Corruption- My Take

If you have seen ‘A Wednesday’, a brilliant film directed by Neeraj Pandey, you will remember Naseeruddin Shah saying “I am just the stupid Common Man.” Well that’s exactly what I am, a stupid common man who has been taught by his honest and stupid middle class parents to obey the law, pay his taxes, say his shlokas everyday and generally do good to the world. That’s me!

The world unfortunately for people like me, is made up of a number of people who are taught differently by their parents. I will not go into what they might have been taught or what their actions tell you about their upbringing etc. This is not about what they have been taught but with the results of a faulty upbringing, in my humble view, that results in breaking of the law with impunity and, on being caught, using strictly ‘unkosher’ means to escape the long arm thereof.

I am of the POV that had there been a better teaching of ordinary middle class ethics that characterised the 60s and even 70s, there would have been far lesser economic and political crimes than what we are seeing now. As regards corruption, what used to be the exception in the 70s and 80s is slowly becoming the norm now. Sad but true.

What we see now is the result of unbridled consumerism, the kind that consumes the consumer. When I first went abroad at the ‘young’ age of 42, I was astonished at the variety of goods that one saw in the shops of duty free in Frankfurt airport and later in the beautiful shops along the Banhoffstrasse in Zurich. The cleanliness, lack of crowds and everything else was a new experience for my wife and me (Oh yes, Mrs K was with me!). Over a period of just 17 years, we have seen India grow in stature and in knowledge, enough to be considered important to the World. With growth in telecommunication infrastructure and liberalisation of the economy, as also Indian ventures into markets outside India, greater opportunities have been created for people to go abroad for business trips, vacations and even for settling down in what they perceive as better countries. Such people bring back their perceptions and goodies that were denied to Indians till a while back. Further, liberalisation of imports has brought the latest goods to Indian shops and one need not go to Dubai, Singapore or even the shady by lanes of Burma Bazaar to get these.

This has led to opportunities even for oldies such as yours truly who, at age 59, is considered good enough to be employed by an IT company for heading IT related projects in the Gulf. India’s prosperity for a few enterprising souls and employees of venturesome companies, has left many others hankering for higher levels of prosperity. Aspirations are very good but have to be tempered with ethics and a burning desire for improvement of skills and knowledge. I met a smart young man in 1995 to whom I rented out my flat. This gent was a part of his father’s business and through sheer hard work and business acumen expanded the wholesale business into the retail arena. He now has three stores that sell optical aids. I still remember a time when there were some business challenges for him but I always got my rent on time. This is what a smart person does. He grows his prosperity by riding on dreams with the aid of hard work and business acumen. There are others who are fortunate enough to hang on to the coat tails of companies founded by entrepreneurial souls and get a better life. For instance, there are people who have shared in the prosperity brought about by Infy or Wipro or other such ventures. These companies have created markets in the Gulf and USA and Europe, allowing many people hailing from Arsikere or Bhatinda or Moradabad to become engineers and work in these markets on projects that come by because of the marketing and technical skills demonstrated by the companies in question. I have worked on projects in Africa and the Gulf with Wipro and have a very healthy respect for the quality of its engineers and personnel. Working as a domain specialist, I was sometimes twice as old as some of Wipro personnel on the project. These guys were smart and skilled and always scrupulously honest. That was because they were paid well and the company had a strict policy of zero tolerance for unethical behaviour.

Even for relatively less educated but entrepreneurial people, there are tremendous opportunities for earning a very good income legitimately. For one we have a very large population and thereby a wide catchment area for business. All a person needs to do is to identify unfulfilled needs and find ways to fill these. Being ready to commit ones time and to make the effort to expand ones income is the only criterion.

The sad part is that people have started looking on the good life as an entitlement rather than something to be earned. There is a class of people who want the good life and do not wish to earn it by dint of hard work and entrepreneurship. Throughout the history of the world we have seen people who have succumbed to the lure of lucre and sought to earn money through foul means.

And what is the reason for the proliferation of black money? Three sources and all these involve fraud of one kind or the other. One is the businessman who seeks to extend his gains without paying taxes due from him. There are legitimate means of reducing taxes and these are available only to businessmen and entrepreneurs. For one a businessman pays taxes on income after deducting his expenses. The residual portion of his income is subjected to tax. A salaried person on the other hand has to pay taxes on income earned and spend what remains. It is possible for a businessman never to pay more than 15% of his income as tax. Nonetheless, these people are loath to pay even this amount. This leads to creation of black money. Some of it may also be attributed to arbitrary powers of tax officials and difficulty in compliance with laws which leads to harassment inflicted on these people. To some extent therefore this may be explainable, not justifiable.

The second and third categories are the bureaucrats and politicians. Even corrupt bank officials come in this grouping. These people use their powers to benefit some people and enrich themselves through bribes received as a quid pro quo. Dr Subramaniam Swamy says that generation of black money results in economic distortions. People who have black money indulge in conspicuous consumption and buy luxury goods leading to import of these to the exclusion of necessities, like say food items. Further with illegal money sloshing around in the system, these worthies think nothing of buying food items at whatever price leading to huge inflation in necessities.

The media has been blamed for a number of things but glossy magazines that glorify expensive gadgets create a desire to buy the non essential. Young people have started mortgaging the future for fulfilling their desire for the latest gadgets, mobiles, ipods, ipads etc. From buying on credit to seeking illegal income to buy more is but a short step, when ethics are jettisoned. There is a magazine called ‘What hifi’. It talks of sound systems that costs around Rs 3 lacs or so and makes it sound as if acquiring these is as easy as buying a kg of tomatoes. What do our schools teach? They teach history, geography, science etc. How about teaching prudent spending for one, savings schemes and building a financial future?

