Cricket fans parented Virat Kohli ???

Within moments after Virat Kohli got out in the India vs Australia semifinals match, social media was flooded with jokes about him, his ads and his personal life. Many started blaming Anushka and concluded that his relationship with her was the reason behind his bad performance. There were many reactions and counter reactions from all sections of the social media.

One of the jokes that went viral was regarding his ad which says “Virat, I want you here in 5 minutes”. These kinds of jokes  are common. Even in advertisement with Ranbir (Pepsi), when Virat asks “main kya karoon Aunty?”, he was told “Tu ad shad na kiya kar beta, apne game pe dhyan de”. It is all part of fun.

But somewhere the pun has crossed the sportive limits. Our society’s natural instincts came forth. As many in social media rightly pointed out, this episode shows our casual approach towards women. Majority of the men who go behind women, take no time in blaming them for anything wrong. Discredit is usually given very generously to them. But the point of this article is something else.

For me, this episode has brought out some other important issue – that of ‘parenting’. Indian parents in general underestimate the multi-tasking capability of their children. They think that any involvement in extracurricular activities will ruin student’s studies. They are also apprehensive about their kids having too many friends. This is one of the main reasons for very meager participation of children in sports and arts. (Though the situation is improving now, it is still a long way to go)

I believe that our reaction towards cricketers’ performances reflected similar kind of parental no confidence. We expect them to perform and for some reason if they did not, immediately we tend to blame on their extracurricular. If some player is getting married or just had a baby – we might not blame these situations for their under performance. Why so? - Because they are acceptable to our parents and the society in general. Also, parents create ‘end of the world’ and ‘do or die’ situations for kids sometimes and react violently if they fail. Similar was the reaction when Indian fans threw bottles, chappals at our players in 1996 world cup semis?

Ads, personal life, IPL and many others will definitely have an effect on the players but both positively and negatively. When fans relate to these only negatively, I feel they are trying to parent the players just the way they themselves were parented. Was that what happened with Virat? We had too high expectations from him in this series, failing which fans parented him in the typical Indian parents’ way. Didn’t they?

e-solutions -- Effective solutions ???

The Union government launched a new initiative, Twitter Samvad a few days ago to enable and keep the government-citizen conversation going. This government’s determination towards e-governance was evident in ‘Digital India’ initiative - to build infrastructure, deliver services electronically and spread digital literacy. Even the previous government and a few state governments enthusiastically took up e-delivery of certain services and grievance redressal through social media. Of course, we all should hope that a day would come soon where most people will have devices to click, know where to click and that the governments would only be a click away from citizens.

Definitely, this is an ambitious target and it is a huge transformation from the present. As of now, there is only around 20-25% internet penetration in the country. This is least of our problems. The transformation from traditional to digital poses two major challenges. First, newly built service delivery/grievance systems should only ease the processes instead of complicating them. Second, the implementing agencies should be ‘willing to’ and be ‘able to’ deliver electronically.

The both of these are very vital issues – system and personnel. IRCTC though made ticket booking easy, issues like server errors, peak hour traffic, tatkal booking made user’s life difficult. This gave way to many unauthorized agents, fraudsters who took advantage of the loopholes and looted both the government and the passengers. And, most of the implementing personnel are still e-illiterates. The systems being built are beyond their capacity to comprehend. They might be having basic knowledge, but definitely not problem solving ability.

In addition to these, there are two more issues that are prominent, rural-urban divide and side lining of traditional grievance redressal mechanisms. Rural urban divide not just with respect to infrastructure, e-literacy but the very kind of service delivery and grievances arising are very different for rural and urban. The recent initiatives of participatory governance (mygov, twitter samvad) and grievance redressal mechanisms caters only to that 20-25% who use internet. This too is required especially as internet users are increasing year on and expected to reach around 40-50% by 2050.

