Reaching Delhi

My earlier post was on leaving Bhopal, and the very next post, this post had to be on reaching Delhi. And so here it is.
Having lived for over 11 years in Delhi, I am definitely not an alien here. But Bhopal still feels more like home. Is it because of the artificiality of Delhi, or the crowds, or the dirt and dust, I cant' say? But definitely it has something to do with the genuineness of the people of Bhopal. Delhi is more commercial, even in matters relating to personal relations. Here one is assessed and treated more on the basis of how powerful or wealthy one is. Human values count much less here.
Yet here I am to do a job, a specific job assigned to me. It is no doubt more difficult than the job at Bhopal, yet the same shall be done. After all, sheer will power is still a much more potent force than many other powers.
Delhi is preparing for the ensuing commonwealth games, at a speed that reminds me of a poor man preparing his house for a brief visit of a wealthy man. All areas that the foreigners may visit or see are either being spruced up or being hidden. Why do we have to put up an artificial facade that will soon revert to normal is something that I cannot comprehend? Perhaps it is in tune with the artificiality of the city, where even a smile is not without a specific purpose.
I also have to get on with the job of improving the three major stations of the city in right earnest. A monumental job no doubt, but possible. After all it was in Delhi only where I got mine and also the railways its first guinness by running the fairy queen and also where I almost achieved the biggest turnaround of the country at the (in) famous ITDC.
As always, I am excited and waiting for the non stop excitement to begin.

Leaving Bhopal

I have never felt so sad in my life as I have been feeling these days. The mere thought that I shall be leaving Bhopal on the 22nd of December is enough to make me feel a deep sense of sadness. But there is also a sense of satisfaction. Satisfaction that one gets when the work has been well done. Yes the stint in MPSTDC has been the most satisfying period of my life. I do not think that I could have done better.
Almost all my farewells have been heavily emotional affairs. Both me and my staff cry, togethor. I doubt if this is going to be any different.
Madhya Pradesh is a great state. Beautifully lansdscaped, innumerable tourist destinations, excellent climate, good crime and law and order situation and above all, simple people. Even the politicians are simple, no comparison at all to their brethren in other states. A starking example is the Chief Minister of the state. A simple and honest man, deeply committed to the development of the state. I am going to miss him too.
I always believed that in any organization, the disease or the cure, is vested in the top management, to be exact, in the top man. He can either take the organization forward or sink it. And this stint further reinforced this belief. The same set of staff and officers, who were earlier held accountable for all the wrongs, rose to propel the organization to the forefront of the nation, and that too in a remarkably short time frame.
Once during my first stint in Bhopal, an autorickshaw driver refused to charge me once he knew that I am a stranger to the city. That is the spirit of Bhopal.
I shall forever remember my days in Bhopal and shall relive them after retirement. Well that is the plan at present.

The predicament of the common man

I often wonder at the predicament of the common man in this nation of over a billion people. This is because I now stand fully conviced that our great nation has with passage of time emerged as a haven for only three categories of people. First is the politician, who with his single minded focus on loot for self and his cronies, friends and relatives has firmly enconsed himself in this country. The second category is that of people like me, the bureaucrats and also the lowly government servant. Being part of the power circle, this category has sufficient avenues to amply look after and take care of its breed, a job that is being carried out to the utmost satisfaction of this tribe. And the third category is that of the rich class, people who have an stupendous excess of income over expenditure. This class is able to purchase whatever it desires, especially from the government sector, where everything, repeat everything is on sale, provided ofcourse the price is right and the service provider, by a quirk of fate is not one of those rare honest government servants.
Then what does the common man do. The common man of this country, from whom almost all of us from the three categories expect sensitivity on all issues including preserving our heritage and dealing with others, is totally powerless and clueless. he is able to barely meet his basic necessities of life. His life is definitely not an envy of others. His major drawback is that he cannot, repeat cannot get anything done from the sarkari system without the conventional greasing of palms. And he accepts this situation without even once crying out loud for his legitimate rights. And he also regards those from the sarkari tribe as honest who do the work after taking a bribe. Dishonest for him is the one who takes a bribe and yet fails to deliver.
And that is where the difference lies between India and the other countries. Here the survival of the common man is at stake, there even the commonest of the common man can easily survive.
How much I would hate to be reborn as a common man in my own country!

What defines merit?