It is not corruption that is the issue; it is the lack of Ethics, of Dharma that creates corruption. Our glorification of Adharma is the issue. In the 60s and 70s when I grew up and started working, the corrupt were exceptions. Social stigma was a stronger preventive than any other factor in the realm of corruption. My family lived in Govt. Quarters and it was very easy to spot those with ‘extra income’. Socially everyone would look squiggly eyed at such persons. My father was once posted to Rajkot and we had to walk a good distance from the nearest bus stop to our colony situated on the outskirts of the town. My brother and I were walking on the road and the office car carrying my father was returning from a trip to his place of work. He just proceeded without giving us a lift, and we did not even feel we had been entitled to a lift in any way. It was the norm. Official vehicles were not meant for personal use and my Dad being the head of the office had to lead by example. He was able to enforce discipline in the office because he was honest. Even at that time there was misuse of office vehicles but when my father retired in 1974, he had created an example for all of us in the family.

In SBI, which I joined in 1974, all my batchmates and I had times when business decisions went bad, but nobody ever suspected or investigated us for malafides. One of my batchmates joined the bandwagon of suspected corrupt people and we were all aware of it. This person was the exception and a customer complaint made him the subject of an investigation for corruption. The Gods were kind to him and he escaped due to lack of proof. When I worked in the Treasury, I saw Deepavali gifts being showered on people sitting in the dealing room. I am sure that the gifts were things of some value and not the permissible dry fruits and sweets. Many of them used to hire taxis and go to their distant suburban homes, as they were unable to carry these gifts by the local train. I know that some senior officers were not straight and some of their business decisions were less than kosher. As a junior officer I did not recommend some dubious proposals that came to me as a desk officer. In one case, a person who later became MD of the Bank was keen on rehabilitating a dead unit and I refused to recommend it. Since the proposal was signed by my senior, he took the brunt of the consequences, denial of promotion, posting outside Mumbai and so on.

My direct experience relates to a truck loan that one of our clients wanted in a small town in MP. As is the norm, being the Field Officer, I visited the guarantor’s place and was making the usual enquiries on net worth, income and other factors for acceptability. Suddenly the borrower took me aside and pulled out his purse and said “Koi Seva?” All my middle class reflexes took over and I refused angrily. When the borrower pleaded and told me that this was the norm in other banks, I told him that I would consider his loan only if all was well. The market reports were bad, however, and I refused to recommend it, despite the Branch Manager’s request to consider it. My BM was a good man and certainly not corrupt, but was concerned about his budget and a boost to his loan book. In SBI, the good part is that once a loan is not recommended by someone down the pecking order; nobody can sanction it without being questioned.

There was no other such ‘direct ‘experience for me. I never hankered for lucrative postings and for ‘making money’. Dharma needs to triumph over baseness, and corruption is, in any case, a form of baseness. My breeding kicked in, always, even when I was just living hand to mouth. God was kind to me and he always provided for me in my worst moments. And, believe me, I have had terribly broke moments.

Luckily all is now well. I have consultancy assignments outside India, thanks to my hard work and efforts at skill upgradation. I have helped in creating value, designed specs for software, taught kids in the IT industry about financial modelling, learnt new things from all whom I have interacted with. Twelve years ago, I would never have dreamt of all this and of earning what I am earning now. Overall I still feel that there is a dividend for honesty, commitment and hard work.

When people talk of corruption, I remember my experiences, the temptations eschewed, the consequences that I have faced, the happy endings in my life, and wonder what it is that makes people go astray. What tempts a person to make not crores but thousands of crores? Whatever outer circumstances, the inner state has to be one of being well provided for by the Maker. To my mind that is the key. Only a person, who feels that it will all be snatched away from him or her, hankers after more and more and goes about acquiring and accumulating. This shows what the Chinese term as ‘poverty mentality’. A poverty mentality believes that there is never enough to go around and that the only way to get enough is by snatching it away from others. I believe that the poverty mentality is there in most politicians, and being unqualified as well as unemployable, they see a good life to be acquired in corrupt ways. To my mind the basest form of corruption emanates from the Congress party that has transformed the country into a ‘home’ of corruption. They have been the gurus and taught the lesser parties on making money by abusing positions of power. Nehru, who, I believe, was personally clean, committed a crime of omission by not making an example of corrupt Chief Ministers and Ministers. He had the moral authority and the power to do so. By abdicating his responsibility, he allowed a small wound to fester and grow to such an extent that it is virtually impossible to eradicate corruption in Bharat. We are now a broken Humpty Dumpty morally.

What is the solution? Is it a Lokpal that will become another source of corruption, regardless of what people say now? Or is it a dictatorship that ruthlessly executes all corrupt people? The second will no doubt come when pigs fly! The JLP is a pipedream and will be scuttled, in my opinion. If the JLP bill does not come through by 15^th August 2011, what will Anna Hazare do? Will he fast again or threaten to fast again to death? Given the cynicism and the general attitude of indifference, nothing will happen. The scope of the JLP will undoubtedly be confined to sins of the future. What about the loot that has already taken place and the return of wealth locked up in the Swiss banking system and in other ‘funny money’ places?

Legislation is only a means to an end and should not be confused as the end. The Dickensian quote of the Law being an Ass is true. The Law can be rendered an ass by clever lawyers. Hence, I remain a sceptic about the utility of anti corruption legislation. The funny part is that when you talk of anti corruption, you have already assumed there will be corruption!

The only way to weaken and finally slay corruption is by two means: -

· One is to reduce the scope for corruption by practising what Narendra Modi, the incorruptible CM of Gujarat calls “Minimum Government, Maximum Governance.” The beast needs to be slain by denying it food. Concentrating discretionary powers in the hands of a few is what leads to corruption. As an example, the powers of the DGTD were curtailed drastically, once the permit raj was dismantled and the Babus stopped making money, as a consequence.

