Caste and Kerala History

          If you believed in the grandeur and majesty of your ancestors, then it must have been derived from the many stories your Mom told you when you were young. As she made you look at the moon and deceived you into opening your mouth, swiftly inserting that bally concoction of rice with curd and curry into your mouth, telling you stories of Gods, kings, wars and ancestors.... You held those stories dear to your heart and with each rendering, some shine and sheen was added to the glorious past.

     I had been waiting to read a period history by P K Balakrishnan on the caste system and Kerala History. Like all interesting off-beat books, this one is also out of print. The moment I found it with a circulation library, I snagged it. I still keep it and read excerpts from it as the imminent date of return is nearing. Now I have a deal with the travelling librarian who promised me that he will get it from me the day someone else requests the book. So I get to keep it for sometime(Why do interesting books always go out of print ? The best book on the Kashmir issue is written by Sisir Gupta. The book apportions blame equally on Indian and Pakistani sides and can be called a most objective assessment of the various dimensions of the issue. It may not be palatable to hawks on both sides of the border. Although published in India in the sixties, today it is not available. Only used copies are  available in Amazon US)

   Coming back to Kerala History, one could call this book a subaltern history which demolishes many popularly held myths and notions. These notions may have come from a mish mash of poorly made period movies, Ravi Varma paintings and a warped history that recites the stories of Kings.  History, as they say is written by the Victors of brutal wars. Our mind fills with images of grand three storied castles, golden finery, women wearing anklets and clothes that flow from breast downwards in a single whole. And men, with their hair tied to the sides, brandishing thick mustaches, broad shaven chests and jewelry. There is delusion of wealth and prosperity all around.

       The Mughals and other Deccan kingdoms derived their revenue from rent from agricultural land, which was later usurped by the East India Company and eventually the British Raj.  This was a rich resource which went into building fortresses, treasures and patronage of beuty, arts, music and dance.  The Book (Jathi Vyavasthithiyum kerala Charithravum) puts paid to all such elitist notions of Kerala's past.The kings of Kerala were no rentier class. Their income was not derived from agricultural land but from various sanctions and permissions.Women needed approval to cover their breasts, homes to adorn them with tiles, men to keep moustaches.... So one could imagine the leakage of income that could occur by a weak enforcement machinery and a populace that cared two hoots for taking permissions for such trivia. So all the rulers had was a false sense of self importance while the rest of the world mocked at them (much like bureaucrats of our day....)

    And there were no grand buildings....two thirds of the landscape was occupied by deep forests. Even the reasonably wealthy class lived in low ceilinged houses with thatched roofs, which could be reduced to nothing in a flood or strong wind. The caste system cast its long shadow. The elite had the means to keep servants in large numbers. The Zamorin of Calicut would be preceded by a 100 Nair women who would carry brooms and clean the area as the king walked on it. . The Nambudiris are thought to have originated from Mangalore. Ezhavas from Sri Lanka. Nayars were a mish mash. All of them settled in a comfortable mad house that prescribed and maintained distances between each other.

     The book is harsh on the elite castes, especially the Nairs and Nambudiris, and with good reason. Somewhere he describes the sight of men carrying lanterns and fire torches walking about to nest with their paramours, mistresses and wives in the dead of the night. While society imposed sanctions on whom one could sleep and have sex with, they appeared less moralistic on sex per se. The great wars by the martial race of Nairs were nothing but minor skirmishes. In other words, they were a bunch of poorly paid mercenaries, flexing muscles and tending to themselves. When called to war they would take their weapons and leave where duty beckons. And the evenings were spent with their loosely defined bed partners.

     This book is a bit chaotically written. But a lot of effort has gone into its making. Historical works, gazettes and court proclamations are quoted to sustain the central theme of the book. The theme being that we have nothing much to be proud about.....The author is not an accomplished historian. But he has an engaging fictional style which brings the world before him alive. He has the ability to engage the writer and question his beliefs. I had read a biography written by M K Sanu about this immensely talented but under-appreciated writer. I only wish DC Books, the publishers, would come out with a new edition....

