Unique ID

The most exciting news that I have heard this month from back home is the setting up of the Unique ID authority of India. Nandan Nilekani has been appointed as the Chief of the UID Authority in the rank of Cabinet Minister. I shall not dwell much on why I find this one of the most important events in recent times; Apart from the various benefits of Unique ID for a billion Indians explained in various Press Information Bureau releases, there is something very personal about it for me. An old bitter experience when I went to the Malaysian High Commission in Chennai to renew my claim to citizenship. I was about 16 years old. My father was against the idea of retaining Malaysian citizenship. I had a valid Malaysian passport which shows my name with a minor spelling mistake. The future looked really bleak. I wanted to jump ship and make a living abroad. I was asked by the Malay lady at the counter about my Malaysian ID card. I didn’t have one since they were issued after we left Malaysia. She said sorry, you can’t renew your passport. I came away embittered by the experience. I threw away my Malaysian passport and severed my last links to my foreign identity. I was Indian, among teeming millions, where cattle and humans have no ID to tell them apart.

Today I own several identification documents. My driving licence issued by Tamil Nadu government shows my sister’s home address. My passport shows Calcutta address. My PAN card was issued while residing in my first house in Delhi. I have shifted to another place two years ago. My election ID card is new and shows the correct address. Address changes are very difficult to incorporate in any of these documents. You need an electricity bill or telephone bill to prove you reside at a place. Yossarian, (the protagonist in Catch 22) would find many amusing situations in the Indian scramble to establish identity. Even now, it is very difficult to open a bank account with all their KYC norms. This could be a great chance to link them all and establish single point identification. I suppose State Governments have a key role to play.

I have some unsolicited advice to offer. Although there is only about a one in a zillion chance that Nandan Nilekani would read this, let me set it forth. And these have nothing to do with linking of servers, developing software, procurement of hardware, deciding the platform or a million other things on which I possess no competence to offer advice. (Yeah modesty really is my middle name)
a) See no caste/ religion: Our caste and our religion is the cornerstone of our identity in India. Something that we are born with, something over which we had no control: Yet we flaunt it with great pride. We boisterously follow rituals, blare our prayers through loudspeakers and brazenly solicit votes in the name of our religion/ caste. Although it is rather comforting for psephologists, sociologists, political parties and harvesters of souls to have details of breakup of caste & religious denominations right down to the Panchayat level, I think we must resist the temptation to include it in the card. We should not even show SC/ST status in the card. Let the information (on SC/ST status alone) be embedded in the system to enable eligible citizens to receive benefits through public distribution system or free education / medical facilities. Let us be Indians, pure & simple for once. And not be East Indians, South Indians, Kayasths, Muslims, banias, tribals etc
b) Show Mom’s name: Can we have our Mom’s name in the cards? Not that the status of father needs to be relegated. But she carried us, raised us and cried over us. Doesn’t she deserve mention in our identity cards? At least the option to show Mom’s name ought to be given. Expect some political dividends and some brickbats too. It is probably the most natural and rational thing to do. Let political correctness begin from home.
c) Language tangle : A very touchy one. Leave it to poiticos to sort that one out. My advice would be to have the card printed in (maximum) three languages. It sure sounds unwieldy. If three languages in one card are a bit too much to handle, then English and one regional language should suffice. If a village Patwari cannot read the card, then the whole exercise is of no use. Some politicians from North could object to English in the card. Tread carefully. It is a minor political mine field. Let the genial Sardar handle that one.
d) Physical verification: Could we have customer friendly shop fronts which will incorporate changes to address if the individual himself goes and submits changes? For this purpose technology-enabled physical verification might be necessary. We aren’t an evolved society like UK where finger printing, DNA testing or retina scanning of citizens are seen as intrusions into privacy. Let us make it at least easier for those who agree to have their finger prints taken and retinas scanned. I can visualize dissenting voices from troubled regions. Keep the security boogie out of it. Let the law abiding citizen who has no problems with physical identification be given faster and better service.
e) Beware of the babu : I do not mean to denigrate my class. There are very bright ones among us. But we can also be very self-serving, condescending to technocrats and pretentious. Some of us could be very hierarchical in functioning and privilege conscious too. It is difficult for a Dire Straits- listening software professional to get a hang of the Babu work culture. Listen to the Babu, by all means. He has knowledge of the dusty, hot and noisy Indian reality. But when in doubt, trust the instincts of sweaty, grass-root politicians- not the Babu in sanitized, weather-controlled environs. Try to give an autonomous status to employees of the authority and give it a technology intensive, de-bureaucratized work culture. You might get some clues from NSE.
f) Could we have the headquarters of UID Authority in Bangalore? Heh? Heh? or Bombay or Shillong for that matter ? Just a stray thought; a loose cannon. I heard that it will be based in Delhi. Is it too late to change? Hate to see you and UID employees mired in the stifling Delhi culture. Enough of it has rubbed off on me. I am unfit to live in civilized corners of earth.
This mission could be unique, huge and one of its’ kind on earth. The successful implementation of this project could transform our country much the way the use of EVMs transformed our democracy. There are pitfalls ahead. Never before have I so fervently hoped that a Government mission succeeds!!!