· Naive as this may be, there has to be a return to Dharma. What made India great and allowed it to survive was the existence of Dharma. This did exist for centuries and was there even till the 60s and 70s. Excessive secularisation of education, the slow erosion of moral values thereby and aggrandisement of wealth has resulted in chipping away at the resistance to wrong in society. Slowly, it has started becoming foolish to be honest.

Despite all this I do believe that the vast majority of our countrymen are honest and will rally round the call for Dharma and return to honest values. My experiences have shown how large hearted people are. People who come from outside India are surprised at the generosity of our people. They will share their simple meals with a stranger and even their living space, without expectations of any return or reward. So many times, people have helped me in small ways, always with a large heart. This is my country, Bharata! These simple folk should be able, however, to see a moral and material dividend in being honest and that is a task that needs some thought.

Here are a few things that could be done, and this is not something that needs a great deal of effort: -

· Abolish all individual income tax upto an income of say Rs 5 lacs p.a.

· Beyond that keep a tax rate of 5% and 10% only

· Peg maximum corporate tax at 15%

· Create a turnover tax of just 2% on all goods and services, that should be automatically deducted at source and paid to Govt. directly online

· The Income Tax department should be given a deadline of 5 years to settle all past cases

· After that, there should be minimum tax personnel in the department to take care of corporate cases and high net worth persons

· Abolish all perks and privileges to MPs and MLAs. Pay them a flat tax free salary of say Rs 10 lacs p.m. and then let them pay for everything out of that, including market rent for quarters, telephone charges, servants etc.

· Abolish the MPLAD allotment

· Abolish the institution of upper house

· Abolish subsidised food in the Parliament House canteen

· Redeploy surplus Govt. Staff as are left, as there will be a lesser need for their existence

· Give staff two alternatives, transfer or a lumpsum payoff and full pension for life

This is not meant to be a detailed thesis on solutions. You can get the general drift. The idea is to create an atmosphere of compliance that rewards all those who earn by legitimate means and make it easy for them to comply with laws.

On the matter of Dharma, we first need to get back to our ancient values and start to virtually ‘indoctrinate’ future generations in honesty. Also create a social taboo for dishonesty, and shun dishonest people. In ancient times, the Brahmanas had no money but had a very high social status. This was the system. Every person is entitled to earn money through fair means. People who earn by dubious means need to be isolated and condemned. That way there will be no social dividend for dishonesty.

This is it. The viewpoint of a stupid common man! Please contribute your views and debunk or even wildly refute whatever I have said here.

Missionary Conversion: Coercion and Fraud

India was a peaceful country, wealthy, prosperous and generally happy, even if it had a number of kingdoms. Some were small and some were big, but the feeling of Indianness ran through the country’s people whose heart beat as one. I remember one debate in Parliament where Sushma Swaraj talked of Bharatiyatha or Indianness. She said that Bharatiyatha is what made the parents of Somnath Chatterjee call their son Somnath, even when they were separated from the town of Somnath by a few thousand miles.

Since time immemorial, India has had a variety of religious thought forms and has accepted that while there are different ways of worship all paths lead to the Divine or Paramatman. This was the guiding principle. Since there was no religion in India in the currently accepted form, there were no threats from iconoclastic thoughts as all thoughts became a means to an end. This explains why the people of Kerala accepted Christianity when it is said to have come to their shores in the first century CE, or how Mohammedan traders who came to Kerala were called Mapillai (son in law), precursor to the term Moplah, by being offered the hand of Kerala women in marriage. Kerala was a state where religious clashes came very late in the day, because there was an absence of evangelism in the religions that existed there. I recall that the Syrian Christians did not indulge in proselytisation as, my friends inform me, the churches were exclusive and outsiders were not permitted to pray there!

The phenomenon of forced conversions started when the Muslim invaders arrived in India in the 8^th Century CE. This started with Muhammad Bin Qassim who conquered Sindh. Since then several Islamic conquerors including Moguls came to India and converted people to their religion by the sword. Further, it is axiomatic that millions who would not converted were killed. This was followed by the Christian evangelists who came to India from Europe and later from the USA.

The community to which my family and I belong is called Mandyam Iyengars and we are Srivaishnavas or worshippers of Vishnu. In 1790 Tipu Sultan killed 700 or so Mandyam Iyengars belonging to the Bharadwaja Gotra on Deepavali day, Naraka Chaturdashi. Even now, our family, belonging to Bharadwaja Gotra, does not celebrate Deepavali on Naraka Chaturdashi, in homage to the people who lost their lives on that day. If one sees the history of Jews they mourn the dead over centuries. We have not forgotten how Tipu and his cruel soldiers slaughtered our people. My mother tells me of how, her grandmother told her, women used to hide from the Muslim soldiers who would pick up any unmarried girl. They would stay away from married women or girls. Hence the institution of child marriages started. The North Indian custom of having marriages in the night started as a result of such abduction and slayings.

What makes religions resort to deception or the sword to pick up followers? The most obvious one seems to be extreme insecurity. Here is my take. If you know that your path is the right path, why would you want to make people come to your fold by resorting to deception or forcing them by the sword? Could it be because you are unsure that the path you are following is right or are you sub consciously aware that it is wrong?

Have you ever seen any Hindu trying to convert another Hindu to his way of worship? Such a thing never occurs to him or her because it is accepted that both people are right and that the path a person takes is a function of his or her Karma and choice. We do not try to mess with the Prarabdha Karma of any person, the Karma that results in birth in a particular community or family, his or her upbringing etc. This is the reason why our Bharata has seen acceptance of a kind unparalleled in the entire Universe.