     

Another Pay Hike

                    There is this buzz that the Babus are getting another pay hike. This happens once in ten years. According to well informed Babus (hmmm...well informed only on the subject of pay and allowances to themselves!!)  that this hike is the lowest ever in history. Meanwhile pink journalists have gone to town comparing the pay of Govt drivers viz a viz private ones, Govt clerks vs private ones, Govt blue collar workers vs private ones (with the Govt ones trumping the private ones). At the other end of the spectrum are comparisons PSU Bank chief executives (who are, incidentally, not covered by Pay Commissions...  our journalists are really as lazy as Govt Babus) vs Private ones. At the higher end, the private sector executives are paid indecently high amounts while senior Babus have to make do with a couple of lakh Rupees per month. (the equivalent of about 2500 dollars)

                      This blogger has been maintaining that Government Officials are not in need of periodic pay hikes which blow a huge hole in the Govt exchequer. What they need is a total overhaul of their terms of employment, working environment and several other things. The theories that I propound in casual conversations enrage my fellow bureaucrats. I am often castigated, branded a maverick and a traitor to the cause. The cause being the lofty one of enriching ourselves with more pay and more allowances with minimal work. If you are a masochist, you can read other posts of mine in this blog.(The Great Indian Oversight system &  Awards and rewards)The basic strands of my alternate thinking go as follows
           For one, Government has long forgotten to empower its' executives to apply discretion. At the same time Babus have been made accountable to more and more rigorous standards with every passing year. If a Babu fails to achieve his target but follows every rule in the book, he can get away with it. Conversely, if there is someone follows the rule in paper, but violates the spirit of the rule (and maybe lines his pockets in the process), he may also get away with it. Hence Govt works more on the principle of appearing to be right rather than being right. In short, the Government has built a huge oversight and justice system that it lost sight of its' primary objective- that executives ought to be empowered to get things moving on the ground.  It is not easy to remove anyone from service without bracing up for a huge battle in courts/media etc. Most of us do not have to stomach for it. So we have a system where we work with what we have.

            In most developed countries, Govt Offices with public dealings are well laid out, bright, well-lit with instructions displayed everywhere. Walk into an RTO Office or Govt Hospital in India. You will be shocked at the pitiful condition in which it is maintained and the lack of signages and guidance to unsuspecting visitors. There are a few touts who hang around and offer to facilitate your business for a small consideration. We have created a complex maze of rules to spend govt money that the focus is not on the effectiveness of our spending but on plugging the possibility of misuse. As a result, even well meaning Babus avoid the trouble of expenditure for fear that they might be wading into controversy. Babus in lower rungs are paid well enough to afford air conditioners at home, whereas their workplace is dinghy, smelly, hot and dirty. We need to give ourselves a decent working atmosphere, and not just limit it to changing curtains and carpets of senior Officers every six months.

       Thirdly, we need to be empowered to work fearlessly and effectively. Life time employment in Govt service doesn't facilitate that. Contractual employment for five years at every level, temporary appointments of domain specialists for duration of specific projects etc can speed up results considerably. We seem to be content to do minimal recruitment in Govt and outsource services to private sector. Most of our senior Babus have no domain knowledge and know only enough skills to contract-hire consultants, service providers etc. A poor reflection of state of affairs in Government
             Lastly and most importantly, we need to build capacity in Government services to provide services. We need to build institutions that function well, enhance domain knowledge, institutional memory and training of personnel. We have a huge success story in the Indian passport office modernization. I renewed my passport some time back. The application was submitted online and an appointment received. The passport Office was bright and well lit with a decent waiting area. The staff handling capture of biometrics and scanning of documents were from a private sector software major. The second and third stage verification was by MEA (Ministry of External Affairs) staff. The entire process of capturing biometrics and verification took 40 minutes. When I left the passport Office, I received a SMS in my phone that my new passport is being despatched !! Phew!! It really blew my mind. Can't we replicate this model in say, public distribution? Government Hospitals? RTO Offices?           

Lit Fest

      I was, for the first time in life, in the midst of a literary festival. The Hindu Lit for Life 2016 coincided with my non- holidays - days when the rest of the world enjoy holidays and I will be ...ahem...(loosely described as) on duty; ie., I am on call and expected to attend any impending crisis in Office).  Anyway, here I was with the Missus and a bottle of water, setting out in an Ola cab (since the personal car had submerged in the floods).

       We listened to Omar Abdullah first. He spoke brilliantly. He is good with words, has a great sense of humour and doesn't sound like a politician. Then came a panel discussion on the floods in Chennai. What the panelists had to say was the worst kept secret in Chennai; that the floods were man made, created by a confluence of factors like real estate greed, apathy to town planning and waste management practices which clogged the sewer lines. We were none the wiser and we knew that the story will be recounted; until the next floods......

      Then came Sanjay Subramanyan, the man who kindled my interest in Carnatic music, by his passionate and lively performances. He too spoke brilliantly; a man whose success sits lightly on his shoulders and looked like the boy next door. He exuded honesty and sounded very down to earth and practical.

