Vivekananda - We need him now

Today is Swami Vivekananda’s 150 birth anniversary. A towering leader who has walked this land exhorting Hindus to shed dogma and apply practical Vedanta in their daily lives. He condemned narrow mindedness and counseled people to have broad view of life. His views on eliminating poverty, respecting women, nation building and a deep belief that all human beings are essentially divine is even more relevant today.

Swamiji would have been dejected to see the degeneration of values he stood for. He had particularly strong views on poverty and wanted poverty to be eliminated immediately. Here we are still debating if 50%,60% or 80% of India is poor, malnutrition etc, all this while we have surplus in the granaries. The topic of women’s empowerment was close to his heart and one can imagine the pain he would have gone through knowing the stagnation of their status in our country.

He would have scoffed at the spineless leaders who have no view of citizenship, nation building and governance. He would have rejected this whole lot as a bunch of goons feeding on the hard work of the country’s people.

Here are some gems from Swamiji. Remember he said these 150 years ago –

On the /dignity of labor he said - “The peasant, the shoemaker, the sweeper and such other lower classes of India have much greater capacity for work and self reliance than you. They have been silently working through long ages and producing the entire wealth of the land, without a complaint” - As we speak Government of India is still unable to end manual scavenging, such a shame.

On poverty he said – “ I call him a traitor who, having been educated , nursed in luxury by the heart’s bold of the down trodden millions of toiling poor, never even takes a thought of them. “

On Women he said – “ Why is it that our country is the weakest and the most backward of all countries?- because shakti is held in dishonor there. Writing down Smritis etc, and binding them by hard rules, the men have turned the women into mere manufacturing machines” – So relevant in todays context

On nation building he said – “ Our nation is totally lacking in the faculty oforganization. It is this one drawback which produces all sorts of evil. We are altogether averse to making common cause for anything, The first requisite for organization is obedience. – So true of our governance

On religion he said – “ First of all, you must remove this evil of hunger and starvation, this constant anxiety for bare existence, from those to whom you want to preach religion; otherwise, lectures and such things will be of no benefit. First bread and then religion.”

On Politics he said – “ No amount of politics would be of any avail until the masses are once more well educated , well fed and well cared for”

On Education he said- “ Education, education, education alone! Travelling through many cities of Europe and observing in them the comforts and education of even the poor people, there was brought to my mind the state of our own poor people, and I used to shed tears. What made the difference? Education was the answer I got. “

More on lower classes – “ The only service to be done for our lower classes is to give them education, to develop their lost individuality … “

On Liberty he said – “ Liberty of thought and action is the only condition of life, of growth and well-being”

On service he said- “ The poor, the illiterate, the ignorant, the afflicted – let these be your god”

There are many more gems of truth from Swamiji. If you want to know Vivekananda please read him thoroughly. It will be a transformational experience.

Direct cash transfer

Today is a significant day in the country with the rollout of direct cash transfer in 20 districts. There will be obstacles and misteps but definitely the right way. This should be spread across the country.

From a stage where only 10 ps out of 1 rupee reached the beneficiary any system that promises to do better should be welcome. Six decades since independence only the politicians and their cohorts have benifited with all the money that was spent under the social development programs.

Politicians will hate the sucess of the direct cash transfer since it will take away a significant leverage from their hands for attracting votes. They kept the citizens poor and used cash as a lure for getting votes. This will go away once citizens get independent with the direct tranfers and start thinking on their own. Basically this system will give self esteem to the poor. Till now the state and bureacracy have made the poor of the country miserable by throwing crumbs at them.

The direct cash transfer program is a technology led program and hence has more probability of success, we should just ensure that the required systems and processes around it are tight.

Well done Nandan Nilekani and team, this initiative is one of the surest way to eradicate poverty in the country. But will the political class kill it ?

Dismissive at your own cost

Our leaders have once again proved that they suffer from foot in the mouth disease. Some of the comments on the Nirbhaya incident show how far away from reality they are. Their frustation was evident in their incoherent utterances. They want citizens to be like cattle - be passive.Tthey hate demonstrations, they think they know what is good for us. You guys do not know how to run the country, make laws etc is the attitude.In the process they forgot that the new India is a connected India, there is no information gap like in the past. The new India is a danger to the political class they will keep embarassing them at every opportunity.

The response to the call from Anna on Lokpal was instantaneuos, the youth of the country for the first time rallied around him to push the government. The Delhi Nirbhaya incident is the second time. It is getting frequent and political class better be agile, be responsive and do not be dismissive.

The Khaps are still living in their own world. Thir end is not too far.

Democracies with a difference

As a keen observer of the US politics I find that both (one biggest and the other largest) democracies celebrate politics and the process of elections with gusto and fervor.

