Supposedly the greatest democracy in the world, India moved another step closer to becoming the first democratic dictatorship in the world. There is news that now Indians will be profiled on the basis of our caste. In a country where the constitution proudly proclaims that all citizens are equal, irrespective of caste or religion, our lawmakers go ahead and completely forget the basic tenets and principles on which our nation was founded.

So what does caste profiling entails? When the census people come to your house asking how many people live there, they also will ask about the caste and religion of the people living. Once this data is collected and aggregated, political parties will go ahead to discriminate openly based on caste, by giving more and more reservations to their respective vote banks, pretending to implement social equality while introducing higher inequality in the society.

If you think, ahh, he’s making noise unnecessarily. Its not a big deal, telling my caste for the census. Well, even the jews in Nazi Germany in 1930s did not think much when they were profiled based on their religious beliefs. The result of that profiling is now known as the holocaust.

We currently live in a largely discriminatory country.  A country that discriminates with its citizens based on their caste and religion. A country where you will get admission to premier colleges even if you score just 1/100 if you have a quote, and where you will be ignored if you score 50/100 without a quota. The only good quotas and reservations have done in the last decade is to win political parties votes. No socio-economic conditions have changed as a result of these quotas. There is equal employment opportunity irrespective of your caste or religion in the private sector. There is discrimination for the government jobs though, where out of 50 open vacancies, only 1-2 will be for the “general” category. Rest is all reserved for castes, not for those with merit. No wonder we complain about all government functions: how do we expect good performance from government when it does not consider merit at all!

I have a disclosure to make. I belong to the “general” category. It is assumed that if you belong to this category, you have privileges that the reserved categories (SC, ST, OBC….) don’t have. I knew a lot of people in the “general” category who were poor, yet they did not get any special benefits. I also know a lot of IAS, IPS, IFS, bureaucrats, doctors, engineers & politicos, who make good money, roam around in red light cars, living their lives in a lavish way, and yet their children enjoy the benefit of getting a “reserved” seat. Why? They are not socially downtrodden anymore, their fathers/forefathers reaped the benefits of reservation and lifted their families out of poverty and suffering. So why should these socially upward people be given any reservation at all?

When Dr. Ambedkar created the policy for reservations, he restricted its life to 20 years. 20 years that should have been sufficient for lifting the downtrodden castes to a level of social equality. Dr. Ambedkar was no crusader for scheduled castes or anything, he was a crusader for social equality. A fact that is not understood by politicos peddling their wares in his name.

Today, in 21st century India, we the citizens will be profiled on the basis on our caste. Something that was never EVER done in independent India. What does this signify? It tells us that no matter how promising Rahul baba or Omar miya may look, our political representatives have fallen into a sewer from where retrieving them is not possible. Not now, and not in the future, near or far.

When the census people come to  visit me, I am telling them that my caste is “Indian”.  I do not expect them to understand it, but I will make sure that is what they write down against my name.

INDIA: This is my caste and my religion. And I am proud to be an Indian. Are you?

The recent CAT examination fiasco is a classic example of the pitfalls of the burning desire to go make all processes “Online”. The lust for being compliant with this buzzword has led many down a road of disaster, and now the IIMs have ruined their record for successfully holding one of the most desired exams in India.

Before jumping on the online bandwagon, the great management heads/gurus at IIMs should have thought of the following:

Why does CAT need to be an online exam?

The aim for going online is to enhance your reach, to ensure you get an audience far larger than your current numbers. Being online gives you greater visibility, ease-of-use (only when implemented properly) and a much wiser audience. But did CAT need any of these?

The answer is No. In 2007, more than 2 lakh students appeared for CAT. The number of students appearing for CAT increases by 15-25% annually, so reach and visibility is not really a problem. Every single one of India’s graduate students with any interest in management knows that CAT is the exam that they need to take one day. Visibility would anyways not be much applicable as CAT is an exam, not a commodity. So what else could be the reason?

Ease-of-use/management? Online exams are not the easiest ones to appear for, especially in a country like India where a lot of people are not used to living their lives on computers. We grow up in an environment where all the tests, exams and evaluations that we do are offline, on paper. It is not natural even for those lakhs of computer science graduates churned out by our system to appear for exams online on a regular basis. So if there is no ease-of-use for the lakhs of candidates appearing for the exam, the whose life is made easy? I would say this makes the lives of all those professors who have to evaluate those lakhs of answer sheets. But if that was the only problem, then why not make CAT an objective type exam, and use OMRs. After all, OMRs are now fairly common and used in almost all the objective type exams.

