Author: changethinker

Born and raised in Mumbai, India with an undergrad degree from Oman and a masters degree from the National University of Singapore. I am an Environmental Professional with a passion for Sustainability, Social Innovation and Governance related issues. A Change Agent in the making who believes that small is beautiful and that impact can be achieved -one soul at a time.

Is Teksim Another Tahrir?

Recently, two of the progressive culturally contrasting Muslim States of Bangladesh and Turkey have seen counter revolutions in a sense to bring back the secular voice in the political discourse.  Shahbhag and now Teksim Square have become metaphors for the non religious actors to act up for their rightful space. Every country has a fundamentalist fringe, but the fundamentalist elements have a tendency to hijack the political conversation with the coercive use of force on the streets such as the Jamaat in Dhaka. Liberals tend to be softer with a lesser inclination for street battles. They like to fight with arguments rather than take to arms.

The conservative block has two allegations to drag down the liberal and secular voice. Firstly, they are influenced by the west and not grounded enough in native values and secondly they are corrupting moral systems by importing an alien ethos. The Justice and Development Party or AKP of Prime Minister Erdogan has been a success in the battlefield of electoral politics winning polls with a wide mandate. As a boy who grew up in a poor family in the shanties of Istanbul, his genre of politics is grounded in mild Political Islam. His Wife wears the Head Scarf, in a country which is essentially secular. The Army, is the vanguard of defending the Ataturkian vision of a modern secular Turkey has been crippled and the Judiciary has been weakened too. The secular minded youth in Turkey has been marginalized. Restrictions have been imposed against so-called immoral activities and Turkey’s overtures to be a regional behemoth with interventions in Gaza and Syria is not being appreciated by a large section of the Turkish Population, which considers it to be more European than Middle Eastern.

The Teksim Square protests originated with Government plans to convert a protest park such as Hong Lim in Singapore in to a mall. AKP has been on the economic development front aggressive and has been known for supercharged infrastructure projects even at the cost of demolishing heritage in old Istanbul.  The ideological cocktail of Faith and Economic Growth has gone heady. Anybody against the ideology of the AKP is being systematically marginalized.  The protests at Teksim Square have been coordinated through Social Media and comparisons with Tahrir or Shabhag are all but obvious.  Erdogan has called Twitter ‘evil’. It seems another Middle Eastern Leader has failed to recognize the power of 140 characters.  This is the beginning of another chapter in the Post Arab Spring Era.

Infrastructure, Welfare & the Rhetoric of Development

A few days back, Mr. L K Advani praised Shivraj Chouhan for his exemplarily efforts in transforming his ‘BIMARU’ state into a development hotbed. The locus of comparison was centered upon the notion that Narendra Bhai’s Gujarat was already progressive as Gujaratis have been culturally entrepreneurial by character. There is a grain of truth certainly in this argument.  Chouhan ji has developed Indore has an industrial hub of central India with major automotive and manufacturing majors operating out of the region. Indore has a fantastic urban transportation system too. Amdavad also has a cool BRT system in place with the Metro project under way. BJP Governments have often equated ‘infrastructure development’ with the paradigm of development. Infrastructure catalyzes regional growth by connecting the rural with the urban; the producers with the consumer. It is a growth multiplier indeed. Welfare hand-outs to the poorest of the poor such as the Right to Work Scheme helps the poor as well as yields political dividends as the UPA win in 2009. Effective public good delivery requires robust infrastructure and institutional controls to seal the leak called graft. The poorest of the poor cannot simply depend on the cruel ‘market’ for the benefits of trickle down to seep down to them. Government welfare schemes are the only way out for the weakest of our society to survive with dignity. The Right to Food Bill is vital although it accounts to humongous expenditure. In the aftermath of the Bastar carnage, the rights of the poorest are again back on the front burner of national conversation. I am just sick of the Spot Fixing Coverage. BCCI and IPL are trivial issues being used to divert the people’s attention from critical issues such as Women’s Rights, Systemic Graft and essential legislative business. India is a sub-continent in terms of religious and ethnic diversity and different solutions will be needed to deliver inclusive development. No Gujarat Model, no MP Model matters as Chairman Mao quipped as long as the cat catches mice, it does not make a difference if it is white or black.