   The next day we saw Lionel Shriver and Anuja Chauhan in two separate sessions. The lady who interviewed Shriver (Nilanjana Roy, whose book "The girl who ate Books" I am reading right now) sounded a bit stilted. But Shriver is one author I am going to read.She had several interesting insights into the human condition. Anuja Chauhan, an author I love for the sheer lighthearted romantic comedies she writes, came next. The interviewer was better this time and got her to open up.

     I saw some Pazham poris being sold outside the venue. The stall was awaiting fresh stocks. The discerning pazham pori lover will testify that there is nothing like a hot steaming pazham pori as against a cold and limp one. (Call it banana fritters with a coating of flour with a dash of sugar fried in loads of oil...) As a result we missed the first part of a session which had Shiv Kunal Verma, who has written a book on India's China War. A book that I have already ordered on Amazon but am yet to read. Anyway, listening to him, I felt I would have to re-read from the many books that I possess on the subject, especially on events relating to the battlefield  in the 1962 war. Then came the charming politician Shashi Tharoor, which saw some crowds. Suddenly there were people, young and old , filling up the chairs and even sitting on the aisle, on the floor. Shashi Tharoor uses a lot of visual imagery and captures the attention of the listener. Typical debating club tactics, but he surely knows how to engage an audience.

                   It felt nice to be in the midst of a reading generation; and not among devious Babus, caught up in their struggle for power, pelf and petty animosities. There were many youngsters milling about the place, which gave me some hope that there are still readers among the youth.

The deluge

  On the 2nd of December 2015,  I woke up rather early to the screaming alarms of cars parked in our colony. I noticed that power had gone off. It was very dark at 330 AM and I couldn't figure out what happened. I peered into the darkness outside my window. I noticed that the streetlights had gone off and knee deep water had entered everywhere. I went down the stairs from my second floor home. I could see families being evacuated from the ground floor apartments. Residents in the first floor and above were opening their homes to perfect strangers and families. Children, pets, old and infirm moved into all houses.
           What followed was a mixed bag. Firstly the floods didn't spare the rich in their tony homes in upscale neighbourhoods. Secondly every citizen rose up to be a volunteer,  working to mitigate the sufferings of fellow citizens. Thirdly, the entire relief operation was being coordinated by social media like twitter and facebook. (Yours truly was also relying on it in spite of belonging to the Government, Central, although). A disaster so vast in scope ought to have been coordinated by the State Govt. authorities. One would expect the Mayor of Chennai to come before media and give inputs on where relief is needed in terms of food, drinking water, medicines, clothes, blankets etc. Instead social media kept bouncing off these messages through day and night.
     We were cooped up without electricity or water for 2 days. Phones had stopped working, food supply was running low.At last we made an exit and moved into the house of my sister who lives in a relatively unaffected area. Neighbors with whom I shared barely a nodding acquaintance had turned solicitous and friendly in those days. I lost a car to the floods.  On a working day, I and the Missus are ferried to and back from Office in Govt issued cars. Nevertheless, a small personal car was handy to drop Chathu at the Bus stop, take a drive to my sister's house or just to drive around in an emergency. And now, the bridge near my home is broken, which makes it a longer drive to get to the Bus stop.
            Life is limping back to normal. Rebuilding what's lost, picking up the pieces and moving on...But a disaster opens your eyes to the frailty of human existence. There was a time during the solitary confinement that I started wondering if this is the end. Was it all going to end in water ? There are families which have lost their homes, their belongings, documents everything. A ground floor resident in my apartment block, an old widower, I see him stand everyday before the ruins that was his home.  He had lost almost everything.
    In the aftermath of the floods, there have been recriminations and mudslinging galore amongst politicians, bureaucrats, media and others. There have been reports of how lakes have been usurped by real estate mafia and further regularized by politicians. How waterways have been encroached by the homeless, who could not be evicted since they constitute vote banks. How trees have been cut to accommodate concrete monstrosities. How sewage lines have been left in a mess. All in all, it is not a pretty picture. The ordinary citizen is hoping that this disaster will open our eyes to tighten public management. But the cynics know that this too shall pass..... And things will be as before.

Aadhaar for the rich

          The longer you stay on in bureaucracy, you are convinced that no matter how well meaning your actions or thoughts, you are always under a cloud of suspicion. 5 years back the Chief of my organization was arrested for bribery and corruption. In the intervening years, I have seen ordinary, earnest Babus being implicated for taking perfectly legitimate decisions under given circumstances. The Coal sector had become the cynosure of attention. My friends in the bureaucracy swear by the integrity of some of the Officers who were implicated in the Coal affair. It has become fashionable to point fingers at everyone without an iota of proof. Mainstream media and social networks have compartmentalized public perceptions on governance and public administration into black and white boxes. You are either good or bad. There is no earnest attempt to plug loopholes in our traditional processes of public management.