There is the ease of management, however. There is enormous amount of effort put to manage an exam of the scale of CAT. Question papers have to be maintained in absolute secrecy. Examination centers have to be set up with invigilators inside those scores of classrooms where candidates sit to write the CAT exam. Does going online reduce this logistic cost in any way? Yes and no. Yes because in the long run, there may be savings on several transportation costs, overheads, money paid to invigilators, maintaining the papers etc. No because the online version does not come for free. The software company needs to be paid to create, manage and run these tests, centers still need to be setup where candidates can go to take the test, invigilators are still needed to ensure there are no smart alecs (or munnabhais), costs go towards maintaining resilient servers that do not crash during the exams, electricity costs for all this infrastructure…. so where is the saving? And don’t for one minute think that not printing those lakhs of exam papers and answer sheets is eco-friendly. Consider the amount of electricity spent in keeping servers up and running, exam centers running not for one, but TEN days!

So there are no visible advantages of making CAT an online exam. At least none visible to me. Is it possible that these great brains who churn out hundreds of the best managers have envisioned advantages in this format that are beyond the understanding of an ordinary minion? Reality kicks in hard and reminds me that it is these great “management” gurus and their disciples who couldn’t foresee the great financial mess that we are living in for the last two years, especially when most of them were busy creating it for us!!! Myopia is a typical malfunction that a lot of managers suffer from, and it could be the same myopia that clouded the IIMs judgement when saying yes to the online CAT.

They could not! CAT went online and all hell broke loose. Several students couldn’t log in, when they did they couldn’t take the exam or submit the answers, slot appointments were cancelled, re-issues and then re-cancelled. Several centers had to actually shut down for a day or two before exams could recommence. Imagine the stress on those candidates who had to take and re-take the exam again and again, only due to the management incompetence of IIMs in holding their exams and of the software incompetence of prometric in making sure the exam is conducted successfully.

I quote the CAT website: “there are still some candidates (numbering a few thousand) who could not take the test due to genuine reasons and test has not been rescheduled for them yet. A new test date will be announced in about a fortnight to provide an opportunity to ALL such candidates to write the test”. and “CAT 2009 was an instance of computerized testing for the largest number of candidates in the time span of ten days. The tests were delivered through 361 labs, in 104 locations spread across 32 cities. Every edition of the test involved use of over 17000 computers. It was therefore a mammoth task being attempted for the first time”.

So by its own admission, there are still “thousands” of candidates yet to take the test. And just look at the numbers: over 17000 computers used at 300+ test centers. Where is the saving?

The CAT fiasco proves to be an invaluable lesson for anyone who wants to “go online”. Before you do, ask yourself: Do I really need to go online? What value will I derive out of going online? Put a solid research in place, analyse the pros and cons and jump on the bandwagon only if there is some gain to be made. Software companies will try to make you go online, resist the temptation. Making you go online is good business for the software companies, and no matter how convincing their sales people are in their swanky powerpoint and flash presentations, use your own brain and judgement. After all, you don’t need to study in an IIM to learn to think!

P.S. And it seems like the IIMs are not willing to learn. According to this article in ET, they are now looking at linux and open source as solutions. So they idea is to create a problem, then to go about fixing everything but the problem. If this is how management is taught in B-schools, I am better off outside them!

Author’s Notes:
1. Of course students who took CAT will not complain out loud! They would be mortally scared to say anything against the IIMs, they may be studying there for two years. Imagine being at the center of wrath of the college you study at!
2. Isn’t it ironic that the best management institutes in India cannot manage their own entrance exam? Oh, and the excuse of “we were doing it first time” is quite lame. IIMs are the premier management institutes not only in India, but across the world that are supposed to teach planning so that things are done right the first time, and not making excuses. Bah!
3. First hand account from student who took CAT 2009 here.
4. Prometric’s admits problems with CAT online here
5. Some sensible talk to take CAT back to pen-paper format here

In the run up to the upcoming general elections, India’s leading opposition party, BJP, has announced its “IT Vision” for the country. Before reading ahead, I would want you to read the IT vision at BJP’s website.

Now for the IT vision itself. I am not sure if I should call it myopic, or really far-sighted. It seems that the IT pundits who helped BJP write this vision are quite mis-informed themselves. Thus we end up with an IT vision that, IMHO, is unachievable. Let me pick out some points from it and try to explain why they are so difficult to achieve.

