2012: A Reminiscence

The clock may have ticked on to a new day, month and year for some of you and for some, it maybe just a short wait. A year when the world was famously averted from a speculated Armageddon, has or is about to end. But 2012 surely will be in the history books albeit a lot of pages for sure.

I really am confused to decide where to start from. So let's do this randomly...I call it the WYRWYW (What You Remember is What You Write) post.

Guessing the first topic must be easy, Sports.So, to begin with Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman's Test retirement and Sachin Tendulkar's retirement from ODIs - the biggest blow to Indian cricket in recent times. Answers to the 'Why' or 'How' are known to every one, so lets not get into that.  India's 6 medals in the London Olympics which unfortunately is their best ever toll at the sporting extravaganza. But to end the year rather gloomily, the Indian Olympic Association was expelled by the International Olympic Committee, another sad example of a corruption ridden loss of pride. Indian Hockey team's performance in the Olympics, finishing last without managing a single brings the Hockey plight in the country a full cycle back. But there were brighter days as well, especially the story around Yuvraj Singh's comeback from Cancer- he indeed proved that YouWeCan. And of course the indomitable Vishwanathan Anand's 5th World title, wow! There were also the news of the sad demise of absolute legends - Lesley Claudius, probably the 2nd most talented Indian hockey player ever after the great Dhyan Chand. With 3 Olympic Golds and 1 Silver, his name is etched on the Guinness Book of World Records for winning the highest number of Olympic medals in field hockey. Sailen Manna, the only Asian footballer to be rated among the 10 best skippers of the world in its 1953 yearbook by the England Football Association (FA) also passed away this year.

From the world of Entertainment -Pandit Ravi Shankar, the Bharat Ratna and 3 time Grammy winner's death is a hard blow to music lovers world wide. He was India's truest ambassador of music and had single-handedly carried the torch for India's rich heritage of classical music to the west. Yash Chopra, directed movies 'Jab Tak he had Jaan'. His movies are immortal tales in the heritage of the Indian Film industry. His untimely submission of life to one of India's infamous diseases, Dengue had left the film fraternity in a profound state of deep shock and the lovers of his craft in a state of prolonged grief. Rajesh Khanna, India's first superstar lost his long battle with cancer at the age of 69, leaving behind a legacy of superhit movies which where adored, well almost worshiped during their times. But then there was an Aamir Khan as well with his brilliant Satyameva Jayate, trying to light a flame of the elusive self-consciousness within his fellow nationals. What a show!

From the public life, we lost Balasaheb Thackrey, the Indian incarnation of robin hood & the godfather put together, passed away earlier this year. His city of Mumbai and his state of Maharashtra poured out into the streets in millions to give him a befitting farewell. The losses of former PM Sri I. K. Gujral, former principal secretary and National Security Advisor - Brajesh Mishra, former Maharashtra CM Vilasrao Deshmukh has also lessened India's wealth of stalwarts immensely this year. We also lost Capt. Lakshmi Sahgal, the celebrated leader of the INA's Rani Jhansi regiment. Ironically she was the last woman standing from Netaji's famed combat squad to fight the British. We need more like her to fight the inner demons of our nation now.

But what else, what are those bites that we skipped. Like Indian student Anuj Bidve's murder, condemned personally by the British PM. Then there was the unfortunate death of Savita Halappanavar due to unrelaxed pregnancy laws in Ireland. Her passing away though did manage to bring in a positive change to all the women in Ireland and have given them an opportunity to spend a more relaxed period of gestation. Did you know that Nandan Nilekani did manage to steamroll the UIDs or the Aadhar cards to half of the Indian population already. Yes, 60 crore Indians now have an Aadhar card which is a game changer in terms of the prospects of social security for Indian nationals. India as a part of the BRICS nations pledged $10 billion to the struggling Eurozone nations, and we are still west-bound, are we? Oh! that maybe because of the historic fuel price rise of Rs. 7.50 on Petrol earlier this year. And obviously there were the innumerable number of Rapes and Molestations which have now become synonymous to our news bites in both print and electronic media.