However, there is a threat to this kind of existence and it is a multi pronged attack that has been coming in the form of: -

• Missionary Evangelism
• Islamic conversions
• Media support to all forces that are anti Hindu in the guise of secularism
• Misplaced secularism by the Government that tries to subsume Hindu culture and tradition, the tapestry that runs through the cultural fabric of this country
• Left Libtards who go Mao Mao and are viscerally Anti-Hindu at the slightest provocation

There is a set of excellent articles written by Varsha Bhosle, a writer who used to write for Rediff and stopped after apparent disagreements with the Editor. Please see this. In fact I suggest you read the entire series of articles by her on the Balkanisation of India. Varsha can be extremely sarcastic and truthful, even if she writes against Hindu indifference in the face of huge threats to Hinduism’s existence. One of the saddest events is the fact that she stopped writing.

We have to understand the nature of the beasts that surround us. Some are tigers, some are wolves and some are foxes. Islamic conversions are more in the past. Some undercurrents exist but these are however, not the subject of this post.

We have to see the vast research that has gone into the Joshua Project to understand how meticulously we are being targeted for conversion. There is a mapping by country, community, ethnic group and so on. The reason is to spread the gospel. What gives these assholes the right to dictate what religion we should follow is a relevant question.

As Vivekananda once mentioned, these are kindergartens of religions, where mythology, philosophy and ceremonies are interwoven to make an indistinguishable whole. In Vedanta or Hindu thought form, there are some distinctions from other religions. These are

• Mythology, Philosophy and Ceremonies are kept distinct from each other
• There is no single author, nor is there any place where it says that this is it and there is no other knowledge beyond this one
• As a corollary to the second point above, there is always scope to improve upon knowledge, accept new thoughts and to respect other thoughts
• Since there are distinct branches with Puranas, Ithihasa and Darshana, there is a way of assimilation as per the preference of the spiritual seeker
• You can progress from Puranas and Ithihasa and as people evolve they can learn more esoteric philosophical concepts

Basically therefore, Hinduism or Sanatana Dharma is a dynamic evolving and evolutionary faith and way of life with enshrined concepts of Dharma and Karma. Good and Bad are never absolute but matters which result in reactions that may not always be pleasant! Hence a person is always left with the choice of doing good or bad and paying for it in the form of karmic reactions. As a friend of mine, Satyajit Kanjilal, put it, “Karma is always corrective, not punitive!”

This indicates a highly evolved concept of ‘Religion’ and something that is capable of absorbing any other faith. However, this is not always a battle to be fought in the minds of people. We face people who want to see growth in the numbers of their kind through inorganic growth. Look at it this way, any company grows through two routes, one by increasing production and sales and investment in its own facilities, the second by acquiring other companies. Christianity is faced with declining numbers of followers or adherents to the Religion in the first world and therefore needs to go out and create growth in the third world.

This census has already indicated a growth of 20% in the population over a period of 10 years since the last one. Only by seeing the breakup of the numbers religion wise can we ascertain what has been the impact of conversions on the Hindu population of our country.

This post is all about the first beast. That beast is the wolf in sheep’s clothing. The Missionary Beast! However there is one way of beating them as Swamy Dayananda Saraswathi says. Ask them three questions: -

Where is God?

Answer: God is in Heaven

Who made Heaven?

Answer: God made Heaven!

Who made God?

Answer: Huh?

A religion that is made up of Puranas only is unable to provide answers for a sincere advanced seeker of spirituality. Hence the term Kindergarten Religion is not misplaced.

Jesus, if he existed, was a shepherd preaching to shepherds. Hence his entire message was conveyed in as simple and comprehensible form as needed for his target audience. There is no larger picture as the gospel has been taken by Christians as... well gospel! This is the basic fallacy of a religion that relies on one son of god or prophet or any other single source and believes that whatever was said by him is wisdom. As a corollary, whatever anyone says that contradicts what he said is heresy or blasphemy.

On a lighter vein, Mao is supposed to have said “When you break wind and move your bowels, your stomach will feel lighter.” This I am informed was in the Red Book that was very popular with JNU types when I was in college! Trite but Red gospel!

Without digressing however, let us say you have a computer with a robust operating system, a comprehensive Office suite and all manners of applications that allow you to watch movies, see documents in related formats, read spreadsheets, surf the web etc. On the other hand if you are given a computer that has only an operating system and extremely rudimentary applications that allows you to do none of the above. What would be your choice? If you answered the first one, it is because you are aware of what you want and make an informed choice.

Let us now skew things in favour of the second less equipped computer. What if someone offered you Biryani for two weeks provided you used Comp 2 and never go back to comp 1? The reason you would choose Comp 2 in such a case would be because

• You are starving and do not know how to get the next meal
• You are inordinately fond of Biryani and do not mind using a lousy computer, even if it means that you are hamstrung for life (assuming that you are honest and keep your word)
• Your needs do not, at the present, go beyond the operating system and the few applications that are in place. So Biryani is a bonus!
• You know that there is no reason for you to keep your promise beyond a certain period of time, and in any case you are sure you will be able to afford biryani in the near or distant future, at which point of time you will switch to the better computer

Whatever the reason, the seller is unlikely to tell you that you are being fed a bunch of tripe because he is intent only on the sale.

What makes things worse is that the seller of computer 1 thinks that there is no need for him to attract anyone to his computer and that he will equip only those already with him.