I often wonder whether merit still counts in the present age India and am unable to find an exact answer. Merit rarely counts, is the best answer that one can think of.
Yes there have been cases where govermnents have recognized brilliance and merit overriding considerations based on money and proximity. E.Sreedharan is one such example of a person whose merit has been openly recognized and appreciated by the federal as well as state government. Nandan Nilekani is perhaps another. But that is about all. No other example readily comes to mind.
And so rarely we come across cases of an outstanding deliverance in this nation of over a billion people primarily because meritocracy has been finally given the go-by in this nation.
The sarkari sector definitely supports and promotes what it regards as merit. Unfortunately however, merit has a different meaning in this sector. Being from the elite IAS is considered meritorious, being well connected to the high and mighty is perhaps over brilliance and being stinking rich is also a fit case for being regarded as meritorious. Again, that is about all. And so all the institutions that are supposed to recruit people for important positions, with perhaps UPSC being the only exception, do their job on the basis of their own perception of what is merit.
The selection for board level positions in the central public sector undertakings is a classic example of a distorted merit assessment system. Both the methods of induction normally give weightage to the "connected" aspect, with the right phone call at the right time almost always doing the trick.
And so what does the really meritorious guy, with no connections and no surplus cash to be doled out as bribes, do in this country? Bide his time, I must say, because ultimately at some point of time, maybe a hundred or more years later, our nation, if it has to be pulled out of the abyss it finds itself in, shall be forced to start believing in and respecting true meritocracy as practiced in the developed world at present and not the pseudo kind, that it presently worships.

The koda factor

The recent scam unearthed in Jharkhand, involving an Ex Chief Minister has rattled the country. The scale of operations, pegged at over Rs 40,000/- per minute, non stop for over two years can only be termed as mindboggling. The tremendous focus that Mr Koda displayed, in amassing ill gotten wealth is however praiseworthy. If only he had displayed a fraction of this focus in building the state, things in Jharkhand would have been much different.

Many people sympathize with Koda, not because they think that he has been wrongly framed, but because he has been caught, while most of the politicians generally go scot free. I however personally feel that the biggest factor emerging out of the Koda episode is that he has upped the benchmark. Post Koda, any politician whose illgotten wealth is less that say a thousand crores, would develop an inferiority complex and regard himself in the category of a poor politician.

Politicians, cutting across states and party lines would now stand divided into two categories - one who have amassed over a thousand crores and the other who have less than a thousand crores. The lesser ones would struggle hard to achieve a semblance of respectability by quickly amasing wealth, obviously by looting the nation and crossing the thousand crore benchmark.

Corruption would now achieve greater heights and the country would also jump to the big league by having almost all its major politicians in the thousand crore plus category. India would also acquire fame for having the maximum number of multi billionaires.

The Koda episode has definitely given the politicians of this nation something to cheer about. Long live Koda.

"Potential" is a dirty word

I get irritated when potential is talked about as if giving credit to the organization, place, city, state or nation. Is Madhya Pradesh great because it has tremendous tourism potential and does it give it any credit? Rightfully it should not. Realization of that immense potential is what should give credit and convey a positive impression.
Why do people say that India has tremendous potential and therefore should be regarded as great? Nobody ever talks about the potential of the United States or Britain. The difference is that while we have carefully preserved our potential, others, mostly the developed world has realized it.
Potential is therefore directly linked to deliverance, inversely proportional to be exact. We have done nothing and therefore we have tons of potential and those from the developed world have delivered and have therefore consumed their potential.
Consuming the potential is therefore what matters.
In tourism, the example of Kerala is worthy of emulation. A state known more for its militant trade unions gradually started first appreciating and then consuming its potential in the tourism sector. The state looked around and then realized that its backwaters, the tradition of ayurveda and the coconut lagoons can attract people and the famous Amitabh Kant took no time in consuming the potential of the state. On the contrary, states like the Madhya Pradesh, Uttaranchal and Orissa always took pride in the unlimited tourism potential that they ever had, with the difference that current Govt of Madhya Pradesh decided to do something positive about it. And the state surged forward in all spheres, especially tourism.
Let us all abandon the sense of pride that we Indians have started taking in the word "potential". Let the nation, state, city or organization be judged not by the potential they posess, but by what they have done to eradicate the potential.

A failed state

India is never referred to as a failed state. In fact, the rest of the world generally regards it as a superpower in the making. How follish the rest of the world can be. A free nation for over 60 years still half of whose population survives on less that 50 Rs a day! Is it something to be proud of? We have failed at building roads, generating and transmitting enough electricity or in providing any kind of water to its populace and in almost every other sphere of governance.
Cities that resemble large dustbins, cities that we have failed to even keep clean and villages, the lesser said about them the better. India has emerged as perhaps the world's largest mess, a gigantic mess that only our focussed politicians and nincompoop bureaucracy can be proud of.
Is it not sad that India finds a place at the bottom of almost all global indices, be they refer to the purchasing power, the human development index or the corruption scenario. Perhaps the most corrupt of all nations, where every interaction of those governed with those governing is laced with bribery. Every service of the government is on sale for those who can purchase it.
India has now emerged as a nation that is genuinely not for its citizens. It is liveable only for the rich or for bureaucrats and government servants.
Perhaps we a nation are not fit enough or mature enough for self rule. And therefore India is a failed state.