 

Why the Congress will still come to power in 2014?

Yesterday, Congress completed 9 years of (mis?) governance of this nation. Scandals upon scandals, this congress regime knows how to cling on to power at any cost, I guess it is the experience of being in the ruling dispensation for half a century plus years.  It uses the CBI to strong arm its UP rivals, the SP and the BSP to survive as well as its Andhra headache- Jagan Reddy. Its management of coalition politics is quite exemplarily. It manages to get an Ajit Singh or a JMM quite easily. Bolstered by its recent win in Karnataka and with anti-incumbency seeping into Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh which are poll ward, the narrative of the demise of the congress party is pre-mature in spite of its weak leadership on all fronts. A Sanjay Jha and a Manoj Tewari can only do so much by screaming on TV debates all the time.

BJP is a house in disarray. It has a national leadership which cannot win in Lok Sabha elections and hardly have any mass base. Narendra Modi, is the best shot at projecting an image of a transformation which the BJP can give the nation. He is a man who has an indication of the pulse of the nation. BJP will make an enormous mistake if it does not project Narendra Bhai as its PM Candidate in 2014.

 Internal squabbles are sapping BJP’s strength. BJP has alienated its intellectual edge by sidelining a Yashwant Sinha, Jaswant Singh or an Arun Shourie. And Chandan Mitra is not an effective enough orator to cut Congress’s arguments either on TV or in the Rajya Sabha. A Swapan Dasgupta is too elitist for a Rajnath Singh. Varun Gandhi and Smriti Irani are doing a convincing job of defending the mainstream political right in our political conversation.

The ‘Bharat Nirman’ Campaign of the Congress has the same stink as the disastrous ‘India Shining’ program of the NDA.  My personal take as a proponent of a left of centre belief system as far as Indian Politics is concerned is that Mr. Tewari and the Congress are making the same blunder again. There is palpable anger on the streets as far as the feeble leadership of Dr. Singh is brought in the framework of analysis.

Congress will most likely project P Chidambaram or Rahul ji as the PM Candidate. AIADMK, BJD and the MNS will probably support the BJP in case it has the numbers. On the contrary, JDU and JDS will support the Congress. Jagan will end up supporting the Congress in case he has to come out of the jail ever.  But my gut feel is that in case of a fractured mandate, Congress with its coalition management skills will come to power atleast with a slice of the power pie.  The minorities still believe that the Congress is better of the two mainstream parties.  For now, its Advantage Congress in the run up to the polls.

 

Is Globalization, Cultural evolution or an Orientalist Project?

Globalization is an urban sociological phenomenon , which has been well documented by social theorists such as Manuel Castells and Saskia Sassen, Globalization as a force is breaking down traditional values in some societies but at the same time nurturing them in places which are not their ‘home grounds’. Korean Pop for example is superbly popular in SE Asia and with Asian Diaporas globally. Globalization in its cultural avatar, as an expression of soft power started with Satellite TV with CNN beaming the 1990 Gulf War in to our living rooms.  The MTV-ization of popular culture with American TV music and TV shows flooding our TV screens was the first phase of cultural globalization. The internet catalysed the second wave of globalization with Google powering this era. Social Media has been the harbinger of the best aspects of technology surcharged Globality; free information exchange between borders and turning a passive consumer into a prosumer, a person can create content as this blogger and post it online and try to form opinion in the community of the like-minded.  Information cross-fertilization and cross pollination can help evolve cultures. Twitter helped information exchange which led to the Arab Spring making an ordinary ex Google Executive Wael Ghonem a Hero. Well, now Wael Ghonem is an entrepreneur trying to make daily commute in Cairo better.  Cultural Transformation requires the crutches of good old politics to make the ‘change’. Cultural Change is often carried out on a slow, civilization scale based time metric. The FMCG-ization of culture is a by product of globalization but real change and not superficially deep alterations take time and a lot of effort to sink in its roots.

