Category: Opinions

Afterall, even when we were a poorer country we had values that the world admired. By and large the Indian society was peaceful, honest, modest, godfaring, more spiritual than materialistic, and regarded pursuit of knowledge higher than making money by hook or by crook. Yes, they were aberrations too; but their number was small and the majority looked down upon these and took such people to task both in the media and in moral debates. No one ever identified with them.

When did the dumbing down of the Indian society start? Surprisingly, or actually not so surprisingly, the decline of our values commenced when we started coming out of what was derisively called ‘Hindu rate of Growth’. It is around the same time that I read an essay in India Today titled ‘Evil Fascinates’. It was about the growing fascination of Indians towards things which were the opposite of ‘Good’. At around the same time, if you care to recall, Khalnayak (Villain) became an object of aspiration. Nayak (Hero), with all his ‘Goodness’ became dull, uninteresting, banal.

The result? Our collective acceptance of things which once would have shocked us or would have, at least, annoyed us. The list ranges from the small things to bigger scams etc. Are these the effects of rapid industrialisation or were we always like this? Most Indian towns are now unliveable. Why? Are the authorities, politicians, bureuacrats, etc, to be blamed all the while for degeneration of our values? Ain’t we always fond of short-cuts, blaming the authorities for the eventual mess? Yes, the authorities have coined this convenient phrase “the sentiments of the people have to be respected” to overlook rampant lawlessness and indiscipline whilst pandering to “vote bank politics”. But, a large amount of blame has to stick to us too.

Let me give a few examples. We recently finished with what used to be called Deepavali and which should now be called ‘Bombavali‘. What fun could it have been for the kids in our colony (and everywhere else) to burst crackers (the sounds that would bring afresh the horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki) at odd hours of night and day? At one time, I was about to shout at them from my tenth floor window with, “Don’t your parents teach you anything?” But then, I heard the excited voices of the parents’ asking them to light a “big one”.

Next day, I sighted a kid of 8 years with his mother in the elevator. Just out of curiosity I asked him how much he had spent on his crackers. He replied Five Thousand Rupees; and I was shocked to see that the mother didn’t have a resigned look on her face but one of pride as if anything less would be unacceptable for their status.

Now, I am not the die-hard socialist trying to make a point that this kind of money should have been spent on the poor etc (I have, indeed, nil comments for a 30 ml peg of Remy Martin Louis XIII Black Pearl costing all of Rupees 1.25 Lakhs at The Leela Palace at Chanakyapuri; you can go ahead have all the fun in the world and flaunt your money without blowing smoke in someone’s face). Far from it. All I am saying is that whilst such consumption may not be evil but it certainly is hedonistic with scant regard for other people’s right for a noiseless colony at late hours in the night; and that unlike what is prescribed by Dr Abdul Kalam, the parents don’t teach values to the children. Hence, the dumbing down of even the next generation is assured.

You go for a drive anywhere in India and people are trying to kill you. Sounds like an over-statement? Think again. Yesterday, I went to Nagothane. On the way I noticed that whenever my driver got a few feet out to the right to see if it was safe to overtake the next vehicle, our position on the road was immediately taken by the vehicle behind us. Now, if we had to find (which actually happened) that it was not safe to overtake, we had no place to return to, making it dangerous and life threatening for us. Most of the drivers doing such dangerous things on the road were the younger generation, even girls and women. Surely, somewhere along, the upbringing and education of such people has been lacking in something. The utter selfishness and scant regard for others are traits that have got ingrained in the majority of our people. Traffic sense is just one manifestation of it.

Littering wantonly is another manifestation of this trait. Let the authorities clean up; afterall we pay them to do so. I have seen parents shouting at their kids for holding on to the wrapper, skin of fruit, other trash in their hands and slanging them for not immediately getting rid of these by chucking these outside the windows.