Banned Books

Many would place a price on Rushdie’s head for writing Satanic verses- not for blasphemy but for writing tough-to-comprehend English. Just as a Mallu male, clad in a tucked up Dhoti would place a price on Lola Kutty’s head, for her jabs at us in Channel V. I am tempting fate by writing about books banned in India. I had heard so much about banned books on India’s China War- one by Neville Maxwell and another by John P Dalvi. It is not difficult to find and read banned books in India. We never tried it because it didn’t carry the excitement of reading pornography with rapid heartbeats and fluttering eyelids of 15 year olds. Nine hours to Rama by Stanley Wolpert (on the assassination of Gandhi) is difficult to find. It had bombed in the Box Office when made into a movie- it certainly was not a popular book either. The Polyester Prince is easily downloadable from the net and doesn’t tell us anymore than what we already know. But the easy availability here at libraries in Australia of the handful of books banned in India, made me curious to read them.

The China war took place around my birth in October 1962 and was considered to have dealt a blow to Nehru’s health and leadership. He didn’t last long after that. No matter how much modern India criticizes him for his mixed model of economy, economic planning and political naiveté on Kashmir, the man had a vision of where he wanted to take India. If our IITs and IIMs have brand equity and if we have an evolving secular democracy over the years, we owe much to him. Even the huge investments in public sector in those days were probably the only way to push the economy and it is arguably the control-freak Babus who failed the system. You could have a hundred grassroots politicians to win elections, rub the noses of opponents in mud and cultivate political foot soldiers from the back of beyond. But it takes dreamers to set out a vision and the rules of engagement for a nation recently freed from colonial rule.

I read Maxwell’s India’s China War. Neville Maxwell was the Times correspondent in Delhi those days. I read the relevant portions again and again. It is indeed unfair to India. It fails to consider how any other country would have dealt with the borders bequeathed on it by a colonial power. India had no choice but to hang on to the territory it inherited from the British in spite of the ambiguity that supposedly surrounded the rough terrain. Not for us to go into the legality of it. But Maxwell says it was Nehru’s proximity to and reliance on Lt Gen Kaul, a Kashmiri Brahmin which drove him into an unwinnable position which professional soldiers advised him against. It is unfair to suggest that Nehru, endowed with a western education and Fabian values, was susceptible to regional/caste considerations. I can’t imagine a Lieutenant General (below the rank of Chief of Army Staff) gaining the ear of the Prime Minister directly. Doesn’t happen today- I can say with fair amount of certainty. Maxwell is also less harsh on Krishna Menon, who supposedly stood against the forward policy which led to war. He came under harsh attack from opposition. With his left leaning ideological predilections, he was accused of being soft on Chinese. Menon was eventually swayed by his own rhetoric and had to prove that he was no less patriotic when it came to dealing with China. I was disappointed by the lack of historical information of the role of communist parties, which later led to the split in 1964. The book dwells extensively on the tactical blunders in the military campaign, which I shall refrain from commenting upon. Let me adhere to the conduct rules for serving Public Officials.

But what dawned on me as I read the book was the hidden but unintentional theme that was laced around it. Those were early days of parliamentary democracy. Most of the MPs were not privileged with an education; leave alone a Cambridge education as Nehru had. A far cry from today when industrialist MPs with false teeth, gold bracelets, clipped nose-hair and Armani suits straddle the Parliament Central hall. Nehru consulted the Parliament at almost every step, influencing the course of subsequent events; sometimes at great peril to swift decision making by the executive. There are reasons to surmise that the seeds of a noisy democracy that we have inherited were sown carefully by Nehru. He used the Parliament as a sounding board, as a vehicle for popular expression and to evolve national consensus. He believed that such matters of state need to pass through the process of rigorous consultations with elected representatives for transparency and acceptance. Despite his colossal status in Indian politics, it is a tribute to the man that he chose the path he did. I have seen senior officials setting norms to institutions to suit their own narrow interests, with brazen disregard to what others might see it as.

