague in the 1990; Cairo and Tunis recently and now Delhi.

Clearly, the seemingly innocent khadi-clad activist and his wily handlers have managed to rally young netizens. By calling it a fight against corruption, they have cleverly deflected the glare from the hard political demand underlying the fast: give civil society activists a role in framing laws; a demand no government can concede without violating its oath to uphold the Constitution.

The notion that civil society activists must be given a say in the framing of the anti-corruption law is misbegotten. No matter how righteous the cause; no matter how pious the protest, activists have no locus standi as lawmakers. The Constitution is very clear on the separation of powers and reserves the law making function to elected representatives.

Stripped of its saintly posture, Hazare’s protest is a challenge to the Constitution. Dreamy and romantic netizens, who have been set all a-twitter by it, don’t seem to realize that Hazare and his handlers have been active since the 1970s. Styled as people’s movements, these groups have never embraced the Constitution as the final arbiter of political, social, economic and cultural diversity. Theirs was always a higher cause.

The Constitution has helped India negotiate diversity, poverty and various challenges to emerge as one of the world’s fastest growing countries. Its government now has a seat at the high table of international diplomacy; its economy has lifted millions from abysmal poverty; its political system consists of the exercise of the largest franchise in the world blessed with a “throw the rascals out” mindset of the electorate.

Hazare’s crusade draws ideological inspiration from Hind Swaraj, the Gandhian diatribe against modernity. Corruption seems to be merely a cause recruited in the long-term campaign against modernity. It’s a clever choice because indeed corruption is public affairs topic one.

Fed up with incessant reports about large-scale corruption, influenced by the Jasmine scents of Tunisia and Egypt, hundreds of young people have rallied to the cause. In North Africa, the targets were clear cut: long ruling dictators. Here there is a democratically elected government. Even if the protest can draw hundreds of thousands of people into the streets; even if the most righteous, learned and saintly people turn out; they cannot challenge the legitimacy of an elected government.

What Hazare and his fellow travelers are saying is not new; they’re on a well-charted path laid out in Gandhi’s book. They damn the entire political process as corrupt and seek to replace it with high-minded vigilantism. Even if it is composed of angels and saints, a vigilante group has no place in a modern constitutional democracy.

This article appeared in The Economic Times, April 10, 2011.

Copyright Rajiv Desai 2011

Is the Jan Lokpal Bill the answer?

Ibnlive.com
Posted on Apr 07, 2011 at 12:12pm IST

What is Anna Hazare really campaigning for? To Indian citizens, his courageous display of moral outrage represents a crusade against corruption. This is a time when the ruling UPA Administration is beleaguered not only by the surfacing of a number of big-ticket scams but also by its inability to act firmly against the people seen to be the perpetrators. No wonder, then, that Hazare’s fast has become for angry Indians a potent symbol of protest against dishonesty. And it is this that has become a clarion call for citizens raising their voice – online and offline.

However, the majority of his newfound supporters are probably not aware of the precise nature of Hazare’s demands. He is asking for a drastically revised version of the Lokpal Bill, the draft legislation that seeks to set up a body to investigate accusations of corruption against individuals and institutions within the government and the administrative machinery around the country. Or, against public servants.

An alternative version of this Bill, dubbed the Jan Lokpal Bill, has been drafted by, inter alia, former Union Law Minister Shanti Bhushan, former IPS officer Kiran Bedi, Justice N. Santosh Hegde, renowned advocate Prashant Bhushan and former chief election commissioner J. M. Lyngdoh. Perhaps the most striking aspect of this version: it seeks to virtually bypass the involvement of the government in the process of creating the Lokpal body.

Thus, the selection committee it envisages would include, among others, all laureates of Indian origin, the last two Magsaysay Prize winners of Indian origin, the two seniormost judges of the Supreme Court and of the High Courts, and Bharat Ratna award winners. The Administration would be represented by the chairpersons of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, the Chief Election Commissioner and the Comptroller and Auditor General.

Clearly, this version sees no role for the people who have been democratically elected to govern the country. The message runs deep: to adopt such a system would be to acknowledge the failure of democracy as an institution, and install a vigilante-oriented body that can act on its own discretion in terms of what and whom to investigate and has police powers to prosecute perceived transgressors.

There is a naïve idealism imbued in this alternative structure, implying that the women and men who will be members of the Lokpal will be perfect citizens with no agenda other than weeding out corruption. But its powers will be sweeping, and with no checks and balances, what will prevent such a body from turning into a motivated, witch-hunting mchanism? The wheels of the administration may grind frustratingly slowly, but that also reduces the chances of the kind of arbitrary prosecution that India saw during the Emergency.