Globalization initially was considered a manifestation of the Americanized Ethos. American ‘Soft Power’ as coined by Joseph Nye, a Harvard Academic has been at the forefront of the trifecta of Culture, Media and Politics shaping cultural conversations globally. Globalization can also be considered An Orientalist Project; a cultural invasion to carve the social landscape of the developing world in the image of the declining west.  With the advent of Web 2.0 with the power of the web in our smartphones, the west is in reverse being exposed to a ‘PSY’ doing his Gangnam Style moves or kids jiving to a A R Rahman track in the clubs of Berlin.

These anecdotes symbolize, the opening up of a two way street which brings out a cultural concoction which is a synergy rather than a subtraction.  Traditional values cannot be stuck up in a time wrap. They are contextual with time-space coupling. Time always progress and technologies will always change and hence alter cultures. Its better to embrace rather than resist.  The Question in the Title is always open for debate.

 

Malaysia Polls: Why does it matter to India?

For us in India, the impression of Malaysia in our heads atleast for the Middle Classes are the beautifully shot ads of ‘Malaysia, Truly Asia’ with pristine Langkawi and Suria KLCC shopping district shown in them. Or for folks who have watched the Tamil Film ‘Billa’, the scene at the top of the Petronas Twin Towers was captivating. The Bollywood Hit ‘Don’ featuring Shahrukh Khan who is hugely popular in Malaysia had major sequences picturized in Melaka, which remind us of Malaysia. Well, Malaysia is a complex society with even more interesting politics. This post is about it and what does it mean for us.

Recently a feisty Malaysian General Elections just got over and ofcourse the grand old dispensation of the Barisan National won, with a wafer thin margin. This time, at least in Urban Peninsular Malaysia aka Selangor,Johor,  Negeri Sembilan and Penang the opposition alliance the Pakatan Rakyat led by the controversial and charismatic Anwar Ibrahim was expected to clinch power for the first time since 1957. Traditionally East Malaysia; Sabah and Sarawak votes en mass for the Barisan National with the Sarawak People’s Party in Kuching holding sway. Sabah also has its regional party which usually wins. These parties are part of the ruling alliance.  East Malaysia is rural and is the heart of Barisan National’s base, apart from Utara Malaysia (Northern Malaysia) states like Kedah and Terengganu. The southern Thailand bordering states are the crucible of Malay Nationalistic sentiment. If the 2008 General Elections were an inflection point for Malaysian Politics, then the 2013 one is a watershed. The Chinese Community with quarter of the vote abandoned the Barisan constituent The Malaysian Chinese Association and voted in favor of the Opposition Democratic Action Party which is of course ‘Cina man’ dominated. They swept Penang and made major headways in Johor bordering Singapore.

The Grand Old Party UMNO- the behemoth of Malaysian Politics since the pre-independence era, has a membership base of 3 million people. It has roots all over the country like veins (An Indian Equivalent roughly would be the Congress). It instituted the race based affirmative action ‘Bumiputera’ policies which has often pitted the Malay majority versus the entrepreneur centric Chinese community with the ethnic Indian Tamil speaking ‘Makkal’ (or people).

This election has been contested by the opposition because of wide spread allegation of voter fraud.  This has lead to discontentment among the Chinese. Surprisingly the Indian Community voted in favor of Barisan with the Malaysian Indian Congress winning four seats. There were other Indian Candidates who won seats being opposition members too.