Maxwell labours the point that Chinese claim to borders on Eastern and Western sectors challenging the colonial status ought to have been negotiated by India instead of rejecting it outright. But he himself has admittedly benefitted from the open society that India is, in writing the book. That is something that the Chinese can’t lay claim to after so many years of existence. On the contrary, things behind the bamboo curtain in China were shrouded in secrecy. According to Maxwell, the Chinese approach and strategy were cohesive. It certainly wasn’t as well articulated as the Indian position was. And it certainly didn’t have to go through the scrutinizing gaze of elected representatives, nor did it have to be subjected to unkind analysis by noisy media and editorials as in India. I am sure Indians are not going to throng the bookstores if the ban on this 40 year old book is lifted. It helps us see ourselves from another side of the prism. This is certainly no Tiananmen that we need to erase from collective memory…

Bent Babus

If someone were to tell me that he joined the Government to change the world, I’d try hard to keep a straight face. Most join out of an earnest need for acceptance and importance. I had the silliest reason. I joined to escape banking. Never been sure I did the right thing. Also it was disappointing not to become a glamorous Babu in the Foreign Service or a pretentious Babu in the state government wielding a wide range of positions and immense powers. I ended up with a technocrat’s job in Government. One that doesn’t have much brand equity or acceptance and is often relegated to the bottom end of the cesspool that is Indian bureaucracy. But I had mournfully occupied controversial and hard posts without knowing that these jobs could, with the right enterprise, be turned into lucrative ones. Once a colleague proved me terribly wrong by turning the very same post I occupied earlier into a money spinner. Yeah for the imaginative and bent Babu, there is a gold mine out there waiting to be discovered.

Recent days have been very demoralizing. It is learnt that the chief of my organization has been caught with his hand in the cookie jar immediately after retirement. The two hundred year old parent organization I belong is being battered from all sides and I don’t feel like going back and continuing there. I have signed a bond to serve the Government for five years and hence cannot quit and start a chain barber shop in Delhi as a well wisher suggested in this blog. After twenty years in the bureaucracy, I have nothing to show for it; except a rich rainbow of experiences, lots of books and music, places travelled on a shoe string budget and some nice people I have come to know. Missus has an old flat in Chennai and I hope she won’t boot me out of her life unless I start wearing flowers on my ears or cross-dressing. I have always been suspicious of those who wear honesty on their sleeves or give boring lectures about integrity. The first guy who gave me a lecture on integrity in Government got thrown out of service for petty corruption. Like in every job, there may be occasions when we walk the thin line between scrupulous honesty and expedience. There was a time when I wouldn’t send my peon to book a personal train ticket or do a small home errand on government transport. I have changed a lot. Expedience says when important matters of state await you in office, better make life a bit easier. I have evolved over the years.

The corrupt bureaucrat in Delhi is an object of much admiration; much as a man with a second wife in Chennai is. A soul searching question I have often asked myself is this. Still why are many bureaucrats clean? I know not less than 50 officers in South Block who would not take a bribe. Our journalists are not interested in finding out with a sting operation. Sleaze sells: not honesty. I know that you will find this hard to believe. We also have clean politicians. Are some bureaucrats clean because they are idealistic? Or aren’t they adventurous enough? Are they scared of God or law enforcement? I don’t know. Mostly it is a matter of habit. Some are born with school teacher parents, who drilled a lot of morality into them. Some are either too poor or too rich to want more money. I guess I am lucky to be born to undemanding parents who lived a frugal life. Or to have a wife who brings home an equivalent packet. Also money matters less as you are older. My favourite repartee is of Michael Moore, the American satirist who made the documentary “Fahrenheit”- a damning indictment of Bush administration. When asked what he intended to do with the minor fortune he made out of Bush-bashing; he said. I lived my life well into my forties on an annual income of less than $ 30000 (pretty low by US standards). Millions at this age do not matter much to me….

I wouldn’t say the same thing although it is more or less true in my case. I earned a pittance well into my forties. But I am not entirely unclear what to do if I became a millionaire overnight. I might get good Hi Fi equipment, gadgets, lots more books, DVDs, music and a decent large LCD TV. Then what? Maybe get some decent clothes - although I can’t be too bothered about it. In Delhi the clothes maketh the man. Maybe I will be stuck knowing not what to do after spending the first couple of lakhs of money. It is difficult to turn a leaf and start a new life. I am almost certain that I can’t bring myself to be any different than what I am today. Let me try to explain why. This has nothing to do with Gandhian ideals, promise of heaven in afterlife or middle-class morality.