For instance, among the activities that the Bill considers as evidence of corruption are:

1. Gross or willful negligence; recklessness in decision making; blatant violations of systems and procedures; exercise of discretion in excess, where no ostensible/public interest is evident; failure to keep the controlling authority/superiors informed in time.

2. Failure/delay in taking action, if under law the government servant ought to do so, against subordinates on complaints of corruption or dereliction of duties or abuse of office by the subordinates.

3. Indulging in discrimination through one’s conduct, directly or indirectly.

It is not difficult to see the room for interpretation here, leading to persecution rather than prosecution. In effect, the Jan Lokpal Bill wants to arm the Lokpal with powers that combine the Legislative, the Judiciary and the Administrative. The way its creators see it, it can set policy, investigate and prosecute, and sit in judgment.

Step back further, and a larger question presents itself. Are democratically elected and constituted institutions no longer to run this country? The extreme measures proposed in this ‘people’s version’ are a measure of the unhappiness, frustration and anger within civil society at what appears to be the tacit complicitness of government in corruption. However, to demand sweeping powers on the basis of moral outrage is another matter altogether.

None of this is to disparage the purity of Anna Hazare’s mission - or the Indian citizen’s eagerness to join hands with him in what is perceived as a crusade against corruption. But in its present form, the Jan Lokpal Bill may only substitute one monster with another.

A Short History of Public Relations in India

Growing Importance, Declining Values

Speech at Communications Unplugged

A TED^X Event

MICA, Ahmedabad, Gujarat

February 26, 2011

Good morning.

Many thanks to the organizers for this opportunity.

I’d like to talk to you this morning about the history of public relations consulting in India.

My perspective is unique.

The firm that I founded in 1987 was the first of its kind in India.

So the history of the business intersects with my own experiences in the business.

Coincidentally, it also is a history of economic liberalization in India.

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Does anyone know how old the business is?

Well, it dates back to biblical times.

The first PR consultant was with Moses, when he led the Jews out of Egypt to escape the Pharaoh’s vicious rule.

Thousands of Jews followed Moses as he led the march to freedom in the “promised land.”

The flight came to a stop at the edge of the Red Sea. With the Pharaoh gaining on, his followers turned to Moses, praying for help.

“Don’t fret,” Moses told them. “I will part the sea and we will simply walk across.”

Everyone was awestruck; religious fervor rose to fever pitch. They hailed Moses as the Messiah. They swore loyalty and fealty and praised the Lord.

Among them was this public relations consultant, who spotted a huge opportunity. He went up to Moses.

“Look chief, if you pull this off, I can get you 10 pages in the Old Testament.”

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By comparison, PR is relatively young in India; but the issues are similar: about right and wrong; ethics and morality.

Let’s take a closer look…

In 1988, when I had just launched IPAN, India’s first PR consulting firm, I was asked by a journalist from The Economic Times to explain the essence of public relations.

I held out two identical pencils. “The one in my left hand is made by Tata; the other by Reliance. Which would you pick?”

Guess which one the journalist picked?

Today, he may have picked neither; then he picked the Tata pencil.

Asked to explain the reason for his choice, the journalist said it was because Tata has a better reputation than Reliance.

Since neither company did much by way of corporate advertising, focusing instead on product advertising, it is clear that Tata did all kinds of things that got noticed and met with public approval.

In advertising parlance, these are known as “below the line” activities.

That, I told the journalist, is the essence of public relations.

The job of a public relations man is to persuade his client to do good things, ensure they get noticed and thus win the public trust.

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One of the 20^th century’s foremost public relations men was Mohandas Gandhi. As such he did not have a client but a higher cause.

His “Satyagraha" was a shrewd strategy that attracted media attention: whether he was burning passes in South Africa or making salt in India.

Familiar with the British press, parliament and courts, Gandhi knew instinctively which buttons to push.

He used the press and the courts to stir British Parliament.

Just how sophisticated was this strategy!

Gandhi figured that non-cooperation would force the colonial government to respond with violence and incarceration.

This made the front pages of British newspapers and forced Parliament to act.

In the end, Indian independence came when the differences between Parliament in London and the colonial government in Delhi became irreconcilable.

It’s too bad that India has deified Gandhi. One of the titans of the 20^th century is now worshipped when he deserved to be studied.

But I digress…

I want to trace for you the growth of the business since I founded the first PR consulting firm in 1987.

PR consulting started out with a bang.

The company I founded, IPAN, was first off the block.

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One early client was Pepsi that had struggled for more than two years to secure government approval to set up operations in India.

