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.

The Need for Democracy 2.0

Democracy as said is the next best system of participatory representation to no representation at all. It is a very flawed system with lots of loopholes with which it can be subverted and sabotaged. Democracy in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Philippines are dynastic and feudal. It is the feudal in character as if we are serfs and they are landlords. Democracy amplifies social stratification and does not break them down or bring about a social change. Billions of dollars are spent in any provincial poll in India, with a price on every vote with the rate varying from rural to urban constituents. Majority of Indian public representatives  are millionaires with vested business interests in the system. Industrialists sit on parliamentary committees where legislation are drafted and passed regarding their own businesses. This is gross conflict of interest.

Mass movements are the fuel that chastises a decadent regime.   They are regime breakers but the challenge is to be governance transformers. Freedom fighters don’t make good administrators as history teaches us. Hamas is a revolutionary organization, but it has made a mess of the Gaza Strip, forcing it to collaborate with Fatah; whom are fighting, but those are the people who have experience in running the set up. This is a major flaw in democracy, popularly elected leaders do not carve competent policies. A new system which infuses participatory representation and skilled governance is required. The Palestine prime minister is a former World Bank Technocrat, who has changed the picture into a brighter one.

As is seen in the Lok Pal Movement (anti graft legislation for the uninitiated), the civil society activists are the individuals who are well intentioned, popular and have the skill set for running a system; they are lawyers, bureaucrats and career political activists who have a sense of the ground. They have a drawback that they are not elected by the people, and the political class are defaming them that they are illegitimate spokespeople for the masses.  They should probably run for office next time around in 2014, that will bring in some good people into the mainstream.  Mamata di has brought in some technocrats in to her cabinet such as Amit Mitra and Bratya Basu, post the counter revolution in the Bengal May Polls. Most politicos in India have some kind of criminal charge against them in contrast, which does not evoke any awe out of our leaders.

In this networked era, where digital activism is on the surge with the Arab Spring and post the Singaporean polls,  a new social contract for democracy needs to be worked out if our Faith in democracy as a system has to be restored.

Why does the future lies in job creating sectors and not services?

The world’s economic balance is tilting towards the east- namely the Chinese speaking world and India along with Korea,  and Singapore. The Chinese have a trillion plus USD in their reserves and are the factory line of the world, in the past three decades 300 million Chinese have been lifted out of poverty and the Gulf based sovereign wealth funds are lapping up assets in the west as the economic free market structure crumbles under housing and consumer debt. Greece defaulted on its debt repayment plans and the Eurozone shivered, Spain and Ireland are next on their way to the financial clinic to check in to the ICU. Bail outs since 2009 have been the order of the day. America is bail out central. GE and the biggest american brands have received government funds to survive. Its the socialization of the losses and privatization of the profits. It seems an irony that these are the same people who call for limited government intervention and the free market in boom times. America stopped manufacturing since the 1970’s by outsourcing it first to Korea and Singapore in 1970’s, the Asian Tigers in 1980’s and finally bangalore’d their strength; the service sector to India, South Africa, Philippines and Eastern Europe in the past two decades. Apple is the benchmark of American Innovation, but it only design’s its products in Cupertino and its manufacturing its done by the Taiwanese major Foxconn in its industrial estates in China, employing millions and not thousands like in America as Apple does; that too very highly skilled talent from Berkeley, not the high school diploma out of the public school system in Brooklyn. American graduates teach English in schools from Sharjah to Shanghai as there are no jobs in US itself. An average American college graduate has a starting debt of 24k when he begins his first payable full time post. American Political Commentator Fareed Zakaria has called for an overhaul of the innovation ecosystem to create jobs in his series on CNN.

In short, economic growth without job creation is meaningless with the demographic bomb exploding in Africa, Middle East and South Asia.  Social implications of a society are huge with three skipped meals acting as a trigger for a revolution as the vegetable seller in Tunis that ignited the Arab spring. In India, Maoists have capitalized on this sentiment of dis-entitlement where the tribal and the Subsistence farmer have no option to give away fertile agricultural land at throw away prices to loan sharks or to corporate land grabbers for the real estate scam called the SEZ or an economic free zone. Free zones in the Middle East are created on arid desert land like the Ras Al Khaimah Free Zone or the Salalah Free Zone in Southern Oman where land is not for agriculture. India has 100,000 farmer suicides and is a net importer of food. Our so called demographic dividend as Nandan Nilekani calls in his lucidly written book ‘Imagining India’ can be only materialized if education is reformed to make it inclusive as half the engineers in India are not employment ready and companies have to re-train them before work. Manufacturing is stuck in the matrix of antiquated labor laws and land acquisition.  Agriculture needs the most reform to make it viable career option once gain.