We have had great fun in the Ramlila Ground in New delhi recently and on the city streets singing paeans for Anna Hazare and his team. I suspect that majority of the people don’t want anything to change. And, hence, they are very relieved when something, however little, is found against Team Anna so that they can heave a sigh of relief that all Indians are alike and no one has any holier-than-thou right to think differently. This is similar to some of the members of my team visiting a spic n span foreign country returning to India and exclaiming, “Thank God we are back; the kind of restrictions there (not to litter etc) were stifling. Home sweet home.”

Mayawati is a Dalit Chief Minister. Her emotional bonding with her people is due to respect for meekness and poverty. What did she do after the elections? Huge elephants put up all over the state. I enjoyed the first ever F1 Grand Prix in India. But I hated Mayawati handing over the winning cup to Sebastian Vettel. What was wrong with that? Only this that she should not hoodwink people about Dalits and Socialism and eradication of poverty etc.

Talking about F1, yes it was a great circuit. But, however hard we try we can’t get rid of perpetual dust and smog in our cities. It is black dust, noise, confusion, weird smells; and yet, we somehow make believe that we are progressing and that India is a power to reckon with. When countries abroad hold F1 and other such jamborees their civic life matches with the culture of the event. In our country, F1 Grand Prix would only be representative of the growing chasm between the haves and have-nots.

India and its people, I feel, have lost character whilst seeking prosperity. We are somehow convinced that the abundance of material goods has made our lives better: cell phones, cars, electronic gadgets, money. However, arguably, our lives are worse than what these used to be earlier. What are the litmus tests of these? Well, let me hear recent tales (since I have not experienced these myself) of people respecting goodness, honesty, other people’s privacy; rights of minority to have peace and silence during festivals; respecting people who observe traffic rules; respecting those who don’t pay bribes or don’t take short-cuts as matters of principle. In short ‘Live and Let Live’.

At the present juncture, I am sorry to say, we are doomed to be what we bemoaned at one time: ‘a rich country inhabited by the poor’; except that now, poor is defined as ‘poor in character‘.

Everyone of us has to bring in (and do so proudly) discipline in our individual and collective lives.

An open letter, the kind that a certain lady from the South wrote to a Delhi Boy recently, is like streaking in public. It is intended to provide voyeuristic pleasure to a number of people: media, who start salivating at the first promise of increase in TRPs through a flaming controversy; readers, who look forward to someone streaking in public since India is a semi prude society where porn and sleaze are not freely available; finally, commentators who like to share some of the popularity that the streaker suddenly obtains.

A Navy officer refers to an army man as Pongo (mountain mule) and the army man is convinced the navy man is not just at sea in ships and submarines but also at knowledge and professionalism.

Everyone in the Indian armed forces now believes that the future battles are never going to be single service ones but joint. Everyone believes, in public that jointmanship is the order of the day. However, privately an army man would like the word itself changed to jointmantank; same with the fliers, they would rather that it be called jointmanplane. Both would question the wisdom of calling it jointmanship; which is reminiscent of the feminists insisting on calling a lady heading an organisation as chairwoman.

The cradle of joint training for officers in the armed forces is the National Defence Academy. Gentlemen Cadets undergo joint training there for two years (four semesters or terms) and there is further one year training of their respective subjects in the last one year (two semesters). One would think that joint training, whence they have to undergo physical and mental hardships together, would galvanise them into life lasting bonds. Yes, it does; however, surprisingly it is only at a personal level. Course mates are held in a special place in one’s heart but only as long as it is for partying, golfing, visiting each other’s places, and writing reminiscences in coffee-table books. However, there must be something about service specific training or indoctrination that even course mates draw a line and literally stop the advances of the other service into territories held as the exclusive preserve of their own services.

Lets look at the situation at the top level and at the ground level. At the top level there is considerable distrust; one feels threatened that the service to which one belongs and owes everything would lose its very identity if allowed to be “devoured” by the other. The champion in this belief is undoubtedly the top hierarchy of the Indian Air Force, both retired and serving. It is convinced that the other two services “encroachment” into what is the forte’ of the Air Force should not be allowed to go too far. Why should it be considered by the Army and the Navy that the raison d’ etre’ of the IAF is to provide support, they reason. An air force pilot normally fights alone. This psyche drives the conditioning of the mind of the senior or top hierarchy of the IAF that the future battles can be fought by it alone. Bravado? Well, in a way, a fighter pilot has to have this bravado since he is expected to go the harms way quicker than the counterparts from the other two services. However, he shouldn’t consider himself perpetually in a state of conflict, especially with his counterparts from the other two services.