India (especially the Tamilakam) has had a historic relationship with Malaysia since ancient times and being colonized by Britain we have always shared a close relationship. Tamil Nadu shares a close bond with Malaysia because of its Diaspora there totaling a million odd residents. Indian Food, Films and Culture is hugely popular there. We are a part of the conversation in KL, but KL is not a major conversation issue here. In fact, as written in Parag Khanna’s ‘Second World’ ; India’s engagement with Malaysia is so poor at the level of the State, that Malaysia does not bother to involve us in any serious strategic affairs matter. In fact, Pakistan is a major actor in Malaysia given the OIC relationship.

We almost have a FTA with Malaysia now and Maxis owns a large stake in Aircel and Sun Networks (call it the Maran connection leh).  Both the countries adhere to Dynastic politics with Najib being the son of a former PM himself. The good old ‘doctor in the house’ Mahathir, is himself half Indian with his Father being a Tamil Muslim.  He is the champion of the Malay cause. Identity politics can get really weird.  Well, the champions of the Marathi cause in Mumbai originally hail from Central India.

We need to maintain good relationship at the level of the State with Malaysia, as it would give us a head start in dealing with ASEAN along with being a big market too for our exports. At this moment, I would like more Malaysian restaurants to open in Mumbai now (Chennai has some orready ah)

I like my Kopio strong !

A Letter to Dr. Singh: a plea from a liberal

Dear Dr. Singh

We had a lot of hopes from you, Dr Manmohan Singh. A stellar career academic, bureaucrat whose track record was too good to be true.  As a RBI Governor, UGC Chairman and Finance Minister; you knew the inner workings of the Indian Economic Establishment like no one else. Your track record as a reformer was stellar from 1991-96, which was a minority government backed by the political brains of a particular Narsimha Rao.  When you had become the prime minister, I thought as everyone else that a clean, technocrat has taken office although with the Congress High Command Culture I had reservations but my heart was filled with hope. During UPA 1, welfare legislations such as MNREGA were passed and the Nuke Deal with the US was a prestige issue and you won with flying colors. The People gave your administration a resounding mandate in 2009 to continue your good work.  The inclusive agenda of the congress inspired me as well. The narrative changes as the UPA 2 began

UPA 2 has been a disaster, sorry to say Sir. Your Government has become a ‘one a day scam regime’. 2G, CWG, Coal Gate and other scams have unique acronyms that have become a part of our daily lexicon. Your silence has become so loud that it is deafening. Sexual Crimes happen every day and you do not speak even as a father of three very successful daughters.  People mock your regime as being in coma, rudderless and without direction.   These are certainly not pretty adjectives to be attributed to an esteemed technocrat like you Sir.

India is also thankful to you for delivering a secular government without riots apart from Assam and Dhule. The 100% FDI in retail legislation was important as did other social sector legislations and other concordant spending increases. But with graft being the main word attributed to your government and with a weak foreign policy with the Chinese incursions and Sarabjeet case; history is going to judge you harshly for being weak and ineffective. Your Reputation is an Indian’s reputation. Please help us to salvage our nation’s reputation.

All your good work is certainly getting wiped off the Indian citizen’s psyche with the performance of UPA2. Your name will definitely be registered with IK Gujral and HD Deve Gowda in the club of weak PM’s.

Please once again, do not let this happen. We would like you to speak up.

Yours Sincerely

An Indian Liberal

 

Alas… I am ordinarily Human….

I am man of a few abilities; more frailties than one can count and makes a reasonable living to call himself middle class. Everyday in the media I am bombarded with visuals and text of folks who seem to be in the top 1% of their trade (the rest 99% are the aam aadmi or humble Samaritans trying to making a scraping living).  This does not imply that I am lacking confidence or aspirations. Just being realistic, taking stock of the everyday battle called life. Just like everyone, I have been through the grind; college, higher studies, first internship, first job and so on. But, this trail has been littered with debris too like grad school application rejections, failed job interviews, low scores in exams. It has taken me time to see what things I am adept and which areas in which I suck big time la. Sometimes, too many failures and missed opportunities have a bearing on ones mental frame of mind. But, I never forgot the F5 button: there is always a refresh mode to life. Starting off on a clean slate is the thing to do when pushed to the wall.  It is painful to leave an established set-up, and I have done it four times orready lor. There is nothing more emotionally over-bearing than to lose friends and a sense of community that one has invested dearly in. But looking behind too often, makes one lose vision of the future. Try and make the present a brilliant one, easier said than done but the present initiatives make the pathway for future success. Just be patient with the present.