1.2 crore (12 million) new IT-enabled jobs in rural areas.

How, in its right mind, does the BJP believe it can create so many jobs in IT? That too in rural India, where lack of infrastructure, connectivity (road and internet), power and basic amenities are lacking. Before creating these crores of jobs, shouldn’t infrastructure issues be sorted out first?

Most IT/ITeS jobs in India currently are courtesy the US, which is now heavily coming down on outsourcing. I haven’t heard any member of the BJP come out and make noise about this protectionist attitude of the US. Neither does the BJP talk about creating indigenous demand for IT/ITeS. Unless there is demand, creating these millions of jobs is going to be a tall order.

1 crore (10 million) students to get laptop computers at Rs 10,000. Interest-free loan for anyone unable to afford it

Excellent idea. Throwing away cheap laptops seems to be the next in-thing (after throwing away free rice and ration cards). Now my question is, where are these Rs 10,000 laptops going to come from? The only laptop in this price (that I am aware of) is the upcoming Qualcomm “Kayak”, slated for launch later this year. These laptops are meant “for browsing the internet” and are connected via 3G services. Currently, only New Delhi has a working 3G service (MTNL). Is BJP planning to widen 3G services across the country as well? Sweeeeet!!! Or is this just another one of those, errmm, election promises?

Broadband Internet (2 Mbps) in every town and village, at cable TV prices (less than Rs 200/month).

Thank you thank you thank you!! I am willing to pay even 500 Rs/month for 2Mbps broadband services. But is it going to be of any use? In the IT city of Gurgaon (where I happen to live), there is a daily powercut of 3-5 hours. On a nice, hot, sweltering summer day, the powercut goes up to 8 hours (including hours in the night). If this is the power situation in Gurgaon, I wonder how it will be in small towns and villages. With such a power situation, the only use I have for the broadband internet is to use it hang my wet laundry on its wires. If India’s towns and villages need something, it is 24×7 electricity. Have a vision for giving us that!!!

Every BPL family to be given a free smart mobile phone, which can be used by even illiterate users for accessing their bank accounts.

Wait, so we had low cost rice, low cost laptops and now (drum roll) free smart mobiles. What intrigues me is this: A family is defined as being Below poverty line (BPL) if its monthly per capita consumption expenditure is below Rs. 356.35 for rural areas and Rs. 538.60 for urban areas (Source: Poverty in India on Wikipedia). Common sense dictates that if a family can only spend Rs 350 per month on living, how would it have a bank account? And if it does have a bank account, how much balance would be in that account for the BPL family to do “transactions” with on their BJP-enabled smartphones? This is not helpful, it is actually an insult to all those poor people who are barely surviving. They’ll appreciate more means of income rather than free mobile phones!!!

This idea seems to be given by the same people who made the “India Shining campaign”, that cost the BJP dearly in the last general elections. Instead of learning from its mistakes, BJP seems to be glorifying them!! Sad, sad, sad!

Government spending to be made corruption-free. A former Prime Minister had once said, “If I put Rs. 100 in the pipeline in Delhi, only Rs. 15 reach the end beneficiary.” In contrast to Congress governments’ Leaky Pipeline, the BJP’s IT Pipeline will ensure 100% benefit to people. Those who misappropriate public funds will be punished.

Whoa….corruption free government spending! A dream that does not need IT to be realized. But the BJP seems to think otherwise. I simply fail to make the connection between IT and corruption free government! Or wait, is it that because there will be IT, there will be more transparency. More transparency should ensure corruption free spending, right?

Wrong! The moot point here is that IT simply enables for sharing of information. I am not sure if the government is so willing to share its spending information. And if it is, might I suggest implementation of a system that shows me where my tax money was spent. I am sure a lot of the tax paying class would appreciate knowing how and where its money was spent. Simply saying x and y crores were spent on road development will not do. I want to know which exact roads were built using that money, and if they are any good (at least the roads here in gurgaon are trashy, to say the least).

If there is no political will (which hasn’t been present in the last 60 years) for reducing corruption, how will IT make any difference?

Citizens will have a simple 1-800 BSNL Toll Free Number, which will be accessible 24×7x 365 days of the year, to contact their Member of Parliament.