When we arrived on the scene, Pepsi had become the butt of negative stories in the press and questions in Parliament.

Beleaguered, the American company changed partners and roped in Voltas and the Punjab Agro-Industries Corporation.

From January 1988, we went to work, trying to beat back the disinformation spread about the company in the media and in Parliament.

At the time, the soft drinks industry in India was small, dominated by one player, Parle that had 80 percent of the market.

A check with the media and various politicians told us the campaign against Pepsi was orchestrated by Parle.

Our strategy then became not to reply to the negative stories but to show that the entrenched soft drinks lobby was behind the negative publicity.

We also showed that the soft drinks industry in India simply could not meet the demand and that there were huge quality issues.

Then, we highlighted Pepsi’s commitment to Punjab; that they would help farmers build a value-added business of growing potatoes and tomatoes.

Thus, we were able to demonstrate that entry of Pepsi was in the public interest.

We were able to do that once we convinced the press and the parliamentarians that the campaign against Pepsi was simply a market manoeuvre.

It took until September when the government okayed the Pepsi project.

In the flush of victory, many people told me it had to do with my equation with Rajiv Gandhi.

In fact, Voltas had a “resident director,” Anil Shastri, who went on to become the minister of state in the finance ministry.

Neither of us brought up the subject in our interactions with Rajiv.

No, the approval for the Pepsi project did not result from influence peddling.

What we did was change the focus of public debate.

The domestic sector had raised all kinds of from pseudo nationalistic issues.

We said it was just plain commercial rivalry.

We said it often and with great conviction.

Once that message sank in, we were able to tell the Pepsi story and how it would benefit India, Punjab and soft drinks industry.

Today you know how Pepsi has gone on to become a youth icon.

The company has created thousands of direct and indirect jobs, not just in bottling and distribution but also in advertising, pr and other ancillary businesses including the paanwallahs and various others in the “unorganized” sector.

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A year later, there was Citibank. Its local management was charged with introducing the global consumer to India.

At the time, the sector was monopolized by public sector banks that were charged with “social banking.”

There was no sense of consumer banking: no credit cards, no ATMs, no mortgages, and no car loans.

Citibank had applied for licences but was stumped by the government banks and the Reserve Bank.

The idea was to prove to the government that the lobby against foreign banks was sheer ideological bias.

We conducted a survey that showed among the regulatory agencies, there was perceptible bias against Citibank.

Our counsel was to highlight the fact that Citibank that had done business in India since 1902 was very much part of the national agenda.

To this end, we persuaded Citibank to make a strong pro-India statement in response to the US Trade Representative’s decision to name India as an unfair trader under a new law called Super 301.

The bank’s New York public affairs unit submitted an affidavit to the USTR saying their experience was that India is a fair trader.

We gave the story as an exclusive to India’s most credible economics writer.

It made a huge splash and rapidly changed perceptions about Citibank.

In the event, the Indian government gave Citibank permission to set up their consumer operations in India.

The rest is history: what we take for granted now—credit cards, auto loans, mortgages, consumer financing—had their origins in the campaign by Citibank.

Over the years, millions of people in India were empowered: to buy cars, appliances, vacations and homes and also stocks and mutual funds and insurance.

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In 1991, a young English guy came and talked to me about a pie-in-the-sky venture called Satellite Television Asia Region, now known as STAR TV.

Promoted by Richard Li, a twenty-something from Hong Kong, the satellite television venture ran into predictable opposition from the information and broadcasting ministry that had a monopoly on television.

By creating a business opportunity for small and medium enterprises, cable operators and equipment manufacturers, we advised STAR TV to challenge the government monopoly by rallying these newly-minted businesses to support them.

In a final bid to retain its monopoly, the government introduced the confused Cable and Satellite Regulation Act in 1993 with view to curb the threat to its monopoly.

We helped STAR TV rally support from cable operators and equipment manufacturers to fight against the bill’s unreasonable strictures on the cable and satellite business.

Today, there are still many flaws in the cable business, which got taken over by thugs and political goons, and has therefore languished in technological backwaters.

In the event, cable has been surpassed by organized satellite broadcasters. And we have global quality direct-to-home television.

In freeing the television business, STAR TV created thousands of jobs not just in their direct operations but in associated businesses.

Though I must add the boom in television broadcasting is not all to the good.

The news element is beset by shrill incompetence.

The entertainment business has revived all manner of traditional practices that have no place in a modern society.

On the whole, though, it has been good for the country.

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These three case studies were about success in challenging monopolies.

One of the things we prided ourselves on was our involvement at the very cutting edge of change in India.