And then as for me, I lost the giant of the man in my life who made me whatever little the man I am today. He left me with broader shoulders and a bigger heart to let him reside within me and take care of all his unfinished works. They said the world would end in 2012, half of it did for me. Now I need many more years to take care of the remaining half, which I will with his blessings. Stay well, Happy New Year every one.

Why Waste Bengal

West Bengal, the Indian remains of the famous province of 'Bengal' from British India is a state that has long been hailed as the birthplace of the Indian renaissance. A hundred years back Bengal showed the way for India in every walk of life. From the fight for independence to making movies, Bengal was at the forefront of everything. A simple example to explain this phenomenon would be a look into the fact that out of the 6 Indians ever to win the Nobel prize, 2 were Bengalis- Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore (Literature, 1913) and Amartya Sen (Economic Sciences, 1998) and 2 had their field of work primarily in Bengal - Mother Teresa (Peace, 1979) and C.V. Raman (Physics, 1930). The remaining 2 - R.K.Pachauri (for IPCC, Peace 2007) and Hargobind Khorana (Physiology or Medicine, 1968) had made their mark in their respective work-streams' outside India. In movie making too, before A.R.Rahman, Gulzar and Resul Pookutty it was the maestro filmmaker Satyajit Ray who had won an honorary Oscar in 1992 for his lifelong contribution to the art of film-making. Interestingly, he worked all his life on films that were in his native language Bengali,  leave alone even the dominant hindi film industry of the country. The recently departed sitar legend Pandit Ravi Shankar had won the Grammy award thrice in 1967, 1972 and 2001 more than any Indian.

So much so for history. But, the question is, where is Bengal now? How is it doing today? I had grown up in Bengal amidst the famous saying from Gopal Krishna Gokhale - "What Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow", but the reality today is - "What Bengal is doing today, India has done that day before yesterday". Why is that though West Bengal has a literacy rate of 77%, it still is the 7th poorest state in the country (as per current GDP). In terms of state debt, West Bengal is 3rd in the country after Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh with a figure of 2116 billion. Though the infant mortality rate (IMR) in West Bengal is not the worst in India, the condition of healthcare in the state is not unknown to anyone. Why is that the state is ranked 19th in the country based on the Education Development Index (EDI) which comprises the aspects like access to education, infrastructure available and availability of teachers in all levels of education. Why is that West Bengal is 2nd in the country in terms of rape cases reported where 2,311 such incidents were reported in the last year. There are so many 'Why's' but very few constructive answers.

Coming out of 34 years of communist rule, the state is now being governed by the firebrand Mamata Bannerjee who though was a very effective leader of the opposition, is still struggling to find a strong foothold in governance and take smart steps to resolve the issues plaguing the state. But, I read ignorance of the fundamentals as the answer to most of the above 'Whys', and that is where the title of this post comes from. It is indeed a waste of resources that is taking this state down the wrong direction of the growth graph. I have tried to narrow down the explanation to the following aspects:

1) Population density - This one aspect sort of answers a lot of questions. When a city/ town has a very high population density then it becomes very difficult to sustain the growth of the resident population since the infrastructural needs for governance increase and so does the cost of it. Simply put, more people living in confined localities increase the need of improved water supplies, sanitation, policing and general administration. If these are not provided then they will be faced with health hazards such as epidemics, increased levels of organized crime and inadequate provision for education. Lack of proper infrastructure in densely populated urban areas often symbolizes informal dwelling or slums as they are called. Analysts have termed these dwellings as 'sprawling' and 'difficult to manage'. I picked this one up as the first and foremost issue affecting West Bengal since the statistics for this shocked me completely. According to the stats available for 'city propers' - cities with defined borders of administration on wikipedia out of the top 49 in that list India has 18 cities/townships. And out of the 18, 12 are in West Bengal only. Yes, you have heard it right. Let me summarize before your eyes start popping out and remain there. 12 towns/cities in West Bengal are amongst the top 50 densely populated 'city propers' in the World. Here is a table sampling the same stats.