The IAF fought tooth and nail trying to convince the MoD (Ministry of Defence) that as long as the IAF has the long range fighters and air-to-air refuellers, the Navy does not require “the expensive option of aircraft carrier(s).” Simple calculations of endurance of Combat Air Patrol (CAP) for the Air Defence of ships at sea, at even moderate ranges from the coast, bringing home the point that the IAF will never have the capability to provide the kind of support the carrier provides, did not convince the IAF top bosses. Precedents that there are no leading navies in the world wherein air defence at sea is provided by their air forces did not wash with them. Finally, joint exercises were and are held; and yet, the IAF is convinced that a carrier at sea is a wastage; a luxury that the nation shouldn’t afford when it has the IAF to support the Navy.

In sharp contrast, the Army has been crying from house-tops that they do require the Combat Air Support (CAS) particularly in a Cold Start scenario; but, since the Cold Start doctrine is primarily the Army’s brainchild, the IAF is convinced that in the first 3 to 5 days of the war, its assets would be so intensely engaged in Counter Air Operations (CAO) that it would be well nigh impossible to spare anything for the Army. Cold Start remains cold and no start.

I heard a talk by a senior IAF officer regarding ‘Dealing with Emerging Threat Scenarios’. The talk was to last for one hour. After going through the usual scenarios involving countries from the US to the Mediterranean, the officer embarked on our GDP growth and the need to secure Energy sources. He added that the threats to our SLOCS (Sea Lanes of Communications) are increasing everyday and that maritime terrorism is something that we need to have an answer against. Up to here he took about 45 minutes of his allotted time. In the next 15 minutes he concluded, as if he had naturally led us to it, that the answer, therefore, was the Indian Air Force who should be entrusted with the exclusive responsibility of ensuring security of SLOCS.

Ministers and bureaucrats have been the direct beneficiaries of the turf wars in the higher echelons of the armed forces. The friction between the services is made use of by them to perpetuate their power over the military. At the present juncture the relationship between the services and the MoD is at its worst. This has resulted in the three service chiefs even complaining to the PM.

I have only given the examples of the obduracy of the IAF, but, the other two services have also been equally myopic in their approach towards jointmanship. Take the case of the Chief of the Defence Staff. Post Kargil War and the obvious failure of intelligence that led to it, the Government of India constituted a Kargil Review Committee and later on 17 Apr 2000, a GOM (Group of Ministers). Amongst the various recommendations for restructuring national security apparatus, and synergy between civil and military hierarchies, was the recommendation to have a Chief of Defence Staff of the three services. CDS was supposed to be the “single point military advice to the GoI and to manage the nuclear arsenal”. The Army’s specious argument against the CDS was that as long as the “senior service”, that is, the Indian Army had one of its own officers as the CDS, it was fine; but, should an officer from the Navy or the Air Force become the CDS, how would he coordinate the response of such large Army when he won’t know anything about the terrain and the functioning of the Army.

Air Chief Marshal PV Naik, when he took over as Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee deflected the CDS issue by pointing out that there were several models of CDS operating in different countries and said, “We don’t know which model suits us the best. Once we decide that, I am sure the CDS will come in.” Ah, does he want us to believe that a decade after the GOM report we still haven’t studied the “several models of CDS”?

Another issue on which the decision making was stalled was the powers given to the CDS. At present the services chiefs are both chiefs of staff of their respective services as well as operational commanders of the services. They don’t mind losing staff functions to the CDS. But don’t want to commit “sure harakiri” by passing operational command of their services to a rank outsider.

So, in the absence of the CDS we have a COSC (Chief of Staff Committee) and the senior most of the services chief as its chairman. Synergy between the three services is maintained here by discussing matters of little consequence.