As in India the US electorate does vote based on race, beliefs (conservative, liberal etc), religion etc. The media in the US enjoys much more freedom but it is hard to get fair and balanced view since most media houses are openly biased towards a particular political philosophy (conservative, democratic, libertarian etc). Most of us around the world would have thought Obama would eventually win against a gaffe prone Romney representing a Republican party which fought on an openly anti-women, anti-gay and anti-immigrant platform. There was no way Romney would have won unless the white vote consolidated fully towards the Republicans but alas it was not to be. President Obama’s middle path has won him the day, his promise of not excluding anyone resonated with the aspirations of most Americans. It was hilarious to see debates on Fox news criticizing President Obama on almost all of his policies and attacking him viciously day in and a day out. In fact such strident advocacy against Obama may have pushed the rest of the electorate to vote for him.

Come back home, Indian media are good students of the government in power, they are not truly independent because of the constant fear of government using CBI as a weapon. There are exceptions like Tehelka etc but it is hard for media houses to survive taking on the government and political parties. Hence our political debates are muted. The standards are definitely improving but we have some way to go.

Elections in India are equally intense as in the US and even more colorful. Our elections are more of appealing to the emotions of the citizens (Vote for Indira Gandhi, Rajeev Gandhi, Vajpayee since they are good people etc) seeking loyalty and lacks serious debate on Health care, Education, Job creation, Foreign policy etc, it is more about parties promising something free, corruption related and some more local and peripheral issues. However Indians are more intolerant towards incumbents who seem not to have delivered on promises. There are exceptions however, today in Gujarat and Bihar Governments perform and all political parties are forced to talk about development due to the change leadership brought in by Mr. Modi and Nitish kumar.

Two exciting democracies with so much in common yet much different in how their politics are run.

Bring it on Arvind

Arvind Kejriwal revelations are no more shocking but are met with a shrug “we knew this was happening" expression. His rather indiscriminate firing has left him with no political friends. The congress, BJP, SP, BSP and everyone else are scared to death about his next revelations and are targeting him virulently. Is his model sustainable one needs to wait and see, but he certainly has a point, as he himself says his "specific charges" on Robert Vadra, Nitin Gadkari, Reliance etc and others have not yet been answered fully.

So why not launch a full scale investigation on all his charges, some dismiss saying Vadra is not guilty until proven (how can anyone be proven guilty before an investigation), others say why only Gakari why not investigate others too (first question are you clean), Reliance says their business conduct is above board. The most frustrating thing was some odd Haryana bureaucrats giving a clean chit to Vadra, it is a basically a slap on the face of the criminal-justice system and the nation.

Political-business and bureaucrat nexus is entrenched in the system and they will resist any move to break this union. This runs like a well oiled machine to the benefit of the few. Jaipal Reddy knows better, he asked Reliance a few straight questions that were uncomfortable and his portfolio has "changed".

While the above allegations of impropriety are few and far between, in general this is how the business works in the post-reforms India. Big money changes hands for all land allotments, resource allocations, approvals etc.

While i have no right to say politicians should not be business men but we should definitely ask how come (emphasis in India) in India most politicians are business men of some kind. Most of them have their businesses in real estate, education, mining, hotels etc, why, because these markets are not highly regulated and there is no entry barrier with lots of black money that can be ploughed in. Case in point Jagan Mohan Reddy, A Raja and others who have used their proximity to power to approve and allocate resources at whims and fancies.

I would say do not stop Arvind, keep bringing them on, name and shame.

Mango People in India

Robert Vadra should not forget apart from himself and the may be another 5% rich in India rest of us are all mango people. It is a country for the mango people ruled by the orchard owners (political parties). Since we are mango people he was able to go ahead and earn his riches like the rest of his ilk in the political class.

Obviously Robert Vadra did not have an idea about what his mango people comment can do in terms of damage, in the first place the banana republic he calls India as is governed by the party he belongs to and secondly same mango people have voted his party to power in 2009 and 2004.

His comments can be attributed to political arrogance which is on the rise in India. This arrogance spans across political spectrum. The feeling that they are above law makes them behave irrationally. They are aware the laws are for the “mango people”. In such a situation it is important for new political outfits like IAC to be successful to bring balance into the debate.

Mean while Robert Vadra should start seriously working for the cause of mango farmers in the country. India perhaps produces the best quality mangoes in the world but our farmers are not able to make money due to middle men, lack of storage infrastructure and inability to export. I am sure Robert can use his good offices to do something good here for the mango men in India.

Crony Capitalism and crooks

IAC (Arvind kejriwal) has come out with allegations of corruption against Robert Vadra. Given, he is not guilty until proven but the way Congress and Cabinet ministers lined up to defend Vadra raises suspiscions on the deals he had with DLF. Vadra joins the long list of politicians and political families who have benefited from their connections. Mr. Vadra is yet to respond to the allegations except for some feeble facebook notes. Will be there be an investigation on the specific charges?

Incidentally there is one Jagan Mohan Reddy who has done a something similar but atleast created some physical enterprises, he too blatantly exploited his father's position to strike mindboggling deals with business men. Then there are A. Raja, Kani, Suresh Kalmadi and others who basically moved money across borders etc. Most of them are under trail and not guilty but only the guillible will believe otherwise.

It will be interesting to see what more news Arvind is going to dish out, next is Maharastra and some of the politocos must be praying it is not them.