World Rank	City Proper	Population	Area(sq.km.)	Density /sq.km.
3	Titagarh	124,213	3.24	38,337
4	Baranagar	248,466	7.12	35,220
5	Serampore	197,857	5.88	33,649
7	Delhi	12,565,901	431	29,155
8	South Dum Dum	392,444	13.54	28,984
9	Kamarhati	314,507	10.96	28,696
10	Kolkata	5,138,208	185	27774
11	Ahmedabad	5,570,585	464	22,473
16	Chennai	4,616,639	181.04	25,501
23	Mumbai	13,830,884	603	22,937
24	Jaigaon	38,689	1.69	22,893
27	Banupur	11,647	0.52	22,398
28	Bally	260,906	11.81	22,092
29	Balurghat	135,737	6.37	21,309
37	Howrah	1,034,372	51.74/	19,992
42	Naihati	215,303	11.55	18,641
47	Allahabad	1,142,722	63.38[	18,030
48	Panihati	348,438	19.4	17,961

# the rows highlighted in 'green' are towns/cities in West Bengal

The first question that may build up in your head is, when on earth did a Titagarh, Baranagar or Serampore et all become a city and that precisely is itself the answer to your question. The fact that these townships are in the list are itself the cause of concern. These places became municipalities for the convenience of administration since the population residing in these townships multiplied enormously. Now, with the surplus population in a smaller area, there will be pressure for the administration to work on basic infrastructural needs. With the challenges in the economy this isn't the most effective approach for governance. This brings me to the 2nd aspect.

2) The Fiscal issue - The fiscal picture in West Bengal is characterized by a high debt-gross state domestic product (GSDP) ratio which is the second highest in the country among the non-special category states and a low own tax revenue - GSDP ratio which is the lowest in the country.

The detailed economic explanation of this issue can be found in a Study - Fiscal Problem in West Bengal by Subhanil Chowdhury, a faculty member at the Institute of Development Studies in Kolkata.

Let us attempt to understand the consequences for these twin features which underlie the fiscal stress in the state at present. West Bengal's total financial debt stood at 191,835 crore (US$34.91 billion) as of 2011. Now the economic figure which controls the debt is the GSDP because that signifies not only the credit worthiness of the state but also its ability to repay the debt at a sustainable pace. The GDSP is the economic output of a state in terms of the value added by the goods and services produced by the state.This is direct representative of the revenue that the state earns via taxes on goods produced and traded within the state. In West Bengal's case the service industry (i.e. taxes recovered in revenue from private healthcare, hospitality, private education, information technology, banking and financial services, retail, construction and real estate etc.) contributes 57.8% of the GDSP. This compared to 24% contributed by the primary sector (i.e. agriculture, fishing and mining etc.) and 18.2% from industrial manufacturing. For detailed stats of the West Bengal economy Ref: the West Bengal economy page on Wikipedia. Another aspect is the expenditure of the state. Every month 83% of the revenue receipts are spent in paying salaries and pensions and 35% is needed to pay the interests of the debt that the state has. This figure clearly indicates the deficit that is being loaned every month just to run the state, leave alone development.

So, what picture are these statistics painting for affairs of this state. If more than 50% of the state's income is coming from the services sector then it is an indication that privatization of basic needs of a citizen such as health and education are feeding the state treasuries. With an annual per capita income of 55,684 in the state (which incidentally is lower than even the north eastern states like Sikkim, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh & Nagaland) it is a burden for the middle and lower income class in the state to afford these expensive services. Now, if there had been more income of the state from industries or agriculture that would in turn help increase the per capita income of the state which would have caused lesser inflation and inflicted lesser pain to the population. Another interesting fact is that though a survey by NASSCOM–Gartner ranks the West Bengal power infrastructure the best in the country, out of the 22 formally approved Special Economic Zones (SEZs) 17 are dedicated to IT or ITes firms.