Pending the institution of the CDS and in order to pave way for it, a decision was taken in 2001 to set up Integrated Defence Staff (IDS) headed by Chief of Integrated Staff to Chairman COSC (CISC), in rotation between the three services. Even though the services initially regarded IDS as parking slots for their mid and senior level officers, the IDS finally ended up doing a fair deal of good work in producing, for example, Joint Doctrine, Force Level Doctrine and Prioritisation, carrying out Net Assessments, and conceptualising policy and plans for joint training and procurements. However, the approach of the three services is tasking IDS in only those things that would not directly interfere with the individual service’s policy and plans.

Lets briefly look at the concept of Joint Theatre Commands. In Port Blair, in Sep 2001, post recommendations of GOM, a joint command called Andaman and Nicobar Command (ANC) came up and replaced the Fortress Commander Andaman and Nicobar islands (FORTAN), a purely Navy Commander. The plan to have a FENC (Far Eastern Naval Command), mooted in 1995, was therefore shelved. It was understood that the ANC would be a precursor to having other joint theatre commands. However, except in seminars and panel discussions, the idea of other joint commands is not even conceptualised, let alone implemented. The Navy is therefore feeling short-changed and seriously considering recommending to GoI to do away with joint ANC and reverting to the earlier system of FORTAN or newer one of FENC.

At the field level, young officers genuinely enjoy cross service experiences both in training and in exercises. Navy Direction Officers (those who direct aircraft), for example, on deputation to the IAF to learn about Direction duties from their IAF counterparts speak high of the value and level of training as well as the “professionalism” of their Air Force counterparts. Similarly, when the Navy conducts the Amphibious training and exercises the young Army officers are only too keen to find answers to joint problems. And yet, as soon as these officers become senior enough to take decisions for their respective services, they become obsessive about preserving exclusivity of their service.

Privately, middle level officers talk about achieving jointmanship and the installation of CDS only if the government were to “impose” these on the services.

Until then ‘Divided We Stand and United We Fall‘ has been honed as a fine art.

In every house where I come I will enter only for the good of my patients, keeping myself far from all intentional ill-doing and all seduction and especially from the pleasures of love with women or with men, be they free or slaves.

• The first one is that the doctors specify to patients from where to get medicines so that they would get a commission from the chemists.
• The doctors ask a series of expensive tests to be done such as MRI, CT, blood tests and others by specifying where or in which lab these are to be done because they receive their cut from these labs.
• Mumbai administration had to remind an elite hospital that the land for making the hospital was given to the hospital on subsidised rates on the understanding that at least 25 percent of the patients being treated in the hospital would be poor; however, the hospital had been turning away all poor patients.
• After completing MBBS the doctors are required to serve in the rural areas. However, a large percentage of them circumvent this provision by hook or by crook.

• It was in the news recently that to obtain a Post Graduation seat in a medical college in Navi Mumbai a candidate had to dish out Rupees 1.4 Crores.
• Many of the medical insttritutions are either owned by the powerful like the politicians or they have substantial representation in the board of directors of the institutions either directly or through their kith and kin.
• Most payments to the doctors are made in cash. Indeed, even the labs insist on cash payment so that no trace of payments can be made. Hence, in the Income Tax returns most doctors and chemists and labs show only a miniscule percentage of their actual earnings. It is so easy to insist on cheque payments but then even the patients or their relatives don’t insist on it lest the doctors should spoil their cases in anger. It is, afterall, many a times, matter of life and death.
• As with the lawyers, the doctors often get away with this arrangement since everyone wants to keep the doctors on their right side. These include the authorities responsible for keeping tabs on their illegal earnings.

We have a situation now, for the first time after independence, whence Anna Hazare’s movement has given hope to the people of the country. Should we not try to break this vicious cycle of doctors spending astronomical sums of money to obtain their degrees and then fleecing the patients to recover such monies?