Personal life is also life, which I have often lost track off. Parents matter and spending time with them is precious. Sometimes our parents need us more than our urge to have privacy to watch nonsense material and binge drink with pals. I have been turned down by women that I have held a torch for. I have gone into an emotional down ward spiral like most young men. But they have also inspired to look good, dress well, be responsible. Rejection by women can be amazing motivators.

These stories do not come out in Big Media. Only Zuckerburg suckers are around it seems. I like Sheryl Sandberg: She offers real advise to women like deny sex to your husband if he does not help you out in changing diapers of your baby. Amazing stuff I must say. Real People are not dead. 

Lets Get Real Guys : Hypocrisy about morals

We all know (especially who live in India) that this country is best described as organized chaos. Rahul Gandhi ji during his recent dialogue with Industry leaders at a FICCI summit compared India to a beehive, an apt analogy I must admit. India is not functioning at its periphery but resilient at its core. We know how to survive. We make sure that our houses are clean but we dump garbage outside our windows.  We commit sins in our personal spaces but act holy on the outside.  We watch Munni and Sheila on TV but we expect to marry a virgin. It is a sign of a deeply hypocritical polity.

As a nation India, is a civilizational state like China; very old but politically very new. Our cultural ethos and institutions are resilient and almost immune to political changes.  Politically we believe in shouting in response to Arnab on News Hour in the comfort of our air conditioned drawing rooms but do not go out to vote.  We feel good by signing an online petition at Change.Org rather than participating in an actual protest.  Most guys who drink in India have not informed their families that they do (my parents are cool) and feel uneasy to introduce their girlfriends to family. We believe in purity as a cultural virtue (remember Sita’s Agnipariksha?) but do all sins of the flesh (ask Nityanand ji :P). Incest in common, rapes is commonplace. These acts are dastardly and condemnatory. These guys deserve the harshest punishment in the shortest time.  Yet on the other Live-in relationships and single night stands are considered immoral. We are slowly turning into a nation of perverts. I am ashamed to be an Indian Man now days.

 The Indian Male has to learn to accept that woman can earn more than him, be smarter than him and can call the shots. She has a choice.  A severe attitudinal paradigm shift is needed. No amount of legislations can stop sexual crimes if the Indian ‘MCP’ does not change. If a girl rejects you, do not take the cowardly path; prove to her that you are worth her time.

Moral Duality, Sexual Perversion along with the inability to accept the weaknesses disintegrating our social fabric in the face of globalization is impairing our ability to deal with serious deep issues at a social as well as on a personal level.   The only way to start is by beginning to accept the flaws. There is a tendency to overhype sex as a sacred sacrament too. This attitude is the root of all evil.

Lets change ourselves as a polity, one household at a time. And Sex Education does not work as my 9th grade Science Teacher skipped the section in the anatomy class about the reproductive organs.

Is the Secularism Question, really secular?

In India the reality is that the discourse on secularism boils down to trivial politics. As per the 42nd amendment (in 1976) to the constitution the politically contentious term ‘secular’ was added to the preamble. So it seems that Secularism is a relatively recent addition to our dictionary of political discourse.  A ton of writings has already been authored by intellectuals and scholars from the social sciences, so I would not mind adding my two cents to the burgeoning literature volumes with this post. This question about secularism is overbearing the entire national conversation in the run-up to the next national polls, hence it is vital that secularism as a notion is de-constructed to release its essence, to make meaning out of the term.

