On Manmohanomics

These are actually two responses from my friend Pramod to my post on Ineffective leadership.  He has left them as reader's comments.  I am not sure how many people read comments so I thought I will put them here so that what he has to say is available for others to read as well.

The following are words of Pramod:

The arguments of Dr. Yum Yum Singh that (a) coalition politics necessitates corruption; and (b) that in order to avoid frequent elections, a certain level of corrupt practices by coalition partners has to be entertained are clearly indicative of a warped mind - the same mind that can with great equanimity claim that it is okay to allow grain to rot in public godowns and not distribute it to the hungry and the malnourished, because the market will not allow it. Maybe Karl Polanyi was right when he suggested that supercharged capitalism will necessarily take the economy far beyond social constraints. The question  is whether, because of the double movement, the economy will be brought back to an even keel peacefully or violently. An apocryphal story: apparently President Roosevelt (Theodore), after a particularly trying meeting with economists, turned in exasperation to his Secretary of State and asked him if he could find some one handed economists. Apparently, the poor economists who had met him at the turn of the previous century, were humble enough to acknowledge that their prescriptions and prognoses were fraught with uncertainty. Economists of late twentieth century seem to be another breed altogether - arrogant, and animated more by ideological fervour  than by any moral compunctions about their own epistemic short-comings. Oh how I wish we could go back to the era of two handed economists - they'd be infinitely better  than the one handed market fundamentalists who are ruling the roost. We are even more unfortunate that one such amoral economist heads our government.

The problem may also lie in the very brand of economics that Dr. Singh seems to have subscribed to and that may make it difficult for him to understand the difference between accepting the levels of corruption as fait accompli, and having to function within those levels as against taking a determined moral stand against such corruption. Much of modern economics, taking its cue from Milton Friedman's push to cast it  purely as a positive science, contains a strong kernel of determinism/cynicism - that human nature is essentially greedy, if not downright evil. Consequently modern economics would argue that there is no point in trying to change human nature, and any attempts to changing it would be futile and even counter-productive in terms of overall welfare (without reference to distribution issues, and negative impact on certain segments). Its prescription is that a policy maker should only attempt to make the state function as a "night watchman" with respect to law and order, and the market can then weave its way through to were it will. The tautological aspect of their argument lies in the logic that whatever end point is achieved is, by definition, the best that could have been achieved. So for a person like Dr. Singh, the notion of taking a principled stand, on the basis of some positive morality, against corruption would appear to be an unnecessary luxury, and maybe even a hindrance, to solutions that markets will eventually find. I am not surprised that he would take the stand of a victim, at the hands of the press and the opposition, and also of circumstances. A profession that is capable of building elaborate models of description and prescription on the assumption of ceteris paribus is most likely to also be incapable of producing leaders with great moral convictions. By training, Dr. Singh is incapable of a moral vision.

Ineffective political leadership, collapsing public institutions and a nation whose future is in jeopardy

Mr. G. Kishan Reddy, Member of Legislative Assembly of the State of Andhra Pradesh, is quoted as having said that there is no administration in Andhra Pradesh.  I am glad that an MLA has confirmed what I have been saying for a while now.  I have been saying that ever since the taking over of the State by Mr. K. Rosaiah, as Chief Minister, the functioning of the State has been becoming less and less evident and in the last couple of months it does look like the police is the only official machinery that is still functioning in public view.  Sadly, theirs is not a job that wins them public accolades, since most people's perception of the police is that they hinder rather than make things easier.  But to say that whatever happens is all because of the fault of the police would be stretching things too far.  Yesterday, in spite of the police being everywhere and causing traffic jams and gridlocks, agitators were able to destroy a local train, an entire train station (this is fascinating because this is the doing of lawyers apparently, all on their own, without any help from any others if the newspapers are to be believed) and half a dozen buses.  All public property, built and run with the help of tax payers' money. This is especially sad because Andhra Pradesh is now a state that hangs precariously on the verge of bankruptcy, thanks to hare brained schemes. These are schemes which have been called populist but allegations are that they benefitted the Congress party workers and not the people.  Whatever the case maybe, they have ensured that there is more expenditure for the State and less income.  

The State is already beleaguered in financial terms and the fresh set of losses that are being accumulated on a daily basis cannot make things easier.  Disruption of services, destruction of property and paralyzing of the economy thanks to the non-cooperation movement initiated for a separate Telangana and the call for bandhs over extended periods of time are all contributing to impoverish the economy and the State further, not to mention the severe inconvenience that it causes to common people.  It is heart rending to see ambulances stuck in traffic gridlocks, medicines not being available to the needy and staff of various hospitals not reaching their work places on time or not reaching at all due to the chaos that prevails on the roads.  All this is indicative of ineffective and gutless political leadership that in the first place foisted this problem on the people.  First it was Dr. Y. S. Rajashekar Reddy who indulged in multiple speak, thereby confusing people about where he ultimately stood vis-a-vis separate Telangana.  Then Mr. P. Chidambaram's double speak and the Prime Minister's statements that this problem will be solved only by consensus. I would like to ask how it is possible to create a consensus when a handful of dubiously motivated politicians (on both sides of the great divide) are presiding over the destiny of the people?  Please permit me to deviate a bit here and express my deep disappointment with the Prime Minister.  I have held in the past that he is a politician with some vision but his conference with the electronic media and his utterance that he was not as big a culprit as he was being made out to be, have left me disenchanted with him.  Am I to understand that he is not a big culprit but nevertheless a culprit?  If that is the case, what moral right does he have to continue as the Prime Minister? Another defence that in coalitions it is difficult to check corruptions (referring to the 2G scam) and governments have to perform with corruption (that implied and not said explicitly) so as to rule out elections every six months, is the most disturbing statement that I have ever heard.  I would rather the country bear the expenditure of elections than that of corruption, indecisiveness, hooliganism and lumpenism. 