However, the rural India needs more customised approach, though technology can still play a major role. Bangalore electricity board, Police are very active on facebook and twitter to not only keep people in the loop but also for grievance redressal. Two things help smoothen grievance redressal process through social media. One, ease of access in raising the complaint as it is just a click away. Two, doing so in the presence of many co-users and officials improves transparency and gives strength to the complaint. Rural areas rate zero on ease of access indicator; and access to wider audience is also limited to the people around and local officials. This way, the overall power a village has is lesser compared to its urban counterpart. Also, the fear of losing access to goods and services takes over the urge to raise a grievance.

The opportunity and transaction costs for public participation in governance or in getting their grievances redressed are higher in rural compared to urban. Opportunity costs include – daily wages for wage labourers, a day’s work for agriculturists etc. Transaction costs include – transportation charges for repeated visits to public authorities, time spent and the fear of losing the delivery itself for any complaint would invite the wrath of local officials.

To bypass all these, e-initiatives would have worked to an extent at least in an ideal situation, where the required infrastructure is available and e-literacy levels are high. That is not the case though, not only in rural but in most of the urban areas. So, it would be wiser to work on other forms of improving service delivery and grievance redressal mechanisms than waiting for ideal e-situations to develop.

A single window grievance centre for all grievances in every gram panchayat should be a good thing to start with. The application form should be treated as a complaint-cum-RTI application. Hence, the complaint should get a reply for the grievance raised within 30 days like in RTI. This has two advantages. One, many who would not have heard of the powerful tool called RTI, can take advantage of it easily. Two, government-citizen interaction improves, time bound redressal is assured and accountability of public authorities towards people increases.

In many of our states, (and even Union government’s) legislations for time bound service delivery of goods and services were enacted. They all have either two or three tier appeal authorities – at district, state/centre. Even the first appeal and second appeal be allowed to be given at the GP level at the single window grievance cell. Only a single format form for all grievances will eliminate all confusions and let people utilise the opportunity and get services delivered. They may be given a receipt as in RTI and charged a minimum fee. On the question as to who should be running the grievance cell can be debated. Nevertheless, it should be an independent body with very less stakes in the day-to-day administration.

The process should be as simple as the one laid down by Supreme Court in case of a PIL. It said a postcard would suffice. Our huge postal network can come in handy in strengthening the grievance system. If the locality has sufficient levels of e-literacy or even otherwise, user friendly interactive kiosks which record the grievances instantly can be set up.

In this digital era where everything seems to be easy to be implemented in an e-way through technology, it is important to strengthen traditional ways of grievance redressal. Though PM is trying to take utmost use of the radio network and rejuvenate it, it has been a one-side affair so far. To get more inputs from people, setting up of community radios may be encouraged, which works the same way as a social media, (people generated content, shared across a community but specific to a geographic location) but without internet. This government managed to build a good narrative around ‘digitizing India’. Similar focus should be given to all weather grievance redressal at everyone’s doorstep – digital or non-digital. 

Should we cooperate or non-cooperate ?

Cooperation and non-cooperation are like two sides of the same coin, both are needed but only in the right contexts. The non-cooperation movement during 1920-22 led by Gandhi had not only played a significant role in Indian freedom struggle but also laid down some important principles for functioning of a democracy. In his June 22^nd 1920 letter to the Viceroy, Gandhi had asserted the right recognised ‘from time immemorial of the subject to refuse to assist a ruler who misrules’.

The words ‘subject’, ‘assist’ and ‘misrule’ in this sentence need to be marked. Their meanings and interpretations in independent India are blurred. Firstly, we are not subjects anymore yet we need to answer the question as to whether we are citizens in the true sense. Secondly, in a democracy, we ourselves are responsible to choose our representatives (not rulers). Thus we no longer have to assist them but we cooperate. Thirdly, we do not have a consensus on what is misrule. What was misrule yesterday is taken to be genuine today.