And what would be the response? I am sorry, but the MP you are trying to call is too busy dozing off in the Parliament. Or wait, how about this, “the MP you are trying to reach is too busy creating traffic jams with his 10 car cavalcade”. Or this, “the MP you want to reach is busy blowing off taxpayer’s money in some foreign country”. If I contact my member of parliament and tell him that there is 8-10 hours of daily powercuts, water shortages, bad broken roads, no security, excessive inflation(the government says it is 0.11%, my vegetable vendor and grocer seem to disagree and increase prices every week), will he do something to improve the situation? BJP itself, by disrupting parliament proceedings hundreds of times has shown that it has utter disregard for the taxpayer’s money. However much its vocal leaders may shout, disruption of a constitutional machine like the parliament costs dearly to the taxpayer, not only in terms of the money wasted, but also in terms of wastage of valuable time that could be used to discuss important issues.

Oh, and even if there were a 1-800 toll free number, how does that guarantee accountability? How will Mr. L.K Advani be accountable for his work in his constituency? How will Ms. Sushma Swaraj be held accountable for not fulfilling those promises that she screams out on TV channels? We need accountability, we need politicians to be answerable to people who are paying for their daily bread and butter with their hard earned money.

What BJP needs in its IT vision is a simple statement: We will provide a report card for each of our MPs online, where people can openly say that their elected leader is not doing his/her job. where people can hold its elected representatives accountable in full public view, where politicians will have no place to hide after they make rosy promises and get elected.

Give us accountability, BJP. Not bullshit!

Author’s Notes:
1.The author hold no favour/bias towards any political party. This article is not written with any political motivations, but with a simple idea to show what the country really needs!
2. Hateful/vengeful/biased comments are not welcome. Please spew out your hatred somewhere else.

Middle-east is up in flames again. Israel has been bombing the living daylights out of Gaza for nearly 10 days now. Palestine (read Hamas) on its part has kept launching missiles into Israel for a lot more than ten days.

Now I am not someone who lives in the middle-east.I am someone who lives in a country that has an equally hostile neighbour who is more inclined to have a war rather than recognize the terrorists present on its soil, let alone take action on it. But let us come back to the present situation in Gaza.

For the last 9 days, I have heard messages(via TV and newspapers)  from a lot of Israeli leaders and a lot of Palestinian leaders, even some Hamas leaders. A lot of these have been focused around two statements.

1. A disproportionate use of force by Israel.

2. Attacks will not stop till rocket fire stops from Gaza.

I am not going to discuss either of these. If you want that, go watch CNN/BBC and you will find leaders and citizens on both sides doing the same.

What I make out from all those discussions is, neither side wants peace. So in such a situation, how does one broker peace?

To have peace, there needs to be a dialog between Israelis and Hamas. That brings up the first question. Accountability. Israel and its government are open to the international community. The international community can put all the pressure it wants on Israel, but who talks to the terrorists? Palestine currently is ruled by the Fatah party, but Gaza has been overpowered by the more radical Hamas. Who makes sure that Hamas will do what it promises on a negotiating table? I mean, would you believe the word of an organization that fires rockets aimed at civilians, and then hides behind civilians when the army comes knocking?

This is probably an issue we cannot get around. For the last 60 years, there is little trust between the Israelis and the other middle-eastern countries. This mistrust is not going to vanish overnight.

Here is a solution I propose. Let Israel immediately stop all attacks on Gaza and show that it is the more responsible of the two parties. In addition to this, let Israel open the borders leading in to Gaza to let humanitarian aid, food and medicines to get in. This should “ideally” be followed by Hamas stopping rocket attacks on Israel. If Hamas is really so worried about people of Gaza, let it show that it is equally committed to maintaining a state of peace so that life is restored to normalcy for normal citizens.

Just to make sure each side is sticking to its commitments, let there be teams made of Arabs and Israelis watching over both sides. This should make sure there are enough independent observers to ensure all remains well.

If this works, all will be happy. In theory it will.

In practice, there are loads of questions for this experiment. Below are some of them:

1. Accountability - Can a terrorist organization like Hamas be trusted to stop being itself?

2. What if this doesn’t work? What if Hamas fires a couple of rockets? Should Israel have the right to start the military offensive again.

3. How does one make sure this cease fire brings a lasting resolution and not just a small period of calm?

All I hope is that Israel ends this offensive very soon. For sake of all those civilians who are holed up in Gaza. Israel is doing this for its citizens who live under a threat of rockets from Gaza. Let it not create a similar circumstance of those living in Gaza.