Any religion that relies on fraud and coercion to acquire and keep followers is unlikely to survive for long. Right now desert faiths, except Judaism, rely on falsehood and coercion to keep followers in their fold. However, declining numbers are a threat to the existence of Christianity. Enough has been written about Islam and it is not the subject of this post. For some reason, the evangelists think that they need to keep their numbers up and do it by any means. It is a kind of corporate culture that measures performance in terms of wins and losses, profit and loss.

Okay, Hindus do not give a rat’s arse on whether they are functioning as a profitable undertaking or are loss making. Losses mean that their numbers decline by migration to other faiths. Even this may not mean anything if there was no attempt to change the culture of the people migrating to other faiths. Herein lies the rub. A movement of a person from the Hindu faith to a desert faith involves a change in the culture. Let me give one instance. My maid servant in the house we used to inhabit some seven years back is a Christian and used to wear a big bindi on her forehead. It appears her parson told her that for the month of Lent she should not wear the bindi. Initially the lady followed her parson but she was not comfortable and resumed wearing the bindi. In some churches the parson tells people that wearing the bindi is a heathen custom and the Devil enters through the bindi! I have travelled to Bangladesh where I have seen Muslim ladies wear a big bindi on their foreheads. But these ladies belong to the upper class. These ladies are able to do so because they belong to a certain social strata that have lesser number of religious taboos.

What conversion does is to impose a kind of cultural embargo on the people converting to desert faiths. This can in time create a class conflict (JNU guys, we can use the term too). This is where the dangers are. Once a person converts and he or she is steeped in the lore of the new faith over a period of time, a new underclass is created which goes to war with the native faith. The new converts are encouraged to get more people into the fold. Incentivisation can be through monetary or social inducements. Social inducements can be giving importance to the one who brings more converts into the social fold or making a special mention in the Sunday service or other ways. Or maybe through more Biryani with the new converts!

We can see ways and means of cultural imperialism being enacted in a number of ways. A friend of mine who has lived in Bastar for a number of years tells me that the conversion to Christist faiths has increased and more people have names such as David, John, Joe, etc. We are well aware of what is happening in Bastar for it to be just exploitation of tribals that has resulted in war against the state. One more aspect is the kind of support that the media extends to people like Binayak Sen and others of his kind. I for one believe that the vast majority of the mainstream journos is sold out to enemies of this country. Paranoid? Maybe, but the evidence does not seem to prove me wrong.

We are now seeing a war drama being enacted across a large swathe of the nation where we have Christian missionaries assisted by a group of well funded ‘Leftists’ who are clearly out to create a market for them. How else does one explain the merciless killing of Swami Laxmanand Saraswati, whose only crime was in preventing conversions in Odisha? The missionaries have ensured conversion of a majority of people in the North East to Christianity.

As seen above one of the methods employed to create a market is coercion and violence on those who expose such fraud. The other methods are almost textbook in nature. The working is very smooth and involves playing on weaknesses or during stressful times. Say someone in the family is ill. The missionary or his agents are there and profess great sympathy. Next they help out in small ways and once the family member gets well they subtly ask that the family head or anyone else ‘visit’ the church one Sunday. Next we have the Biryani banquet followed by doses of Jesus and his ‘miracles’. As soon as the time is ripe, social pressure is built up for conversion of the whole family to Christianity. After sometime, as Queen says “Another One bites the dust!”

The Missionaries, and this includes their agents too, are able to do what they do because we, the Hindus, have shown ourselves very weak in defending ourselves against a method that is based on identifying weak points and relentlessly attacking these fault lines. We do not have a political leadership that will make things difficult for such attacks to be mounted. Either there is a refusal to recognise that we are under attack or there is a feeling of helplessness or worse there is acquiescence. One does not even consider the Congress as an ally against the Missionary gambit as they are part of the problem. However, the BJP has been a disappointment and they have also shown no desire to create a big noise and bring about some social awareness.

What we can do is to do our best to keep educating the Hindus belonging to economically weaker sections about the greatness of their faith and how it has kept this great country together. We should also carefully weed out any attempts at creeping evangelisation. Let me end this with a small incident that happened in a bank that I worked in. This brought me face to face with the kind of forces employed by the missionary crowd. We had three brothers belonging to a Christian family and a church that believes in shouting the name of Jesus aloud through song and music. These brothers managed to convert quite a few people in the branch belonging to the messenger cadre. Even here I saw that one of the messengers did not convert and the rest were told to change their names to a Christian name. One of their prize converts was an officer who became a Christian and got a better job in a software company, something which was attributed to Jesus! When this guy had to get married however, he was back to the Hindu fold to the intense relief of his Brahmin parents.

During the end of the year, around the 20^th of December, one of the staff members told me that there was this practice of illuminating the branch during Christmas and New Year. I smelt a rat and asked why this was not requested during Deepavali, which, in any case, is the festival of lights, and why no one asked me to do it during that time. I bluntly declined saying hell with your tradition! End of story. By the next year I had left the bank and to me it did not matter whether the branch was illuminated or otherwise.

Jomo Kenyata said “When the missionaries came to Kenya, they had the Bible and we had the land. They asked us to close our eyes. Now they had the land and we had the bible!”

I would welcome a discussion on the post and ideas on what we can do to prevent Hindus from going to other faiths. I would also like to end with a small caveat. My experience of almost six decades in this world tells me that there is no point in ‘hating’ people just because they belong to a certain faith. We need to ensure that there is a consensus for ensuring that people are not coerced or defrauded into converting from native faiths.

Bahrain and the Middle East

The Middle East has changed in a manner that was unthinkable even a year back. Having been in Bahrain my assessment is that democracy could be a little difficult to handle in the ME. Indians who are in Bahrain, UAE and Oman, relatively liberal places, like the peace and order there. And things would have been okay till Tunisia and Egypt happened.