A true democracy would give its citizens their due rights and entitlements and in turn, a true citizen would cooperate with the government in right doings and non-cooperate in the wrong ones. This would keep the misrule in check. Achieving this is not as simple as it sounds. It is an intricate web of cooperation and non-cooperation between the government and citizens, within government, within citizens etc.

Across these varied nexuses, abetting has become the norm and any kind of non-cooperation is strangled. Every effort is made to punish those who do not cooperate. First, the “rights” are given to people freely through legislation and then they are to be “bought” with bribe. There is a whole chain of cooperation starting from the beneficiary at the bottom to the highest official. The internal chain of co-operators also has external political, business links, which further complicate the web of nexuses.

At the slightest hint of non-cooperation, the entire web turns against as we have seen in the case of D.K.Ravi, Karnataka bureaucrat recently. In 2012, a 30-year-old IPS officer Narendra Kumar was crushed to death in MP for fighting the stone mining mafia. Another dedicated officer Satyendra Dubey was shot dead for exposing financial irregularities in golden quadrilateral project. These are only a few instances. Frequent transfers, political interventions are other tactics used to punish the ones who hinder the business as usual.

Non-cooperation not only in bureaucracy but outside of it too is treated equally brutally. Here again the organised cooperation among multiple stakeholders work against those who do not cooperate. RTI activists, who have been striving to make the system transparent and accountable, were either killed or ostracised. Recently, women’s rights activist Sunita Krishnan’s car was attacked after she uploaded rape videos to shame the rapists. Irom Sharmila’s, is another classic case, who is charged with an attempt to commit suicide for her non-cooperation through a 14 year long hunger strike.

So, it seems as a society we are failing to protect the honest and upright who raise their voice against wrong doings. On the other hand, we are getting more and more comfortable in cooperating where we should not be. Because of the complexities of the myriad rules and regulations, huge delays in the system, for all practical purposes we cooperate with bribe takers, the corrupt and the middle men. In getting a driving license or a passport or a train reservation there is more incentive to cooperate with the wrong to get things done.

As Gandhi said, it becomes our right to refuse the misrule but atleast in the short run, it goes against the one who refuses. The larger worry is that the society is slowly embracing and preferring to encourage the wrong than to non-cooperate with them. For instance, one of the reasons for prevailing of vote buying during elections, is ‘vote selling’. A voter is willing to take money and sell his vote away. I am not totally blaming the voter.  For him, may be it is better to accept whatever he gets now, as he is not sure what he would get after elections. But there are a section of voters who are opportunistic and so cooperate with the corrupt.

Both cooperation and non-cooperation are continuous processes, the former gives immediate returns and the latter long term ones. Encouraging the wrong once started, becomes a habit and gets imbibed in the culture, and makes it difficult to change the course later. Non-cooperation is a continuous struggle, at every level. It is so difficult that even someone of Gandhi’s stature was able to do it on a mass scale only once. Yet at individual level he never cooperated with what he truly believed to be wrong. The moments of mass actions do come, but come very rarely, at an appropriate time when things are conducive. Yet we should not underestimate the power of a few, who stand against the huge tide of organised and unwanted cooperation. As Margaret Mead said “Never believe that a few caring people can’t change the world. For indeed that’s all who ever have”.

The Black - Forever Bright !

Black is as underestimated as colours are overestimated. Our incapacity to appreciate darkness, or rather face darkness, renders our lives incomplete.

It is the ‘day of colours’ today celebrated as ‘Holi’ in India and what other occasion would be more apt to reflect upon “black”. Black is a fascinating colour (if I may call it a colour, though it is not any one colour) with various shades. Science says black is a result of absorption of all light. It has all colours in it. It has everything, yet nothing. In spite of it absorbing all colours, we see nothing since it reflects nothing. Black has its own difficulties, lighter and darker shades since its inception on this earth.  