Peace. That is all the middle-east region needs. 

“Dawood - Who’s that? We never heard of him before.”

“Maulana Masood Azhar who? Sorry, never heard that name”

“Terrorism? What’s that? Don’t ask us to eliminate terrorism, we’ll go to war”

Pakistan is a nation that is in a state of denial. Never before has clearer evidence emerged that Islamic terrorists have established their roots deep within the Pakistani fabric. Yet all our neighbours seem to do is to turn a blind eye to this menace that has started affecting its own citizens.

The trouble started way back in 1947 when India was divided into two countries, India and Pakistan. The biggest flashpoint then was the Indian state of Kashmir. Back then, Pakistan supported the Mujahirs who were no more than armed mercenaries backed by the then rag tag Pakistani army to try and wrest control of Kashmir. They succeeded partially, and what began was a bloody era for people of Kashmir.

What also began here was a clandestine backing of the militant forces by elements in the Pakistani Army. The responsibility of handling these militants was then passed on to the Inter-Services Intelligence(ISI). Since then, several acts of terrorism have been  carried on in the state of Kashmir as well as several others throughout India. The developed world mostly ignored these incidences of terrorism till a certain Osama Bin Laden took terrorism to their own backyard.

Switch to 26/11. India’s financial capital Mumbai was held hostage by a group of ten terrorists for 3 days. Unlike previous incidents where all terrorists were killed, this time one terrorist was caught alive. Azam Amir “Kasav” has owned up to being a Pakistani national and has even written a letter to the Pakistani government. Only to be denied existence.

What Pakistan is doing here is playing with dynamite. Even though it has been time and again proven that Pakistan is the home to some of the most wanted on Interpol’s list, like Dawood Ibrahim  (mastermind of the 1993 bomb attacks in Mumbai), Maulana Masood Azhar (Jaish-e-mohammed chief and wanted for numerous terror acts), the chiefs and cadres of world famous terrorist groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Muhammed and also Al-Qaeda, it either denies their existence or calls them non-state actors to wash its hands off.

The murder of Benazir Bhutto and the multiple terrorist bombings in Pakistan make it quite clear that Pakistan is now bearing the brunt of the same terrorists it harbors. If this is not enough to serve as a wake up call, only God knows what will!

Pakistan’s democratic government under Mr.Zardari must take swift, affirmative and urgent actions against these known terrorist forces. If they do not, they are sitting on a ticking time bomb that will cause more harm to Pakistan than anyone else.

Economies all around the world are in a recession just 4 years after they recovered from the last one. This recession, like the last one, is a product of greed. In 2000, there was the greed to earn a quick buck from dot com companies. Hence there mushroomed an eco-system of dot com firms that was later named as the “dot com bubble”, a bubble that burst and took down with it a lot of global economies.

The world did recover from the dot com bubble eventually, but there were no lessons learnt. Greed was much bigger, as giant loan sharks gave loans in the US that were not sustainable. Loans given out to people to buy houses they could never afford. Sub-prime crisis, as we know now, started a phase of slowdown that has claimed many heads now. A whole era of investment banks led by the likes of Goldmans & Lehmanns. No one knows how or where this recession would lead. All we can hope is, it stays a recession and does not become a depression.

There are, however, some uncomfortable questions one must ask even during these tough times. Here they are:

#1 Will the USA take responsibility for plunging the world into this unprecedented(so they say) crisis?

After all, it is the blind greed and capitalistic whims of the so-called Harvard educated “managerial talents” that have us in this mess.

#2 Will the banks of the world come out in the open and inform the masses how bad their books are?

One cause of the current recession is lack of faith in banks. This lack of faith is because banks are not so forthcoming with their bad debts and losses.

#3 Will higher managements in companies accept cuts to their own fat paychecks before laying off hundreds of thousands of lower rung employees?

Consider this: The average cost to company(CTC) of an entry level professional in India is about 2.5 - 3 lacs per annum. The average CTC of a Senior Manager is about 25-30 lacs per annum. CTCs for company VPs, CEOs, CTOs & CFOs are much higher, sometimes in the range of a couple of crores. If these high salary earning executives took a 20-40% cut in their CTCs, in luxuries like club memberships etc, they can very well make a considerable saving for their companies. Will they?

#4 Whenever we are out of this recession, how would we make sure we don’t have another recession?