I am reminded of the my young Sub-Lieutenant days. I was travelling by a train from New Delhi to Bombay. The train had started from Amritsar and there were these young students as my co-passengers in the Second AC compartment. They were playing cards and the subject was extolling the virtues of the TTE. Amongst other things, here is what I heard, “Marvellous and well behaved TTE (Traveling Ticket Examiner) really. Took a hundred rupees from each one of us and provided reservation without any fuss.” At this, another solemnly observed, “People like him are becoming rare these days.”

Then there is another incident I brought out in Adarsh Society, CWG, Corruption in Armed Forces and Public Morality; I am re-producing it here because of its relevance:

Is this what we are, honest and upright by comparison to the bigger fish? If that is the case we should be conscious of the fact that where we are today and the nation is, is not merely because of the neta and the babu. In the Indian society, as of now, it is a smart thing to be a man (or woman) of the street and know the tricks of the trade.

Have you ever considered asking your lawyer or doctor for a receipt of the fees paid to him? Are you scared that in case he/she get annoyed with your effrontery he/she would spoil your case or your health, or worse still that of your children or aged parents? Does your not asking for receipt make a difference? Of course it does because he/she then obtains – what is called – black-money and the government doesn’t get tax on his black income. Have you ever thought why is it that whilst a doctor or lawyer gets large amount of fees he/she is shy of receiving these in cheque or even by credit/debit cards? Is it because all these instruments leave a trail that he doesn’t want to leave?

Have you looked the other way when the vendor tells you the price of a thing and that it would be cheaper by a certain amount if you don’t insist on a bill or receipt or invoice? Have you ever considered that the cumulative sum involved of these kind of sales is much more than the loss to the state caused by A Raja?

Well, chances are that you actually thought of these things but have argued that a drop is really a small thing as compared to the ocean of corruption. Isn’t it the same convoluted reasoning we give for not voting or for littering or for playing our loudspeaker?

Yesterday I was listening to Kabir’s dohai (couplets) and the most appropriate to the situation that I heard was:

Lets do everything to set right public corruption. However, lets set right ourselves too.

When this hypothetical problem is given to people, majority of them opt in favour of diverting the train to the disused track to the left thereby saving the lives of a dozen kids. In the process, their logic goes, if one small girl on the disused track is killed, that is a small price to pay for saving the others.

At first glance that appears to be the acceptable solution. However, think and you will find the following things wrong with the majority solution:

1. The dozen kids who are playing on the used track are knowingly doing something wrong. The lone girl playing on the disused track is actually right.
2. In the majority solution we have opted to punish the lone girl who is right and reward the majority who is wrong.
3. The dozen kids who are wrongly playing on the used track should be expecting a train passing and hence expected to jump off the track, even if at the last minute. On the other hand, the lone girl would never expect the train on the disused track and would surely be killed.
4. Lastly, why is it a disused track? By diverting the train on the disused track we would willy-nilly make the lives of hundreds of people on board in danger; and all for the sake of a dozen kids doing the wrong thing.

What exactly is a rape? It is essentially an act of force and violence perpetrated against a weak being who has no choice but to submit. It causes great trauma and changes the victim’s behaviour, hopes, anxieties, responses, beliefs, suspicions, complexes, proclivities, and emotions forever.

The keyword above is ‘weak‘. The carnage and trauma caused by repeated rape of Indians, through acts of terrorism, doesn’t fill us with resolve to never to allow such acts to be perpetrated against our people again. In contrast, each act of terrorism makes us weaker and impotent.

I think the reasons and the solutions (intrinsic with each reason) are multi-fold:

1. To start with there is a complete failure of our type of democracy that elects governments that not only do not protect the lives of their people (their primary responsibility) but are increasingly out of sync with the hopes and aspirations of people. I brought out the cause of the malaise in an article in this blog: ‘How Proud Should We Be of Indian Republic at 62?’

2. Secondly, terrorist acts come under ‘law and order’, that is, a states subject. However, much of it is in the purview of the central government, especially when it is Pak sponsored. In case of Pakistan, as with most other things, we don’t appear to have a clear policy except for one point agenda (given to us by the US) of somehow to continue with talks.