Over the centuries, black came to be associated with evil, death, unknown, taboo etc. Black magic, black comedy, black box, black day, black mail – are a few to mention. Of course, this is mostly a western notion of black. Its interpretation may differ in different cultures. Nevertheless, black is as underestimated as colours are overestimated. It did not get its due appreciation. We are too fascinated with the brightness of the world around us and yearn for colours. Our incapacity to appreciate darkness, or rather face darkness, renders our lives incomplete. Just as not all that glitters is gold, not all that is black is bad. Though there are many who love black; the fashion industry, Hollywood and Bollywood making the most out of its elegance, black is much deeper than what we tend to see. 

Life begins in the darkness of the womb of a mother. When we shut our eyes black is all that we see. There is no moon light without the darkness of the night. All the colours in the world put together, cannot match the beauty of a firefly in the dark. Darkness blurs the artificial barriers we humans built to differentiate and discriminate among ourselves. Darkness is egalitarian; it does not care about complexions, whereas colours are partial. The darkness of the night lulls the soul and gives us peace. Most importantly, the existence of darkness is the reason we are able to appreciate the so-called ‘colours’ so much.

Then why don’t we celebrate black? Why isn’t there a festival of darkness/black? Why should any bad day be a ‘black day’? Why should anything unknown including the ghosts and devils be associated with the darkness? Why all the taboos are black – as in black comedy? Why a black cat is a bad omen in many cultures?

I think it is because we sleep through darkness rather than exploring it. Not just in the literal sense of sleeping during the nights but we tend to silence various forms of darkness. We are afraid to face the darker side of our own self, thus giving way to hypocrisy. Mothers try to hide the worse qualities of their children. A society tries to cover its collective wrongs and project itself as something different. If we do not know anything, we put it in a black box. If we do not want anything, we put it in a black spot. This tendency of segregation is not allowing us to face the life to its fullest. That is why we find the need to ban so many things or black out so many ‘unwanted’ things.

We should remember that except for the natural darkness or absence of sun light, rest all forms of darkness we associate with black is purely a human creation. We associate grief to black, in order to highlight that grief is unwanted, uncalled for and undesirable. True, who would want to grieve? But grief is grief in the first place because we created something called happiness and value it more than grief. In addition, we falsely associate colours with happiness and black with grief, and try to avoid it, though both are our creations.

Black is for experimenters. It has every colour absorbed in it. Only those who experiment with it will be able to find different colours in it. It has everything yet reflects nothing. It is one’s own willingness to see through it, and face it, which reveals various shades of it. Black will remain that abstract nothingness which doesn’t give any concrete answers to our life questions. However, for those who look through and experiment with it will see its colours unleashing. Those shall realise that black is much beyond the superficial colours which reflect one single light. For them, black is confidence, black is elegance, black is bright and black is light. It is not that simple to comprehend ‘nothing’. History shows only a few were able to celebrate the darkness, celebrate the black and add more shadows to complete one’s life. 

Indian Media - Noise and Silence

Neither the noise nor the silence of our media will have any long term positive impact on the society, on the other hand, both may result in unintended and unwanted consequences.

It is in every one’s knowledge that media reports news and events selectively. ‘Breaking’ news and ‘sensational’ news are not just subjective in the general sense of choosing according to one’s interests or prejudices but they are deliberately chosen to raise the TRP ratings. In the process many more interesting, worth covering and important events are being deliberately left out. This discrimination is not just among various events/incidents, but also among various castes, classes and categories.  

This news article (“Ignored and discriminated against: The sad story of India's paralympians - http://www.firstpost.com/sports/ignored-and-discriminated-against-the-sad-story-of-indias-paralympians-2053495.html”) shows how less an attention these sports’ champs got. Better media coverage helps in garnering more support for various sports. But many media channels think that (and practically speaking rightly so) there is no need to cover certain things as there is not much audience, living the point aside that there is no audience because many are not aware.

What is the way out of this vicious cycle? It needs courageous visionaries from both the sides – media as well as audience, though it is more important for them to be present in the media. We have come across many movies (Taare Zamin Par, Chak de, Stanley ka dabba), ideas (Halla Bol – series highlighting social issues), shows (Satyamev Jayate) which took up a not-so-popular subject and through their work tried to make it popular. They proved that people actually supported good thoughts when presented in an interesting way.