This is the most important question to answer. Part of this answer will stem from the first answer, the USA must accept responsibility for what its greedy bankers have led the world into. The next step would be to make sure the world doesn’t head into another recession.

Now, we need someone to answer these question. More importantly, act on those answers so that the world can get back on its feet sooner than later.

Author’s Note: The Empty Head wishes all readers, fellow bloggers and well-wishers a very Happy Festival season. May you and your families be blessed with health, wealth and happiness!!

2008 seems to be the year of the terrorist. After serial explosions in Lucknow & Jaipur that claimed over a 100 lives earlier this year, two more cities have faced the brunt of terrorist strikes.

On Friday(25-July), 8 explosions rocked across Bangalore, the IT capital of India. The bombs were reported to be low intensity explosions, with 1 death and around  20 people injured. Mobile networks were jammed to avoid spread of rumors, but abundant (and critical) information was being posted from Bangalore via channels like Twitter. High alert was sounded across India.

The high alert could not prevent what happened the day after. On a busy Saturday evening, 16 blasts ripped across Ahmedabad. Most of these were low intensity blasts, but some were high intensity blasts. The heaviest blast happened at the Civil Hospital, right outside its trauma center where injured from other blasts were being brought. The number of dead stands at over 40 now, and it keeps rising by the hour.

I am outraged. And so will every other citizen of this country. The internal security scenario in India seems to be really pathetic, with terrorists blasting bombs at their own whim. In the recent past, the buzzword has been sleeper cells. This means a group of terrorists ready and waiting to strike, literally sleeping till the time comes for them to carry out their cowardly plans.

There have been no arrests in the Jaipur blasts earlier this year. This proves the weakness in our security agencies, be it the State Police, CBI, RAW, IB ….. whatever. Nobody seems to bother about these terrorists whose dastardly acts claim hundreds of innocent lives every year.

And the terrorist group that has claimed responsibility for these strikes calls itself “Indian Mujahideen”. Well let me tell you something, you “Indian Mujahideen” pricks, you are not Indian. An Indian will always work towards the benefit and progress of his nation. An Indian will never think about harming his fellow Indians. An Indian will always rise above cast, religion, region to be an Indian first. You sir, are not Indians. You are cowards, cowards who want to follow the agenda of death and destruction. Forget Indians, you do not even belong to your religion. No religion ever asks it followers to take innocent lives.

And if you are so interested in being the Mujahideen, and fighting a holy war, go on the border. And take on a war with the Indian Army. I am sure they’ll rub it in your face that you are neither warriors, nor brave. You are just a pathetic bunch of cowards who can hide and take lives of innocent people. Don’t hide behind excuses of religion and holy wars, you are just ignorant fools with no understanding of life. Maybe if your mother, your father, your sister, your wife or your kids were to die in one of your terrorist attacks, your sleeping conscience would wake up.

And to the Indian Government, and our politicians who run this country, get a spine!! Your vote bank politics have led us to a situation where we innocent people bear the brunt of your inadequacies. Our lives are lost because you are more interested in saving your vote banks than taking steps to make this country safer for its citizens.

We need to stand united, we need to stay calm. These terrorists want to disturb our peace, our lives. Let us be resilient, let us be peaceful and tolerant. Let us not fall prey to the plans of these terrorists who want to instill fear in our hearts. Let us show these terrorists that our unity cannot be shaken by their cowardly acts.

And in all this, let us pray for those who lost their lives and loved ones in these attacks. May God be with them in their hour of need.

The UPA government succeeded in winning the trust vote in Parliament, but June 22, 2008 would go down in the annals of Indian democratic & parliamentary histories as one of the saddest days. The reason: MPs flaunting crores of Rupees in cash that is claimed to be given to them as a bribe to stay out of the trust vote. Whether these allegations are true or not is a story for another day. The Indian democracy looks like it needs an overhaul, and soon.

Let us take the story back to 1947 when India had just got its Independence, and the founding fathers of our nation were huddled in a room discussing the constitution of our nation. The most important question they had was, how to model a democratic environment in India? At that time there were only two major democracies that were successful, American democracy & the British democracy.

Now the American democratic system is a complex one. The US Congress, which is essentially like the Indian Parliament has senators who are elected representatives of the people. However, the US President is directly elected via a separate electoral process. The President then appoints his (there have been no female presidents in the USA yet) cabinet of secretaries similar to the cabinet of ministers appointed in India. Now this is a complex democratic system, where the President can stay in his post even if his party is out of majority in the congress.