The local people there were happy, even if there were rumblings. However, the main reason for discontent is the change in the economic climate that has taken away jobs from them. At such a time, the people start seeing discrimination and adduce reasons for it. Otherwise such a thing was unlikely to spread in the Arab world. If people had jobs, we would not have seen any demonstrations or discontent.

Speaking of Bahrain, it is next to Saudi but is a much more liberal place. The people are cultured and refined if a little formal, almost British. It is sad to see the sight of troops and police everywhere. The people of this small country are liberal to a fault. Here's hoping that there is a speedy resolution to the conflict that has occurred there and that both parties find a way to bring a durable peace and thereby make it the Pearl of the Desert.

What your Doggy Attitude Says about Your Management Style

(Disclaimer: This does not purport to be anything but pop psychology and the author claims no responsibility for anyone taking this too seriously!)

What is the difference between one dog owner and another? Well, it is rather difficult to say because, as you probably know, there are dog owners and dog owners. The attitude to their adopted pets differs considerably. Likewise, we have managers and managers. Before I embark full steam ahead, I would like to provide some background, which is my theory about dogs and their masters or mistresses. Your attitude towards your pet probably says a thing or two about you as well. So why have I chosen the canine one to make a statement? Simply because a dog is, arguably, the most common pet in the world. And I think I know about dogs and their masters/mistresses.

If you have had a dog in the house, and here let me qualify that I mean a live in pet that is allowed to enter all areas of the residence, you would know that caring for it is serious work. We have had two by the way and both have now reached dog heaven. Nonetheless, the fact is that many people have a dog to show off their wealth, or to tie at the entrance of their house or as a guard dog, that cannot enter the front door. So we have people who buy a ‘pedigreed’ dog, authenticated by a proper certificate by a kennel club.

There are only two areas that this piece will focus upon, one the way the dog owner treats the dog and the second, the way he or she deals with the ‘doggy do’ or poop. Believe me, I have seen plenty of owners, and the way they treat this rather sticky aspect of dog care is a revelation.

So to get to the point, we have the following: -

Democratic Owner:

Their dogs are allowed the run of the house. They can climb on to sofas or share the master bedroom with the owners. They are not tied up at any time and, in the rare event that dog haters come to the residence and they have to be isolated, the dogs are simply kept in one of the bedrooms, behind a closed door.

Here’s what is probably the owner’s management style. He will allow his employees or subordinates the freedom to express themselves through work. He will probably give them a long rope and will spare them the hanging if they commit mistakes. This makes for a friendly and responsible employee who learns on the job and from each task he or she is required to do. Rather like the CEO of IBM who did not fire a VP who committed a blunder that cost the company a cool $7 million. When asked why he did not he said, “Hell, I just paid for his tuition!”

Dogs and children and employees need to be corrected and this also happens with such a Manager. However, the annoyance lasts for only a short while. Normally, employees respond to the needs of the organisation best, with such a Manager and he or she dotes as much on the employees as they on him or her.

Dictatorial Owner

This person treats his canine like a Military commander treats his troops. He expects complete obedience and punishes any infraction or signs of rebellion with a reprimand or a beating. What this does to the dog is to make it a canine existing without any enthusiasm. This man’s employees are also likewise, an unenthusiastic bunch of people who work because they have to and, their life or death depends on this person who happens to be their boss. I have worked with three such caustic bosses and any attempt to do my best always met with a reprimand for some unexpressed requirement that remained unfulfilled!

The organisation suffers such bosses more due to political reasons than anything else. In the long run they cause more harm than good and the employees flee faster than people leaving the Gulf, as of now.

Careless Owner

This person cannot be bothered to take care of his or her dog. The poor dear is left to fend for itself. Food is not given on time, the pooch is not properly toilet trained and the neighbours keep complaining. Not the fault of the dog. However, you can bet the owner blames the dog and says that all this happens despite the care he takes!

You know this kind of Manager, the one who delegates work and responsibility and blames the employee for any mistakes. What happens is that the employees start shirking work and woe betide the poor sod who volunteers, with sucker written all over his or her visage. Of course everyone learns fast and no one steps up on the plate after sometime. At which point, the boss berates everyone for lack of initiative, for laziness and what have you.

What about the doggy poop, the sticky part. In India where every person is a law unto himself, there are a few owners who take the trouble of cleaning up after their dogs. In Singapore, the fear of fines and lashes of the Rotang ensures discipline of cleaning up after the canines.

In places where discipline is not enforced or, if at all, very loosely, the true character of the owner manifests. Here let me get to the types, without this description claiming to be complete by any means.

One owner takes his or her canine on to the public road and is busy using the mobile while the dog sniffs around looking for an appropriate toilet space. Sometimes, the dog is not on leash and the owner is looking elsewhere. The dog will choose, as dogs are inclined to do, the entrance of someone’s house, or the middle of the road. Passersby avoid the mess and walk around it. Meanwhile big daddy is still busy on the mobile and starts walking homeward. The canine follows although in an inquisitive way as it sniffs its way around its neighbourhood including the hindquarters of other canines. If the canine gets into a fight with another not so kindly inclined one, the owner promptly puts it on leash and drags it away from the scene despite the stiff resistance it offers to the curtailment of its freedom. This owner believes in the public being spared the menial task of clearing public spaces of doggy poo by the citizen. The dog’s duty is to dirty and the municipality’s duty is to clean up. Of course, if this worthy steps on the mess made by a canine, even if it is his own, he will lament loudly about how public servants are lax in the performance of their duty.

The abovementioned person would be the one who will fudge accounts and do all sorts of slimy things and expect that others will clean up the mess made by him. Sorry, but this trait is more masculine than feminine. Only don’t tell my wife I said so!