On the other hand, even if they cannot make things interesting for audience, it is media’s responsibility to bring out the unheard and let people know. Certain ground realities like untouchability, caste and gender discriminations, child labour, poverty etc needn’t be packed nicely but a passionate presentation will suffice. Many a presentations by media tend to raise sympathy among the viewers, while it is empathy and compassion that are more important to be spread.

With every right comes a corresponding duty. Media has the right to speech (even selective) but has an equal amount of duty to give the whole information, and cover all events equally passionately. The movie “Hitler – The rise of evil” portrays a character of a journalist who dares to raise his voice against the atrocities, brutal and autocratic ideas of Hitler and how Germany and its people will pay for their ignorance and silence. He loses his job, and was taken to concentration camp and ultimately gets killed. His lone efforts might not have changed the course of history of Germany, but had his contemporaries in the media put a collective effort for the larger good of the society, things would have been different. Similarly, neither the noise nor the silence of our media will have any long term positive impact on the society, on the other hand, both may result in unintended and unwanted consequences.

Activity everywhere not an ounce of productivity

The dictionary meaning of the word ‘Activity’ goes like this – ‘The trait of being active, moving or acting rapidly and energetically’. This very precisely explains what happens in a typical Indian government office.  Activity in government offices is an act with no forward or backward linkages; meaning, a micro plan deliberating on past experiences and planning for future is very rarely part of it. This is work wise.

With respect to work culture, irrespective of outcomes, government officials need ‘some activity’ to show that they are working. Just as the dictionary definition mentions – they will be active and energetic. Sometimes (underestimated!) work is done for the heck of it; to perpetuate the ‘sarkari’ culture of rule bound work; adding a lot to unproductivity. Something which can be decided in a minute’s time, is ‘planned out of proportion’ and may yet times take a few days. Irony is that the officials take pride in it.

Usually the head of the office/department, need people around to feel important; to boss them over, to ‘actively’ give instructions. And the subordinates ‘actively’ try to prove that they have been working on the project and that they have made considerable progress.

O !! At least if this ‘shallow activity’ goes on continuously, everyday, some ‘unintended good consequences’ would have occurred. But the government officials’ brains are tricked into false assumption that they take this ‘shallow activity’ as ‘work itself’. The brain tends to make the officials feel that they have done enough for the day/week/a month (Its all the brains’ fault u see!). The official lunch and tea breaks which unofficially extend to three hours or so is a manifestation of the 'heavy work load'. This will lead to ‘lull in the activity’ until the next trigger might come in the form of a routine meeting or a review meet with higher officials etc. The activity suddenly resumes and everyone get busy again.

We, very well know the consequences of this type of working culture. How do we overcome this and turn routine activity into fruitful one? One way could be to increase the frequency of triggers. But usually triggers come from higher up authorities and there is a whole big chain all the way up to central government. One lazy, irresponsible officer in the chain will render it unproductive. And in a system where everyone knew what the other is upto, what is the incentive to trigger some one to work, which might trigger another chain of events, unintended and uncalled for, which may bring out the true colour of everyone. So the rule is - 'you do what u want, I do what I want, in silence and let's wreck the system'. Few good men and women, take initiatives to give triggers, which set things right in the lower levels. But the frequent transfers make such productive periods very short lived. The ministers at the top, who are assured of five year period (in most cases) should take such steps, but we understand they are busy with hell lot of other things !!

Another way could be directly link the losses in delay or non completion to the salaries and be given as allowances to the people affected. Problem with this is that we have shortage of staff especially at the lower rungs. So, one has to handle multiple responsibilities, which makes it difficult to identify clear cut responsibilities. Adding to this there are different guidelines to different schemes, different ways of getting money and releasing the same to the beneficiaries and other complications.