The other democracy was the British democracy. This system had two houses, the House of Commons & the House of Lords. Representatives in the House of Commons are elected representatives of the people and those in the House of Lords are appointed representatives. Then of course, there is the Queen.

As is clear from the above explanation, the Indian democratic system is a spin-off from the British democratic system. We have two houses of Parliament, Lok Sabha & Rajya Sabha. Even their names are plain translations of their British counterparts. But what our founding fathers missed out was, that it is not such a simple model to scale.

India is a diverse country. Even the Indian Constitution acknowledges this diversity of cultures, regions and religions in India. However, it is this diversity that is being exploited by politicians and political parties of the day to their profit.

Let me pull up some statistics from the last general elections held in 2004(data from Election Commission’s report on 2004 elections).

1. Number of participating political parties : 230
2. Size of electorate (eligible voters) : 67,14,87,930
3. Voter turnout : 58.07%
4. Number of candidates : 5435

It gets more interesting now..

Performance(seats contested) :-
1. National Parties - Contested 1351 Won 364 Percentage 26.94%
2. State Parties - Contested 801 Won 159 Percentage 19.85%
3. Registered(unrecognized) Parties - Contested 898 Won 15 Percentage 1.67%

Performance(% of votes polled):-
1. National Parties - 62.89%
2. State Parties - 28.90%
3. Registered(unrecognized) Parties - 3.96%

The one factor I’ve left out here are the independent candidates, as I wanted to focus more on the parties. If you see the percentages of seats won, the numbers of national & regional parties are quite close (26.94% as compared to 19.85%). Now see the number of votes polled in favor of these parties and the huge gap becomes visible - national parties have 35% more votes polled for them as compared to the regional parties!!

Now for some data on the parties who were key players in the confidence vote held yesterday:

1. INC - Our ruling party, the congress that also heads the UPA with the maximum number of seats. Their 2004 elections stats are the best of the lot : Contested 417 Won 145 Votes% 26.53%
2. BJP - The main opposition party, also heads the NDA (now defunct alliance ) that was in power before 2004. Their election stats: Contested 364 Won 138 Votes% 22.16%
3. Left Parties (CPI + CPM) - They were comrades in arms of the UPA till the 123 dance began. Then pulled out support and caused the confidence vote to happen. Their combined stats : Contested 34(CPI) + 69(CPM) Won 53 Votes% 7.07%

So effectively, a set of parties who have polled only 7% of the vote managed to destablize the government. But this has happened before as well, parties that have a small vote share have time and again proven their mettle at destablizing governments.

The question now is, should these parties even be in the parliament?

The stature of a political party (national/state) is decided by its presence in states and also by the number of constituencies where it is fielding it candidates. This is the reason why parties like CPI, CPM and BSP are classified as national parties and not regional/state parties. But if detailed numbers are seen, their voting percentages are strong in only a handful of states and very weak in most others(as also apparent by the overall percentages). A national party, by definition, should be one that represents the interests of the nation and not a particular state. Consider the data for BSP(Bahujan Samaj Party) in this regards:

Classification - National
Stats - Contested 435 Won 19 Win% 4.37% Votes% 5.33%
Seat division by state - Uttar Pradesh - 19

So, all 19 seats that BSP won were in UP. Even though it clearly represents only one state, the 2004 election commission report lists it as a National Party!

Most of the parties sitting in the Parliament today have no concern about the nation. Parties like TRS(demanding a separate Telangana state), BSP(it won all its seats only in one state), JMM(demand for a separate Jharkhand that has now been granted) and so on, are all regional parties. Even the CPI + CPM have won seats only in 5 states. It is the INC(Congress) & BJP who have won seats in more than 10 states & UTs.

For the last 10 years, Indian Parliament has seen one coalition after another. Be it the NDA, UPA or whatever, coalition politics seems to be the way forward for our democracy. But is it a healthy way forward?

The whole point of electing a party to power is that the masses believe in the party’s manifesto, and want it to implement the same. A coalition puts restrictions on parties implementing their manifestos. This was clear during the rule of the BJP led NDA, and now during the Congress led UPA, where smaller parties who have the critical 20 odd seats hold the government to ransom. And if the government does not yield to their demands, they withdraw support from the government, leaving the nation to witness desecration of the holiest institution of democracy, the parliament.