      But what happens when perfectly sensible people clamour against the implementation of one of the greatest administrative reforms ? I hold no brief to any political party. Having seen how Delhi functions from very close quarters, I am sure that the substitution of one political party with another can't make any great difference.

   The Aadhaar project was rolled out for the poor. When the project was launched , this blogger was excited at the promises it held for transformation of our management of public programs. As a public servant who doesn't normally come across the Aam Admi on a daily basis, I believe that many administrative reforms do not make an impact to daily life. Let me talk of the problems we face. Occasionally one is involved in the process of large scale induction of manpower. We get to see a large number of educated youngsters queuing up for jobs. The latest scam goes like this. Specialists from certain parts of the country will come and write exams on your behalf. For Group C posts in the Government, there are no interviews. So selections are based on written exams. Once the exams are cleared, the real candidate comes to take up the job. Money changes hands for appearing for exams. Nowadays we insist on producing identity proof in the exam hall. But there are ingenious methods of overcoming this problem with smart editing of documents and photographs. If the identity of the person taking the exam could be vetted through Aadhaar, then this fraud could be easily curbed. (Believe me it is a serious problem- there are people in this country who would do anything for government jobs).  

                      Even the financial inclusion project could have been linked to Aadhaar so as to ensure that the figures that are being touted are genuine. Bankers are known for their sense of caution and prudence when it comes to opening bank accounts to low income customers. (Kingfisher Airlines could have faced less rigorous scrutiny). It is quite possible that a large number of bank accounts were opened in the names of individuals who already have a Bank account. A mechanism for incorporating or seeding Aadhaar No:s into all existing PAN No:s, Passports and Bank accounts could de-duplicate the whole process. In a populous country such as India, identifying true beneficiaries and weeding out ghost beneficiaries is a big challenge.  The academicians and Civil liberties activists can never understand these challenges. When Aadhaar was linked to Gas subsidies in one state, the demand came down drastically.What if public distribution system is linked to Aadhaar so that the PDS rice or kerosene doesn't find its' way to the black market ? Instead of routing fertilizer subsidies to inefficient firms who gold plate their accounts, we could probably spend a portion of it by granting it directly to the farmer with Aadhaar.
            If credit cards can be vetted online by a ubiquitous small machine, what prevents us from inventing/ rolling out a machine which can read a thumbprint/ scan iris and confirm that the person is who he claims to be ? This instrument could then be made available in large numbers at immigration check points, Banks, ration shops, registration Offices, treasury and Post Offices. If we can incorporate sufficient safeguards to prevent misuse, why can't we roll it out for effective management of subsidies, entitlements (including rural Job guarantee schemes), pensions, scholarships etc ?

                   Unfortunately, politics often takes precedence over perfectly legitimate decisions. The Parliamentary committee that studied the Aadhaar project has given it a damning report. The ex-Chief Minister of Kerala has attacked the project as a conspiracy of global multinationals to sell their wares in India. (When it is headed by a person figuring in the Fortune's richest list- what is he going to do with bribes from MNCs when he has made enough for three generations and also contributes a lot to charity?) Strangely enough, the clamour grows louder from privacy advocates, academicians and  liberals etc. They claim that the identity project could lead to a gruesome weapon in the hands of the government, which in turn can use it for electoral alchemy, telemarketing, snooping and myriad other sins. (only those working in the government know the extent of our incompetence to carry out any of the aforesaid crimes)  And the government wrings its hands with  contradictions in parliament over questions on cooking gas subsidy. Luckily the new Government has endorsed the Aadhaar project (after promising to close it down during the campaign stage)

               Nilekani's book outlines the need for identity for the poor. But why are we ignoring the elephant in the room? What if Aadhaar is linked to property holdings and securities transactions. While we talk of the benefits it can bring to the poor, why are we ignoring the potential to curb the frauds perpetrated by the rich ? Benami holding of property, fraudulent property/ shares transactions, skimming of benefits meant for the poor, under-declared income everything could be managed more effectively. What if property can be registered or sold in the country only if it is linked to Aadhaar number of the buyer/seller ? If the scheme is rolled out with earnestness, it can become the greatest administrative reform of the century. Just like the Electronic Voting Machine is unique which has caught the fancy of the world. By infusing a good dose of technology into the process, we can not only do away with the need for large number of public servants to manage the country, but also manage it more effectively.