Services by nature will cater to the very educated cadre of the work force, apart from Singapore or the Scandinavian nations, but larger countries would have to be be manufacturing nations by creating home grown Samsung or Haer to satiate the social need for work and livelihoods, to avert another Jasmine Revolution or a Singur.

What is Civil Society for? A control valve or an agent for the status quo

We have been hearing a lot of hooplah over the term civil society in India since the anti corruption movement picked up pace. According to a recent article penned  Centre for Policy Research Think Tank honcho Pratap Bhanu Mehta in the Indian Express post on the civil society space (http://www.indianexpress.com/news/that-seventies-feeling/804154/) . He writes about impending new media regulations and the financial harassment norms for ngo’s which get funds from overseas. The civil society is composed of a myriad spectrum of actors made of of millions of small groups to behemoths like SEWA and Centre for Science and Environment. Of course moral entrepreneurs in ngo’s and civil society, peddle ideas as their products for the mass market.

Nelson Mandela was not democratically elected and he was the voice of the anti apartheid movement, Abu Amar aka Yasser Arafat was not democratically elected too, but he made palestine into an issue from a non issue post 1967. Anna Hazare, Mr. Kejriwal, Ms. Bedi and the Bhushans are not elected, but electoral democracy is a monetarily driven process, not a battle for ideas at the operational level, its a battle for power and control. The civil society is like any other estate of society, its either good and effective or ineffective and detrimental. The best of laws are drafted by thinktanks and policy formulations are done by profs at grad school research centers. Not every thing has to go through the proverbial people’s court, people have their ideas and since the platform of the web 2.0 have opened up like blogs like this one and ngo websites like avaaz, that catalyze mass movements like the Lok Pal Bill movement recently. It was India’s first digital democratic enterprise. For a vibrant civil society, economic accountability and transparency is fundamental, because they lobby for policies and the public has a right to know the drive behind the move. The Civil Society is the crucible for smoldering politics at its best, a wake up alarm for those in power to improve their ways. The Arab Spring  and the former soviet summer in 2005, was amplified by civil society actors. Lech Walesa was from Civil Society in Poland to made it to presidency in the early 1990’s. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch highlights excesses in countries which do not have democratic mechanisms to guard their own countrymen such as Burma and Sub Saharan Nations.

Civil Society is an effective lever for change, when traditional mechanism fail, its a safety valve in the processing plant called human society….

Confessions of a Secular Pragmatist

In an age of rising religiosity and asserting majoratarian  identities from beirut to banares to bandung, with religion driving political rhetoric in the developing world where most countries are anthropological melting pots, this is a real reason for concern, a precursor for impending sectarian strife. India being a Hindu majority but constitutionally secular state, like Turkey and Indonesia (Muslim Majority), religion based  intolerance is rising. The AKP or the Justice and Development Party  won its third term in Turkey, which has roots in the Islamist Movement. Indonesia is recently been in the news for its crackdown on a Shia Sect and persecution of the Christian minorities (just 2%)  of the 1.2 billion country, is in constant news feed all time. Pastors endure harassment, on charges of ‘so called forcible conversions ‘ by right ring Hindu fundamentalist organizations. Christian missionaries still provide education access and healthcare to the poorest of the poor in India where the government apparatus is dysfunctional. According to the Sachar committee, Muslims in India that make up 15% of the population are practically excluded from the mainstream by blocking access.