The nations progress will be slowed down if we allow coalition politics to rule the roost. Hence, I propose a radical, yet simple solution.

Only parties that have over 10% of national vote share in an election should be allowed to contest elections for the Parliament. Of course, independent candidates should still be allowed, but parties who have representation of one/few states should be limited to playing at the state level only. This will ensure that India has stable governments who are able to rule by their party’s agenda, and the Indian public has a clear choice when they go to vote at the general elections. As of 2004, there were an average of 10 candidates per constituency. If what I suggest here is implemented, there will be two candidates from national parties, and the others independents. This will make the choice of the electorate much simpler.

What this will also do is give India a clear direction when it comes to issues of foreign policy, financial policy, home affairs & defense policy. Also, it will ensure that a government lasts for its full term, and that parliamentary sessions are productive. With a stable, single party government, Indian democracy will finally be the voice of the nation that it serves.

“MNS Mob fury!!”, “Gujjar agitation in Rajasthan for ST Status”, “BJP workers force down shutters, block highways”

These are just some of the headlines from our newspapers and news channels. Each headline representing some or the other political/social group holding a state or the nation at ransom to have their demands met. So are we turning from a peace loving, democratic nation to one that is ruled by hooligans of political parties?

The MNS rioting in Mumbai is a classical example of a political party deriving valuable vote bank mileage from its violent acts. When Maharashtra goes to elections next, Mr. Raj Thackerey would harp on his successes in making the life of the average Mumbai resident no less than hell. Yet the voting public would cheer, rather than condone, such acts. Who knows, it may even win him a substantial number of votes! After all, we Indians are known to forgive our politicians very quickly. Absolution is very cheap in our country.

The Gujjar agitation was a complete case in contrast. Without any direct political backing, a community led by a retired Army Colonel held the whole of Rajasthan and North India in its grip for a whole month. The reason, they wanted to be given reservation in the ST(Scheduled Tribe) quota. Roads and railways were blocked, with agitators damaging railway tracks to make sure rail traffic was disrupted till their demands were met. The Indian Railways incurred losses to the tune of millions of rupees. Now that the agitation is over, and the Gujjars have been promised of a special reservation quota, will the goverment send the Gujjars and their leaders a bill for the losses they caused? Naa, that won’t happen. Its not the government money, it is the taxpayers money that is laid to spoil. Our leaders sat in silence as several thousands of people had their lives affected with regional and national strikes!! And yet we forgive, forget and move on. What a great nation we are!!!

The most recent case is of the BJP & VHP calling a nation-wide bandh(strike) today. There are reports of protesters blocking road and rail traffic. The nation is being held to ransom again. People who earn their livelihood on a daily basis will go home with no money and no food to feed their families. Yet the political parties will gloat in their success at holding the entire nation at gunpoint!

So I ask, are we turning into a nation of rioters and hooligans?

There is one, and only one way to stop this menace. Make those responsible of such agitations to pay up! Ask MNS to pay up for every taxi its workers destroyed, ask Mr. Bainsla to pay those millions of rupees the Indian Railways lost due to the agitation he led, ask the BJP and VHP to pay up for the destruction and damage it has caused to property across the nation.

And while we are at it, send them bills for the lakhs of man-hours wasted by the police in controlling their crowds. Time that could have been spent in making our roads and our lives safer.

Some political leader, some political party needs to find its spine and take such action. But wait, is there any political party in India that HAS a spine in the first place?

George Lucas, in his movie Star Wars III made a very potent observation, in the form of a dialogue. I find it really apt as a closing quote to this post

So this is how democracy dies, with a thunderous applause

As the countdown begins for another Women’s Day, I have a few thoughts that are bouncing around in my head. So here I go.

The buzzword that is heard around these days is women empowerment. For women to be empowered, independent & free of any form of oppression is essential for a positive evolution of the society. The blame for women not being any of these has traditionally been dumped on the males. The Indian society has long had a patriarchal setup, which had gone unquestioned for centuries. Even laws like the Hindu Marriage Act, and the Hindu Undivided Family Act had been biased for several years in the favor of men. Now this is all changed. CBSE has made the Mother’s name an entry with equal importance as the Father’s name, a women has equal power, and can demand her fair share in family property or her husband’s property.

The number of educated women in the country has gone up. More and more women are taking up higher education, and becoming doctors, engineers, lawyers et al. The Times of India in its buildup to Women’s Day writes, “Its a women’s world!!”

Is it?
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