As India evolved rapidly into a consumer market, we were there.

Pepsi Citibank and STAR TV changed everything.

The Indian citizen, always beset by a scarcity mindset and a make-do culture, now had choice and abundance.

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The next case study is one of which I am very proud.

In 1993, Manmohan Singh, then finance minister, was about to announce a path-breaking budget that dissolved the licence-permit raj.

The previous December, we were retained by the Indian Soaps and Toiletries Manufacturers Association to help their campaign to bring down taxes.

They told us the government was ready to slash taxes on the sector but it was important for ISTMA to handle the “fallout.”

Toiletries and cosmetics were treated as somehow not in sync with tradition.

The sector also was treated derisively by policy makers and their academic fellow travellers.

“You talk about lipstick and perfume when there so many millions in the country who can’t get a square meal.”

This was a typical rejoinder from high-minded mandarins in the bureaucracy and in the academy.

But Singh saw the merit in the ISTMA argument that reduced taxes could help the sector boom and provide jobs and additional revenue from increased sales volumes.

Our effort to handle the “fallout,” began with the prejudice issue; we asking well-known women across the country to sign a petition that said toiletries and cosmetics were in fact a part of the Indian tradition.

On the taxation issue, we made common cause with many economists who showed how lowering rates could boost tax revenues.

Finally, we worked with consumer groups such as Common Cause to highlight how high taxes bred spurious and pilfered products that posed a hazard to consumers.

It was with great satisfaction that on budget day 1993, we found the finance minister had used lines from our petition to announce a huge cut in tax rates on the sector.

Since then, as we all know, the toiletries and cosmetics business boomed.

And the boom energized the beauty sector and made India into a super power, winning back to back titles in the various contests such as Miss World and Miss Universe.

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In recent times, we’ve dealt with the commissioning of the Bandra Worli Sea Link.

You may know that there were several contentious issues that swirled around the project that was built by HCC, a Bombay-based infrastructure company.

One was about delays and cost escalation.

Another was about the sustained opposition from so-called activists.

By positioning the bridge as the icon of 21^st century Bombay, we gained support from the media, political leaders and prominent citizens.

Tools included a National Geographic documentary that highlighted the state-of-the-art technology.

Also the bridge was offered as a backdrop to a Times of India promo featuring Amitabh Bachchan.

We also helped the company set up an experience center at the site.

This became a good way to educate media and others about the project.

On June 30 2009, when the project was officially commissioned, political leaders, bureaucrats and prominent citizens literally fell over each other for an invitation to the function.

The Bandra Worli Sea Link is a boon to Bombay’s frazzled commuters and is an indispensable part of the city infrastructure.

It is well on the way to replacing the colonial-era Gateway of India as the icon of 21^st-century Bombay.

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In “breaking news,” our most recent project is the Lavasa Hill City that is coming up near Poona.

The first of its kind in independent India, Lavasa is a new-age concept that uses the principles of the “new urbanism” in which urban areas are planned so that people can live, work and play there.

Under assault from Luddite groups and an ambitious union minister, the project is currently stranded.

I can’t tell you much more than that.

Except the Lavasa project has challenged the notion purveyed by various activist groups that all development is bad.

That in fact, development is a carefully considered choice in which growth and environment need to be balanced.

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In the nearly 25 years of its existence, the public relations consulting business has grown in importance.

In the early years, it played mainly an advocacy role, helping international and domestic companies pioneer new businesses in India.

Later, it became an adjunct to corporate marketing departments, focused mainly on media relations.

Now it has assumed a management function, helping newly empowered corporate communications department meet the growing demands for advocacy, media relations, media monitoring, training, cyber PR, government relations, recruitment, and CSR.

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There is however a darker side to our discipline.

And it needs to be addressed squarely else we lose credibility as a 21^st century discipline.

As it has grown in importance, professional values and ethics have become somewhat blurred.

This has become painfully evident in recent months.

I refer here to the telecom scam and role played in it by a PR consulting firm and its chief executive.

It is amazing that a single person, with no previous experience in the field, climbed to such dizzy heights using influence peddling techniques.

As such, she was entrusted with the responsibility to manage corporate communications for India’s two largest conglomerates.

It is even more amazing that the heads of both these behemoths heeded the advice of an untrained and inexperienced person.

The 2G scam dented many individual and corporate reputations.

My concern here is to make a clear distinction between the practice of professional public relations and the kind of influence peddling that was revealed in the scam.

We need for the profession to embrace some sort of a pledge like the Hippocratic Oath in which, among other things, the practitioner pledges “first, do no harm.”

Thank You

Copyright Rajiv Desai 2011