Secularism has its merits, we have far more pressing needs in the developing world concerning achieving developmental goals than to worry about un-necessary religion based issues, genocides have resulted from such sectarian politics. In Rwanda- Hutus versus Tutsis, a democratically elected Nazi government slaughtered six million souls on the poisonous rhetoric of identity. the Gujarat 2002 mass murder of Muslims and the Kandhamal Christian killings were a orchestration  of the Hindu Right in India. Separation of the ‘Temple and Throne ‘ is critical. Theocracies hardly make for effective states, apart from revenues  driven by natural resource rents. Value systems and religious societies have good informal social frameworks but governance is a different issue. Hard Multiculturalism in Singapore is the pillar of its strength.  Secularism is also the foundation on which the Indian Civilization is built. Societies which protect their minorities are strong because they prevent conflict by creating a positive buy in to the system. Nigeria, is divided down the middle between its Muslim North and its Christian South and sectarian strife is common, experienced its first suicide bombing yesterday. Hard Secularism and Multi Culturalism is the software based on which multi ethnic societies will survive and flourish peacefully.

In identity based conflicts, its the poverty stricken bottom strata which are used as pawns and made to pay the price for the rich who are living secular lifestyles but profess a religious ideological bent. Most of the insurgents in Af-Pak and Iraq are very poor, poverty is capability deprivation, religious issues are indeed very secondary.

The Metricization of Education at its worst-the admissions ballgame in India

Yesterday, the worst possible news for an average student came across in the Indian media, that in Shriram College of Commerce, a prestigious college of the Delhi University had a undergrad first list cut-off of 100% maximum for the B.Com Hons. programme for a science student, albeit marginally lower percentages for commerce students at the pre university public exams. A full hundred percent, for a seat in a prestigious college!! Its the mockery and absurdity of the education system which is being demonstrated. The SRCC Principal is defending the rationale that commerce students have to be given preference and that science students should become engineers! So much for inter-disciplinary learning and brotherhood. I would not be able to pursue any one of my academic interests if I would have studied in India, firstly- I would not have made it to even a Sanskrit Hons. undergrad degree (I like philosophy better) or had to pursue a distance learning program.  Secondly, I have myriad interests which require some degree of flexibility in the academic system, I am presently reading Sociology at the Grad level in Singapore without any prior Social Science Background!

There is no future for an average student in publicly funded institutions in India. More private universities like Amity will flourish in the country and education is already treated as a business with Manipal as its mascot with private equity stakes in it. The grade inflation in the public exams is responsible for it as well. The maddening and cut throat competition in the public exams that are dependent on rote learning rather than individualized talent and potential leaves thousands like me to leave for greener pastures overseas. I was Blessed enough, millions of my brethren are not.

Radical reforms of the school system is required to prevent such emotional catastrophes for students and parents in the future. Entrance exams should determine the talent for such non technical under grad courses such as CAT, although not perfect but its still a good screening mechanism. For the elite schools, an admissions pie should determine competence along with scores. WE are failing millions to a second tier life by not creating enough opportunities for them. There are good private engineering universities such as Vellore Institute of Technology and BIT Mesra  catering to demand. Why then Liberal Arts and Social Sciences be left behind?

Immigrant Diasporas- a symbol for social resilience or vulnerability?

As an expat myself for half my life, in the Middle East and South East Asia, immigrants and their integration dynamics into their host societies has been one of my interests. In this Globalization2.0 enabled Flat World, semi skilled and hyper educated immigrants make their way for economic reasons, some to settle down and some like in the Middle East fuel post office economies in South Asia, Philippines  and Indonesia, with salaries ‘Western Union’ed home to make families lead better life styles. North African immigrants made post war France and Turkish workers made Germany implement reconstruction. In Sarkozy’s France, the hijab is banned and getthoization of the North African Immigrants in the suburbs is complete in Southern France and the outskirts of Paris. The Turkish Integration experiment has failed in Germany. Efforts by the Muslim Scholar Tariq Ramadan who is a Swiss National to integrate Muslim core shared values in to the European construct is commendable when disgruntled Muslim Youth go to join resistance movements in Iraq and Af-Pak against their own troops defeats the integration objective.  Sikh Immigrants to the UK and Canada are very successful immigrants with businesses and have entered political mainstream. Immigrant Sikhs were at the forefront of the separatist Khalistan movement in Punjab, India in the 1980’s and 90’s. Although the Ghetto mentality among South Asian communities persist.  Bradford is Mirpur Kashmiri majority in England and their representatives have to raise the ‘K-Issue’ in the House of Commons if they have to be re-elected. Leicester, is  the first ‘minority majority’ city in the UK with a holiday on Diwali, a large number of East African Gujarati’s settled in the city after the expulsion by Idi Amin. Immigrants add value and promote diversity hence adds to the social capital in a society by enhancing commerce but fragmented identities lead to ideological exploitation as well. The onus lies on immigrants to integrate in the host society to counter the anti immigrant sentiment which is good for social resilience as a whole.