3) Lack of effective polity  - West Bengal is one of the most important destination for trade and investments in India. The state is famous for its vast natural resources, availability of raw material, cheap workforce, and relatively good infrastructure. But here’s what one of the recent RBI reports said: “West Bengal, having a revenue deficit as well as a primary revenue deficit, indicated that the state could not contain its non-interest revenue expenditure and net borrowing has been used to finance current non-interest expenditure, with no potential scope for generating debt-financing income.” This simply means that the investments being made by the West Bengal polity in the last 3 to 4 decades have been mostly unrelated to the development of basic Private Public Partnerships (PPP) ventures. That is so because around 85% of revenue receipts have to be spent on committed expenditures like salaries, interest payments and subsidies, leaving little room for expenditure on development projects. The ruling party has been busy alluring and financing the political loyalties rather than create an effective strata of governance to facilitate growth and subsequent popularity of the polity. Sadly, things have not changed much since the famed 'Paribartan'. We are yet to see any policies for agricultural or industrial reform. West Bengal has done little to encourage private investment into the state. With a history of conflicts by the former government with the USA led policies and the present ruling party's legacy of conflicts with one of the largest corporate conglomerates of the country making the worst example of industrial land acquisition in the country, the state seems to have been stuck in a time warp without any signs of encouragement.

4) Break-down of the social stardom -Bengali's as I mentioned at the beginning of the post, were the stars of the nation. Since the British made Calcutta (now Kolkata) their base, it became the nucleus of the western influence in pre-independent India. This did a world of good for a lot of talented Bengalis back then and they got recognition on the world stage even when the country was under the British monarchy. However, this phase also sowed the seeds of the false feel of superiority within the Indian social strata among the Bengali population. What it also brought was the security of being content in being a subaltern and contrarily took pride in being the best one at that. 60 years after the independence, Bengalis' still bask in the glory of the hay days of the past century and have made little progress in creating local legends thereafter. You may say that I am being unfaithful to my way of writing i.e. by not supporting these statements with relevant stats or information. And that I run the risk of these being labelled as a mere perception. But, the very fact that one party or rather a coalition could rule this state for 34 years at a stretch is proof to the fact that Bengal has an unrelenting reluctance to change their subsistence under one overseer. A more recent example would be another statistic around the industrial investment made in the state in the last year. According to the latest report on the country's industrial scenario released by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, falling under the Union Ministry of Commerce and Industry, in 2011 West Bengal received fresh industrial investments of a mere  325 crore which is the lowest investment figure of the past three years, well below the  1,163 crore the state received in 2010 and the  632 crore of 2009. After the recent change of power in the state, the industrial community had poured in with fresh investments proposals worth over  3.03 lakh crore via Industrial Entrepreneur Memorandums (IEM). (IEMs are formal investment documents which industrialists need to submit to the Secretariat of Industrial Assistance under the Commerce ministry to set up or expand industries in the country.) This was said said to be the highest number of proposals received by the state since 1992 and the realization of these proposals would have created 43,529 jobs. However, only 33 of the 135 IEMs were translated into reality with total investments on this count standing at a paltry as mentioned  325 crore. So what is that Bengal is proud of today. Why do they still consider themselves as the superstars of nowhere-land? Why are Bengalis basking in the glory of pseudo-success when the fact remains that the distructs of Purulia, 24 South Parganas, Jalpaiguri, West Midnapur, South Dinajpur, Bankura, North Dinajpur and Birbhum are still in the list of the top 50 poorest districts of the country.

If Bengal has to rise tomorrow, it has to hit the 'F5' button, refresh everything and start afresh. There needs to be considerable effort to first restore then rebuild and finally that will bring in a revival. It will be slow but if undertaken with an honest approach it is bound to provide rich dividends for the state. The emptier the trash cans i.e. the lesser it wastes valuable intellect and resources, the brighter will be West Bengal's future.