Secularism essentially calls for the separation of the Mandir and the Mantri-land, but India has been a state where religion has been a personal affair but at the level of the state, faith is not a guiding force as in the case of Islamic Theocracies in the Mashreq.  Secularism as a term is mis-construed as minority appeasement as it is equated with reservations and soft approach towards terrorism (which is highly debatable as left wing extremism has been in India since the late 1960’s and Mahatma Gandhi was killed by a right wing hindu fanatic). It has been intensely politicized to the extent that ‘Sickularism’ is a term imposed by the Indian Right on their left wing ideological cousins.  The Indian Right treats the Hindu community as a monolith, but as a 79% block it has many sub-divisions such as backward and schedule castes who do not align themselves very comfortably with the ideology of Upper Caste Dominated Right.  There are also states in India where Christians (North East), Sikhs (Punjab) and Muslims (Hyderabad City, J&K) are in the majority along with major minority populations in large states. In short, the whole secularism debate is a complex one. Minorities too have to shed the victim mentality mindset to be a part of the national conversation on growth. It is a two way traffic always. Give and Take; business and trade-off are the most important tool in ensuring secularism.

Power Politics is played out in the name of secularism.   We have the 2nd largest Muslim Population in the World and the right has no option but to accept it. The Left has to make peace with the fact that India has been culturally as a Civilization: ‘Hindu’. The Congress also has to offer India development along with minority protection which in 1984 it miserably failed in Delhi. The BJP has to make overtures to moderate Muslims to be the part of its growth story plan, which in Gujarat it has conveniently excluded.  Every major political party is guilty of a political sin in a mission to garner votes. And I have not started to even comment on linguistic politics in Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu where Hindu from Samastipur is politically pitted against Hindu from Konkan.

The conversation on secularism has to be elevated on a practical platform. How do we embed secular ethos in policy design and planning?

The questions should address broader notions of secularism such as ecological and social justice, equity and economic efficiency in access to welfare rendered by the state. Petty Power Politics in the name of Faith and Identity is easy but regressive; can win one election but there are larger, critical matters at stake in governance.We need to raise above trivial definition based contests on secularism to one, on inclusive growth coupled with equity.

 

 

One Year@Maximum City, Maximum Experiences

Pretty much one year back, I dropped out of my second grad program in Sociology at NTU to rejoin the real world. I was not enjoying the program and knew intrinsically in my third semester in the last leg of my doctoral coursework that a course correction was needed. I love Singapore and everything about it and would like to move back if GOD presents me an opportunity. I took the leap of faith, and all thanks to the present organization I work for I moved back to the organized chaos of the city of my birth, janmabhoomi was to transform into my karmabhoomi. I have had a love-hate relationship with the city, never really felt comfortable here but knew that the city has had a valuable part to play in my manufactured psyche. The thing I appreciate about the place is the ‘Dhando-Wado’ spirit, a ‘can-do’ business type attitude, which makes this heart-less city function.

This city has made a man out of a boy. I have also had the opportunity to travel to some incredible places from Alwar to Anantapur thanks to work engagements.  These have been opportunities to re-explore India, meet some incredible people, make friends and mentors and this experience has enriched me totally.  But, somehow I feel, the time to explore is dwindling by the day and time to make a call for the long term has arrived.  

To be really honest, I never had the faith that I will survive the rough and tumble of Mumbai after a decade overseas of learning and growing up.  I landed up into an empty apartment, with a very global mindset and also took time to bear the emotional distance of being away from friends who are as close as family to me.  This time here has made me realize how much of a ‘Singaporean’ I am ; inspite of not even having a PR.  Education in a particular ethos and culture certainly leaves it signature imprint on ones values.  I long to go back all the time, and I visit the place as often as I can lah. I miss my Kopio at the Food Court at Sunset Way, Clementi.

Time has just flown by, for good or for bad, made me mature for tackling the difficulties of life.  I thank all my friends and mentors for guiding me through this journey so far.

I have cultivated an acquired taste for cutting chai now days, call it Singaporean Pragmatism at work.