The non integration breeds the far right in Europe and the conservative wings in the US. A Marie Le Pen could be the next political force in France or the British National Party could influence immigrant policies by capturing the right wing vote share in the UK. Integration is a must, like the Germanic/Prussian Immigrants were assimilated in to America.  A Bobby Jindal or a Roshanara Ali-Labour Party MP from Bangladeshi majority Benthal Green seat in East London is a good symbol for integration.

The Attraction of Bollywood- still alive and kicking

Today, I watched the Salman Khan starrer ‘Ready’ at the only theater which screens Bollywood films in Singapore. After, Wanted and Dabangg, the genre of nonsensical entertainment comprising of catchy numbers and over the top action, as in the films in the 1980’s and the early 1990’s were again back in vogue, with the masses craving for style and raw humor. The USP of Bollywood is not tasteful cinema which will be treated as case studies in film schools internationally like kurosawa ans ray, but rather the absence of it. The south asian ethos is captured in bollywood films which is indeed one of the bigger cultural exports apart from yoga to the global community. The TED Talk delivered by Shashi Tharoor on the rising ‘Soft Power’ illustrates the the charm of bollywood over an illiterate women in Dakar, West Africa who travels to the main city to watch a bollywood film every month, even though she understands none of the dialogues. Human emotions are powerful enough to surpass the language barrier and Bollywood’s true strength is in delivering in the face, raw emotions to the person who does not even understand it.  

A Russian and an Indonesian friend of mine was inquiring about Mithun Chakraborty, the famous lead actor of the 1970’s and 80’s and they remember him by the iconic film ‘Disco Dancer’ and the song Jimmy Jimmy… Although Mithun Da, might be a 60 plus, character actor now, his work resonates with people who does not understand any word of it, its only by action and mannerisms that he swayed his audiences. Amitabh Bachchan is a legend whose popularity is from Kabul to Kyoto. His charisma and his sheer talent, has made him India’s unofficial cultural envoy. Shahrukh Khan was honored with the ‘Datuk’ title from the Royalty in Melaka, Malaysia for his sheer popularity to bring in tourists in to Malaysia with his film Don. The film ‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hai’ is a household staple in the Malay speaking world. The power of musicals are undermined by the intellectual community in India. Its our identity as the Hong Kong Film Industry has its action choreography as its mantle, leading to Oscar wins in the main category. Lagaan and Slumdog Millionare showed that Bollywood resonates with even the  western audiences. Let us play to our strength instead of being blatant copycats.

Moral Entrepreneurship- The power of values

A couple of months back we have been blown away by the public support in favor of Gandhian Anna Hazare and his crusade for accountability via the Lok Pal Bill, essentially a watch dog cum anti graft legislation, which led the current dispensation, to agree to a joint civil society-government mechanism to draft the law. The People saw a ray of hope in an elderly career activist who stood for his values, lived a life in serving communities in Maharashtra State. The cancer of corruption cost the global economy one trillion dollars last year in lost  revenues and in effective public service delivery. Billions of dollars of stolen tax dollars from India are in off shore tax havens, siphoned off by the elite.  There is acute trust deficit between the electorate and the political class in India. The vacuum is being filled by civil society leadership like Anna Hazare, Mr. Kejriwal, Kiran Bedi and Yoga Guru Baba Ramdev. Well, Baba Ramdev is a spiritual entrepreneur, with declared business interests of 1100 crore, his traditional medicine empire spans globally. According to a tweet of a CNN-IBN Journalist, the preparations of his agitation dwarf that of Anna Hazare, which massive infrastructure. Although,  Baba Ramdev has a political dimension to him, but he has more trust from the common man than the government.