The Government is my employer. Pays me a pitiable salary but expects me to protect its’ interests. I should quit and join the suits in corporate world if I am not happy with the wages- too late for that now. But this fluid entity called government sometimes is not sure what it wants. So I think hard and decide what is good for my employer and try to be worth the money it pays me. It gives me a lot of freedom. I needn’t grovel before the serious looking guys who run it. The Government is also remarkably endowed with a sense of justice- often slow and slippery. I would feel diminished and less human, if I use my official discretion to fatten my purse to the detriment of my provider. I am not sure I have the same sense of loyalty in other matters. But this is my livelihood. I am grateful to my provider for keeping my home and hearth warm and my son clothed and fed- as simple as that. Not convinced? Well- it’s true…

But the flip side- If I was working for the suits or seths and I am expected to carry a bagful of cash to the bent Babu to advance my employer’s interest, would I do it? You bet I would- without batting an eyelid.

The News Story

Aussies must be choking over their raisin toasts at breakfast reading of racist attacks on Indians in Sydney and Melbourne. I have been receiving calls from friends and relatives enquiring of my safety. Canberra is a nice white collar capital city with polished government types. That is more than what I can say about some other crude capital cities- no prizes for guessing which one I mean- the one I come from, of course. But government types all over the world can be, you know, humourless. They look as if the burden of the whole world rests on their creaky shoulders and they haven’t had bowel movements for the last several days. Comes with the territory, I suppose. Being part of government can lull you into thinking that you are the epicenter of the world.

I have landed with some egg in my face. I had successfully persuaded my nephew to join University in Australia against his wishes to study in UK or USA. He asks me now is it wise to come there. I try my best to reassure him. The Australians had cancelled their Davis Cup tie in Chennai (and got themselves disqualified for a year) citing security concerns. I spent 6 years in Chennai. My first thoughts were…didn’t the Australian High Commissioner in Delhi brief them? Chennai is the city where even a Pakistani cricket player who hit a century got a standing ovation. It is no less safe than down town Melbourne or Sydney. To be compared to other dangerous spots in South Asia was a bit too much and it irks me endlessly. But there is something called poetic justice. Now my whole country is asking: Is Australia safe? My answer is.. yes. I believe that these attacks are more circumstantial than racist. The fact that the victims were dark skinned Indians must have given them some added enthusiasm. But I don’t think they are targeted as a class. So my advice is: do come here: it is a great country.

Yes there are concerns. Of a whole Australian generation growing up without ambition: becoming a burden on the welfare state; or the broken families they come from. It is going to be a problem for them. Not us. The Chinese are all pervasive here. Why Indians, not Chinese, if it all has to do with race? For one, the Chinese students are rich ones; they stay in richer localities, blowing up their parents’ money. Their standards of English are much poorer than that of Indians, but they are hard working. They are not visible in the underbelly of the city where such attacks take place. The Indian students are those who didn’t get into the best of Indian institutions (which are tougher to get into than Harvard) and would rather study abroad than in down market Indian ones. It is cheaper to study here than in UK or USA without a scholarship. Also, the Australians are much obliged to Chinese, for understandable reasons… (read ‘And the PM spoke Mandarin’ in this blog). The Aussie media is downplaying these incidents whereas the Indian media has gone to town with it. The Australians are deeply embarrassed by it. Recently, the ex-CEO of Telstra (a US national of Mexican origin) accused Australia of being racist. I could sense the revulsion in the media and civil society over his remarks. This is a country that practiced an overtly “white Australia” policy for several years. They have come a long way since then. They wouldn’t like to be called racist just as we wouldn’t like to be called a nation of cheats, as the touts standing outside IGI airport Delhi would have a new visitor to India believe.

We had little experience of racism in Canberra -except for one small incident when some drunken punks in a car, at the Australia day concert, shouted at us to go back to India... I am sure they must have driven down from Sydney or Melbourne. I wouldn’t brand the whole country racist on that basis. Well, if you ask me about discrimination, I can say it is no worse than what we encounter as Indians in various parts of our own country based on the identities we possess. I have this template to remember countries by. For Australia, I think of Barry, Rhonda (my landlady) and others who have been wonderful to us. I tend to forget that I was ripped off by another Australian (although originally of an East Asian nationality) by getting me into a house not fit for inhabitation. He still owes me 220 $. I want to file a police complaint against him. I don’t want him to cheat another international student again…The Missus says forget it- we are here for a little while – let bygones be bygones. We did pretty OK after all that. There might be poetic justice awaiting him also.

So we are safe, as of now. I am more threatened by climate change, global warming and the assignment due for submission tomorrow in University than racism in Australia.