 In this web of intricacies there are many more tangles, which should be handled one by one to free the system gradually. 

  

When shall we dream big ?

We need automation led by people which ultimately results in true consciousness of the people. 
An automated system would be one where people demand their needs, participate in the pre-legislation process by giving their views, involve in the scheme's implementation, give their feedback on its outcome (through tools like social audit) and the cycle should continue 'automatically

"Achche din" is relative and as the whole campaign went it also shows it is subjective; meaning "Achche din" is dependent on the ruling party. If x party comes, achche din come. It is relative because the so called good times are comparable across time and on various other aspects - development, poverty etc. On a practical level, this approach may not be blamed, but isn't it a narrow view ? Atleast a few, a few good men and women, should dare to dream big and broad !

What would that big dream be? 'We need automation led by people which ultimately results in true consciousness of the people'. My friends from left and right wouldn't be able to digest the usage of the words 'automation' and 'true consciousness' in the same breath, but the idea is that people should be the centre and important part of the system.

Hundreds of government schemes for the benefit of the people, do not have people as integral part at any stage (pre-legislation, post legislation, during implementation etc etc) except as 'passive beneficiaries' or 'target groups'. An automated system would be one where people demand their needs, participate in the pre-legislation process by giving their views, involve in the scheme's implementation, give their feedback on its outcome (through tools like social audit) and the cycle should continue 'automatically'.

I understand that this is a very ideal scenario, may be not possible for years to come, something which even the so called developed countries did not yet achieve, but not impossible. No points for guessing what response is expected from many government officials and the politicians for such a system - "people are ignorant, they are self sufficient, they do not understand all these, it is very time consuming, we do not have required resources"; pessimism just overflows. That is why I say we are cowards even to dream of such a system. Obviously, politicians try to keep people perpetually in ignorance, in order to remain powerful.

Nevertheless, a little progress in this direction, how much ever little it might be has been made, thanks to international pressure. Definitely, words like transparency, accountability, grievance redressal, social audit,people centred development, participative decision making etc - are heard widely in government institutions at least, if not by the people. They find frequent references in government policy documents also. Yet, this is not enough - this is only little more than lip service. Also, it was mostly limited to mobile and internet users through e-governance. Even the fresh move by the new government - Mygov - an online portal for people's participation is in the same lines. The majority - the gigantic social sector schemes' beneficiaries - who do not have technology are still left behind.

And the allegation that people do not know is true, but isn't 'educating people' be made part of policy itself? MGNREGS is a classic case in point. Firstly, we are wasting our energies in implementing it through out the country, even where it is not required and leaving behind much attention needed areas. There are many areas where people do not know much about the scheme and the procedure. There were instances where people paid money to get job cards. Secondly, the scheme guidelines run into hundreds of pages with the mention of all the important words like social audit, people's pariticipation, transparency etc. What is the point when they are not able to guide people to utilize the scheme well???

When people understand why and what of any scheme it will be easy to implement it. Awareness generation is part of various schemes but is never taken seriously. Therefore, in the areas where people are well aware, any scheme works decently well and where they are unaware the best of the schemes also tend to fail. Instead of publicizing about the schemes, government in the last few years was running a 'publicity campaign' for the upcoming elections. Recent media reports say that the UPA government has spent Rs 2048 crores on advertisement and publicity of its schemes in three years. On an average Rs 55 crore per month approximately. It could have been spent for awareness generation in the 200 backward districts of the country, each would have got a huge sum of 25 lakhs.

Once people are involved they can and will monitor schemes themselves. Pariticipation in social audits will increase and the process of automation starts. It is also important to close the loop of automation, by incorporating the relevant feedback received from people back into the policy. Otherwise, the efforts go waste. No system is perfect, it needs to be constant upgradation. But there should be a start somewhere at some point. If we think we have already started, then we need a big push now. If we have not yet started, we should do so immediately. Hope "Achche din", at least to dream big and make a start in the direction of automation by people, are not so far off.