Moral Entrepreneurs are not new, every time there has been a gulf between the ruling class and the people, a group of valued people have bridged the gap. The civil society brigade, which are the NGO’s like Amnesty International, Oxfam and the WWF have stood up as a moral voice in times of persecution and civic unrest. This materialistic world of ours, still treasures values,  particularly when they see the rot effecting their daily lives. The dynastic, career politician class exudes no respect from the middle class. The unrest in the Arab Spring was led by moral entrepreneurs in the middle class, the Google executive who started it all in Cairo  is the poster child of civic activism. Moral values are what binds us as a civilization, a buffer against anarchy beyond redemption.

 

The New Learning Paradigm- Get off the textbook!

Recently, I was reading up on the Thiel Fellowship- An Acumen Fund Type Fellowship or Ashoka Fellowship for super bright young professionals and undergrads under the age of 20, who are real early starters. The catch is however, that these smart chaps take an off from formal tertiary education for two years and spend time in pioneering their own research projects or commercial ventures. A 100k USD scholarship is a decent carrot for their prodigies. Dale Stephens, is a Thiel Fellow and founder of the Un College Movement, which believes College is way to perennial debt and 4 years of needless fun. He is formulating a firm which delivers self directed learning mechanisms. A graduation degree is an equivalent of a high school diploma, 30 years back. We are diagnosed with higher education degree dependence and paralysis. Now, one grad degree is not enough, its the age of double degrees, MD-MPH, MBA-MPP in simple words, one degree is passe! In the age of hyper connectivity and smart phones, data is ensconced in our consciousness. With TED, Open Courseware and multiple learning sources on the internet, learning is open source and free.  The Khan Academy, is providing school tuition classes for free online, which is accelerating the learning curve.

The Text book in this Web 2.0 era is obsolete. Wikipedia was a game changer in democratizing access to information. However, Access to Computers and High Speed Net Connectivity is a limiting factor in the developing world. In the next decade, as technology proliferates and penetrates the walled cities built by the digital divide, things will change for the better. Learning in ten years in a conventional classroom setting will be very technology dependent and will usher in the era of personalized education. The best of simulations and visualizations are available online for science and engineering. Almost almost all books and textbooks are available in e-version on peer to peer sharing websites. The education industry would have to radically shift its business model, if it has to stay relevant in the coming decade, as an alternative education model is evolving.

Lets build a cohesive ‘Indian’ Identity- A collective persona

The idea of India is an intellectual contest since the moment Nehruji, uttered his memorable Freedom at Night.. independence day speech. Every nation builds its culture derived from the majority religion in the nation, The secular yet culturally Christian West, The Muslim World across the Organization of Islamic Countries, Arab League, GCC are very particular about reflecting Islamic Values in their daily lives, as it is not only a Faith, but a world view, culture and governing and legal system as well. Japan and Korea are very modern, but have Buddhist leanings.  Thailand, Burma and Cambodia are very Buddhist in character, indeed and hence their cultural ethos. Turkey and Indonesia are secular by constitution, but Islam being the majority religion is the moral compass in daily lives.

India is a continent in itself, an anthropologist’s paradise and a complex model on to itself. A 5000 year old civilization, multi religious country with multitudes of races, linguistic groups and sub communities. Its Organized chaos at its best. China with all its dialects and regional variations, implemented the one national language policy with Mandarin, which made communication uniform from Qingdao to Guangzhou. Even Hindi as a National Language is contested with it not being taught to my Tamil friends down south. Following the Singaporean model of Multi-Racial harmony with four National Languages is an excellent model, but consensus is something hard to ferment in India, apart from Bollywood, Cricket or a territorial conflict with Pakistan.

A Language is a frame of mind, a window to a culture and the diversity in India is a our biggest strength and an enormous weakness as well. This coupled with caste based politics and fragmentation in India with affirmative action for lower castes in the Hindu fold, makes the concept of an Indian Identity harder to define than rocket science. A hundred low level separatist movements around the country, weaved around identity and economic issues do not help either. India is a vibrant, economic power with global aspirations, identity has risen above social and ethnic factors to a single economic community identity like the EU or the former Soviet Bloc, with regional political players and two national parties with in significant reach in one part of the nation or other. There are many sub identities, within the larger persona of being an Indian. This a question to be answered by every citizen of this nation. Identity is a work in progress all the time but a National Identity helps build resilience and further social capital. Lets Build One India, like One Malaysia not only in campaign but in spirit as well.