3. Thirdly, from a politico-military point of view, Pakistan appears to be exercising Deterrence against us (through irrationality and Nuclear Weapons Enabled Terrorism) but we have willfully let go of our Deterrence despite our considerable superiority in conventional war means and potential. For a deterrence to work, we should be ready to demonstrate it sometimes (at least through signalling an intent); whereas, our national and military think-tanks routinely convey to Pakistan that we have lost the battle even before it begins. We are not averse to using our Army against our own people. But, against Pakistan, anyone who moots the idea is promptly labelled as a hawk (implying loony).

4. Fourthly, the primary security force here is Police. Over a period of time, Police has willy-nilly conveyed and demonstrated that they are there to discipline us through various ways (from bribes to lathi-charge). Protecting lives of citizens is not very high priority.

5. Fifthly, let us put the blame squarely on the media, which has not matured enough. The kind of coverage it gives of a terror incident is like playing into the hands of the terrorists. Did anyone see gruesome pics of terror victims in, say, London terror blasts? Our media’s main focus of coverage is that. The terrorist causes half the panic. The other half is caused by the media. The media also goes overboard in projecting the ineptness of the security agencies as if the enemy actually is the security agencies.

6. Lastly, lets not forget all of us. When peace prevails, we resist any measures by security agencies that would bring some order in our lives. For heavens sake, lets not forget that our people even oppose wearing of helmets on two-wheelers being “imposed” on them.

Therefore, when we get a statement from the PM, on visiting Mumbai, “I share Mumbaikars’ pain and anger”; we know that what he means is that he has shared this many times in the past, and will share many times in the future too.

I am an apolitical man. All articles in my blog and all my utterances have always been so. Baba Ramdev may have said something in the past, which appeared to be favouring one group or party. Afterall, manipulating an emerging leader by pulling him down to our level of moral and other values is a national pastime. But, despite this manipulation I believe that by and large Baba Ramdev is apolitical and has the best interests of the nation at heart.

 However, I am amused by the so called elite’s opposition towards Baba Ramdev. Is it because he cannot harangue in English language? Is it because he’s a common man? Our media that is ruled by the rich and the powerful has ascribed itself the power to make a demon out of a saint and vice-versa. Do they give a thought how such means of theirs help the nation?

Nearly sixty four years after independence, the fruits of a true democracy and freedom have not reached the common man (read http://sunbyanyname.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-proud-should-we-be-of-indian.html) and yet we still want to indulge in politics, mud-slinging, and above all corruption.

The indecent manner in which the government bore down on Baba Ramdev and his supporters today at the nations capital (of shame) reminded me of Lala Lajpat Rai: “Every blow aimed at me is a nail in the coffin of British imperialism.” Lalaji was proved right and the British were evicted. But, soon, the British imperialism was replaced by the imperialism of the political class. It also reminded me of ‘Freedom’ is always hard fought; even Freedom from Corruption.

Photo: Courtesy NDTV

THIS IS FOR THE ELITE:
Baba Ramdev’s forcible eviction from Delhi reminds me of a scene from 1970 movie Love Story. The scene is what a rich Oliver Barrett tells his son when he confesses to loving a commoner Jennifer, “Well, if you do, I shall not give you the time of the day”. The son Ryan O’Neal responds, “Dad, you don’t know the time of the day“.

I feel that Corruption is really the issue. The man on the street is fed up of having to pay underhand that should be legitimately his right. That’s the time of the day. I hope we all read it like that and don’t get it confused by politics, personalities, biases, proclivities and innuendoes. Lets not, in our cynicism, look down on every venture to steady the boat of our nation. This is precisely what the govermnent wants to do. Lets not make their task easier by a divided house.

Baba Ramdev is an above average Indian and I, like crores of others, have immense respect for him for rekindling love within us for Yoga and our ancient heritage. However, just to defeat the cynicism, I shall support even the local bhangi if he is capable of raising voice against the rampant corruption in the Indian system.

Lets not make fun. That’s an un-Indian thing to do. Lets also not get frustrated by the fact that it is a long journey. Lets take the first step and everything will follow.