India's Lost Leaders

Apologies for the impromptu hiatus over the last couple of weeks. When I started to write this one it was the time when Mumbai, Maharashtra and India was mourning the loss of Balasaheb Thackrey. I was left wondering what his stature was to the common man and why did his life and work matter so much to the quintessentially apolitical population. So, I spent the last few days reading about him and inadvertently realized the virtue of people like him who end up being so precious for the society. For all that he was, I now feel that he brought with him that rare quality of leadership that has always been missing in independent India. With this, I was further intrigued to dig deep into the changes in the Indian political scenario pre and post independence i.e. a period where from a swarm of globally renowned leaders are now left to hunt for a suitable one.

India is the nation that saw the likes of M K Gandhi, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Jawahar Lal Nehru, Subhas Chandra Bose, Vallabhbhai Patel, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, C Rajagopalachari and so many more political leaders who shaped the future of India.  “But why not after?” was the question that kept bothering me until I realized that I was missing the simple points around ambitions and goals. A M. K. Gandhi became a Mahatma because of his unrelenting will to free India from the British dominance. A Mohammad Ali Jinnah became the Quaid-e-Azam for his impeccable role in creating the nation of Pakistan from the British dominion. Subhas Chandra Bose became Netaji because of his creation of the Indian National Army (INA) dedicated to fight the British out of India. So, all these men had a goal in their agenda and that goal was related to the masses. They represented the causes that the population behind them demanded.

So after the country was freed from the British dominance we had our own country and running it well became our goal. But was it ever a collective goal that we as citizens were passionate about? We had a J.L. Nehru becoming a 'Chacha', a Indira Gandhi becoming a 'Madam ji' and a A B Vajpayee becoming the 'Ram' of the this era and none of these perceived titles were related to the well being of the nation. They were leaders alright and big ones as well but they were political leaders not mass leaders. Balasaheb Thackrey was not a politically successful man but his appeal to the mass was such that his demise and that too a natural one with age and dropping health stopped everything in not only Mumbai but the whole of Maharashtra. This happened because he relentlessly used his efforts and might to safeguard the rights of the Marathi population in and out of Maharashtra. One may not like his radical thoughts and may not as well support his religious discrimination, but his work as a social activist was undoubtedly not polluted with any ulterior purpose.

We do need leaders. Why you may ask, and the simple answer to that is we need a face to identify with a cause. The world came to know of apartheid because of Nelson Mandela, they came to know of civil disobedience and non-violence from Mahatma Gandhi, they came to know of racial discrimination from a Martin Luther King Jr. These extraordinary gentlemen made these causes the goal of their lives'. They represented what the was necessary for their followers to lead a secured life. So when we are confused to choose the right leader what we actually need is to have a collective goal of 'Living Safe and Healthy'. Taking the political scenario in context, the rise of the regional parties in the national scenario as possible policy makers or rather breakers is the perfect example of us violating a common national goal. We are only concerned about our own well-being. There is a state government to take care of local issues. For national issues we need broader consensus and little to no delay. It's on us if we leave the nation to many regional parties all thinking in the direction of their own states or to one party with their focus on national interests only. The immediate example that comes to my mind was the tooth and nail fight between Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton in 2008 for becoming the Presidential candidate from the Democrats. From the moment it was clear that Obama had edged out Clinton, they got together as a unit and helped run the nation in the best possible manner. Hillary Clinton was made the Secretary of State and their competitive debate during the days running up to the Presidential nominations were just buried and their collective wisdom was used sensibly to address the issues that the nation faced then forward.

It's for us to emulate something similar and help make the nation prosper. We have made what Anna Hazare is today. We have empowered and encouraged a Arvind Kejriwal to get into active politics and bring a change. Are they good leaders? We don't know but what they have shown us is that the cause they support, that of 'Corruption Free Governance' is our cause and we need to relentlessly stick to it for a leader to come and walk us the distance.