The next type of owner keeps his dog on leash but will stop short of cleaning up. He or she ensures that the dog does its stuff away from the public gaze and in a corner somewhere. This person may be careful not to make a mess but will still walk away from it and allow others to clean up.

Ideal Dog Owner

So who is the ideal dog owner? He or she carries a scooper or at least newspapers and plastic bags, when taking the pet for a walk. These owners clean up after their dogs and take care to use the trash can thereafter. This is regardless whether anyone is looking. These owners take good care of their dogs and keep them from straying and dirtying the neighbours’ spaces. They take responsibility to clean up any public space that has been dirtied by their dogs and bristle when their pets are accused of messing up the neighbourhood. They pass on these rules to their children who grow up to be caring and careful citizens. At work such people are likely to be responsible employees who take ownership of the business and do their best, own up their mistakes and do not leave the rectification to others.

So that’s my piece. By no means does it purport to be an all encompassing treatise. Am sure that lots of people will tell me what I have omitted, an error to which I freely admit. Let’s all strive to be like the last named dog owner. And in the picture are my two precious canine sons, both of whom have shrugged off their mortal coils. Dennis, the dachshund went to dog heaven first and Rex was with us till December 2009 and he had sufficient toilet etiquette to use the toilet. He did not flush. But then he was a dog and not a man!

The Black Swan

This is not about the movie! The Black Swan refers to the rare event that strikes in a least expected manner. And for India the Black Swan occurrence is the sudden activism that has landed quite a few punches to the Government, its spinmeisters and the Left Lib industry.

All was going well for the entire 'establishment' in India. The Queen was in her parlour eating bread and honey and counting out her money, the maids and her manservants were in the garden of the palace hanging out her laundered linen to dry, when along came the Black Swan (in the form of Radia tapes) that suddenly bit them in one of the sensitive areas of the body politic.

Forgetting sarcasm for a while, let us see it as a chance event. these things do not normally happen, and yet they do with a regularity that makes you wonder why people never learn. The Congress was in power right from the time of independence for an uninterrupted period of 30 years. There were upheavals galore for brief spells, the congress split of 1969, the emergency occasioned by the Allahabad High court judgement against Indiraji, the second split and so on. This time however, secure in the knowledge that the sycophants were in their place and all the allies had been suitably placated with their favorite avenues for securing loot or for satisfying their desires for ego massage or whatever, the Cong. went forward with its own agenda and tried to also pave the way for never getting caught by packing institutions with pliant people who would look the other way or not investigate with any vigor the crimes and misdemeanours committed by them. But black swan events are upon you suddenly without warning.

The three events that created an upheaval this time were

1. The release of the Radia tapes by Open Magazine and Outlook. Outlook always seemed a pro Congress magazine and, all of a sudden, it released what was dynamite.
2. The Supreme Court is now headed by a person who is an extremely honest and totally impartial jurist. Dissatisfied by the pace of investigation into various cases, the CBI was asked to report directly to the Court. Since then we saw the resignation of one of the Central Ministers followed by his arrest
3. Even with all this the media and press had almost decided on a policy of Omerta, silence in Italian related, ironically enough, to the Mafia. The whole affair broke out in Twitter and suddenly it erupted all over.

Everyone is aware now of loot that has taken place and nothing that the Govt. does nor the whitewash attempted by fellow travellers in the media can save the day. The Govt. looks like it is fighting with its back to the wall.

Exposure is like taking toothpaste out of a tube. Nothing can put it back again and now everyone is waiting to see the next scandal come out. But all that will be after the World Cup!

Internet Hindus

After the popularity of Twitter and the Twitterati bringing down some of the media guys by a peg or hundred, one of them, Sagarika Ghose, called the more vocal supporters of the religions native to the soil of India, Internet Hindus! What distinguishes the Internet Hindus from the others, presumably plain vanilla Hindus (am sure this is what the secular mob must be thinking of the unquestioning others as)? For one thing, they are generally articulate and educated, and thirsting for knowledge of all things bright and beautiful that the Govt. of India chooses to bring forth their way. They are also always watching the media for articles that appear to be biased, which means almost all articles from the mainstream press, given the state of the fourth estate in India and the way the world is seeing a rash of 'liberals'.

A picture is worth a thousand words, and here is one that describes the IH phenomenon better than my limited abilities with the written word. This is courtesy Swathi Pradeep, a brave lady on Twitter, whose current avatar is Archer_2011. You can see more of her comics on swathipradeep-comics.blogspot.com.



So what is it about the IH that frightens the Seculars, that calls them Lynch Mob, Trolls, Internet Hindus etc. ? It is the realisation that there exists a vast and intelligent group outside their limited reach, that shuns the partisan spin imparted by them to events, and seeks independent information from more credible sources. Also growth of this group could jeopardise positions of privilege held by the stars of the media. The global reach of Twitter has made lead time a thing of the past. When following my twitter timeline on the day of a World Cup cricket match last Sunday, comments flowed thick and fast. It was possible to follow the match just by seeing the twitter feed. Also, the comments were instantaneous so much so, often one knew about a wicket falling, even before it fell (just kidding about that last one!). Newspapers are obsolete for most of the younger generation, with such people preferring to get news online. How long before blogs also fall by the wayside? The phenomenon of instant comments that are seen across the globe and the barrage of comments and retweets that follow, renders the former purveyors of news and the opinion makers totally powerless. Further, while emails are a more private form of communication, tweets are public and are seen by many, the more followers you have the more eyeballs your tweets have. These tweets are retweeted, if they are of some substance, and several followers of followers see them. Thus what took a day or few days for an event to become public knowledge, can become that in a matter of minutes.

Tweeters are unforgiving and will go straight for the jugular in 140 characters. So the IH phenomenon has the media worried. A couple of days ago there was the news of the Supreme Court striking down the CVC appointment. When the news of Sushma Swaraj having been the lone dissenter in the appointments Committee came up, it did not take long for the image of the relevant paper to come up, with her cryptic words "I do not agree" or something to that effect. The truth was right there in black and white (or blue) and there was no escape for the Govt and their spinmeisters of the media. The PM had to apologise and take responsibility for his lapse, after the Supreme Court rapped the Govt. on its knuckles.

With the relentless deluge of news flowing through cyberspace, the Media is running scared, as the cyber journalists debunk their spin even before revolutions can be imparted to the ball! And suddenly, the much derided Internet Hindu has become a feared object. He is, in the eyes of the media, part of the Trishulati brigade, the saffron information terrorist, the purveyor of communal news to the lay secular public. But the phenomenon is here to stay and as the Americans say, will keep the media and press honest.

The hubris of TRPs and general God complex is followed by nemesis. And all of a sudden nemesis is haunting the dishonest portions of the media, people who thought that they were above God. Suddenly, some of the dominoes are falling and credibility is at an all time low, the IH phenomenon having done them in.

The fact is that several factors have contributed to the relatively sudden change in the atmosphere in the country. There is a theory that I have which is available in a book written by a person who is a financial trader and thinker. With that intriguing thought I shall leave you. More about that in my next post.

Left, Right and Center After Godhra Judgement

Much Sabarmathi water has flown after the incidents took place in Godhra on the 27th of February 2002 and the riots that followed in Gujarat. One would think that, nine years on, the country would have moved on, but this does not appear to be the case.

Everyday one sees at least one mention of the post Godhra riots, without mentioning that there was an incident in Godhra where 59 people, including women and children, were burnt in coach no. S-6 of the Sabarmathi Express on its way to Ahmedabad from Ayodhya. The incidents were the subject of several enquiries and finally, after almost nine years, a special court produced a verdict where, of 94 accused, 31 were found guilty and 63 acquitted. Sadly, the persons acquitted had to wait 9 years only because there were several petitions filed in the Supreme court seeking to stay the proceedings of the special court. These were the products of numerous NGOs that thought they were assisting the persons under trial. Be that as it may, the special court could finally proceed with its business around a couple of years ago and reached its conclusions and passed judgement in this month, viz. February 2011.

Only a day back I watched Left Right and Center, a programme on NDTV, one of the well known news channels in India. This channel has a key role in shaping opinions in India and, while I have never been comfortable with its uncanny ability to mix news and (its)views in a seamless manner, the proclivity for which exists in the mainstream English language press of my dear country as well, I do not have any criticism of the channel in regard to its conduct of this programme.

Nidhi Razdan, the anchor, did a good job of conducting the discussions. The participants were Shoma Choudhary of Tehelka, Kanchan Gupta from The Pioneer, Ashis Nandy, a well known sociologist and Kiron Kher, a well known actor of Bollywood. I caught the discussions only after Kanchan had finished saying his piece on the Godhra train burning judgement. The others, with the exception of Ms Choudhary, were not overly critical of the judgement, but Prof. Nandy was critical of the BJP. This is only to be expected from a member of the Secular Left that controls the discourse in the country and is no lover of the BJP. They remind me of Animal Farm of George Orwell, where pigs are taught "Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad", this being a general critique of all homo sapiens, who were considered the enemy. In the case of the Left and some of their fellow travellers, "Congress Good, BJP Bad!"

What really made me feel more than just a bit perturbed was the view of Ms Choudhary. She agreed to the following: -

1. There was a mob of Muslims at Godhra station
2. They set fire to the train bogey S-6

However, she differed with the judgement passed by the esteemed court in regard to there being a conspiracy to do so. To put it in simpler terms, there was no premeditation and all evidence relating to this aspect rests on the testimony of two persons in regard to selling 140 or so litres of petrol, on the previous day, to a few persons who were part of the mob. What Ms Shoma said was that there was no premeditation and that the mob was suddenly provoked into burning the coach. Let us assume that Tehelka and Shoma have done more research than the Court that spent so many years investigating the case.

As per Ms Shoma, we have the following: -

1. There was a mob of Muslims at Godhra station
2. For some reason they were provoked suddenly when the train happened to be passing by
3. They were angered by the very presence of the people in that particular bogey, including some women and children
4. They set fire to the train bogey S-6

Here are my questions.

1. How does a mob of around 1000 to 2000 'like-minded'people gather all of a sudden in a small town like Godhra, and that too early in the morning?
2. If they were not properly organised, how did they go inside, douse the bogey with petrol, pull the chain, get out, set fire to the petrol from the outside and join the mob?

The mob did not allow a single person to escape from the bogey as they kept pelting it with stones. The persons inside were forced to keep the shutters closed for fear of getting hurt by the stones. Sadly, there was no escape from the flames.

And here's my last question to Shomaji. Even assuming this kind of behaviour is not a result of conspiracy, something which has been debunked by the Court, does it condone a crime that resulted in a gruesome death of so many people, including women and children, whom nobody could accuse of 'provoking' or 'hurting sentiments' unless of course, their very existence was provocative.

Next, if that provocation was justifiable, why not the riots that followed? Not my view, just logical progression. Thankfully, we have a Government in Gujarat that has ensured that several cases have been lodged, tried and sentences pronounced. While cause always precedes effect, neither is pardonable, if both are murderous in nature.

Murder is Murder, regardless of who commits it, whether as an individual or in a mob. To think that a murder, that occurs because a mob suddenly sets itself upon a small number of people of another religion, is justified is completely indefensible. What does that tell you about the person with such an attitude?