But to come back to the point that I was making, a weak leadership lacking in self-confidence and in integrity has been driving the nation down and not up.  The festering Telangana issue is proof of this.  The attitude of both the Government of India and the Government of Andhra Pradesh seems to be that of just not doing anything about the issue and hoping that it would die. But that is not going to happen.  It will remain a fire that will be stoked again and again and repeatedly interfere with peoples' lives on a daily basis.  The first thing that has been hit and remains hit for more than a year now is the education system.  With hardly any serious functioning the higher education system which has been under doldrums has now become a haven new lumpen leaders to emerge and bargain for their own pieces of the pie that is being arbitrarily apportioned.  I have been stating that this is not an issue that pertains only to Andhra Pradesh alone but has ramifications for the entire nation.  The country is like a living organism and malfunctioning parts contribute to the death of the whole organism and not just those parts.  Can we imagine a body whose kidneys are dysfunctional carrying on?  Yet there seems to be no attempt being made by anyone to set the situation right by taking a decision and not leaving the issue the way it is.  The drain of finances here will have repercussions for other parts of the country as well, especially since the city of Hyderabad is now firmly tied to the national and international economies.  But no one seems to be overly concerned about this.

That brings me back to the point that I have been repeatedly raising in this blog of mine.  The necessity for a vibrant public sphere and properly deliberative democracy which will see stake holders (the people) coming together in various forums in a non-combative way and rationally deliberating is  the way forward.  Modern democracy has been conceived of by many a thinker such as Emile Durkheim and Max Weber to name a couple, as an extension of an organic process of growth in society due to rational mechanisms that bring people closer together based in the notion of consent and agreement.  What we are witnessing in India is the exact opposite; the use of democracy to build barriers between people (by unscrupulous political leaders) and to try and draw mechanical compliance out of them.  Public institutions therefore function only in terms of some procedures and rarely take care of the substantive aspect, for which they are there in the first place. This is to me is indication of the inadequacy of relying only on representative democracy where only leaders play a role in politics. Democracy should be augmented by a deliberative process where people will come together rationally and without preconceived notions to chart a course of development for the country.  Only then can we see an end to the inaction on Telangana, end to scams such as the 2G spectrum scam and manipulative politics.  Deliberative democracy is the way forward to ensure that the young of this country have some future to look towards.  As usual I hope that the future of my country is truly bright.  I am happy to see that the Supreme Court has directed the State Government (of Andhra Pradesh) to pay its dues to professional colleges, which means at least they will not be shut like they were threatening to.

Filthy politics, institutions of the State and the state of the people

One thing that is for sure is that reading of newspapers or watching news on television is not a pleasant exercise. Even more so if you belong to the State of Andhra Pradesh.  Before writing further I would like to let you all know that I still continue to think about what way in which education can be reformed in this country and in the State of Andhra Pradesh.  If you are wondering why that comment came in suddenly, here is the explanation.  I had promised quite a few days ago that I will find a solution for the providing of free, fair and quality education to all citizens of this country through the State. Just when I thought that I had a solution in mind, I have seen that politics in the country and more so in Andhra Pradesh have taken a turn for the worse, thereby undermining the institutions of the State and ultimately the State itself.  This made it abundantly clear to me that reform process must begin in politics and not so much in the way in which education is being provided.  Imagine entrusting education solely to the State when politics, bureaucracies, political institutions and educational institutions function without any accountability.  What we get then, will surely be worse than what we have today.  I am not making a volte-face and supporting a system of privately provided education.  The profit motive will ensure that the private education providers will be more concerned about bottom lines in monetary terms rather than education.  In private hands education will remain a mere commodity that is for sale.  I have been critical of Dr. Y. S. Rajashekar Reddy's fee re-imbursement scheme saying that it is not the responsibility of the State to ensure the profitability of educational institutions.  Today we are confronted by a situation where the privately run MBA, MCA and engineering colleges are threatening to shut down indefinitely if the fees are not re-imbursed. 

Now that is indeed a problem for students since the State is not in a position to pay the educational institutions since its finances are in tatters, owing largely to ill-conceived policies.  In this situation, where there seems to be a stand off between the State and the private colleges, students will lose; they will lose time, money, prospects of employment and their morale.  In this situation  now consider the role of politics..  The Congress party is one side, while the opposition, including Dr. Y. S. Rajashekar Reddy's son, Mr. Y. S. Jaganmohan Reddy and the Telugu Desam Party are on the other.  Battles lines are clearly drawn.  The opposition insists on payment of the fees to the colleges and the government wants time and lessening of the fee amount.  This becomes even more interesting if you factor in the separate Telangana issue.  One can state unequivocally that the biggest issue facing Andhra Pradesh is the separate Telangana issue.  I have already stated in a post some time back that all political parties and politicians backed themselves into their own holes with no way out by taking a stance which will not recognize the recommendations of the Sri Krishna Committee.  The Congress and the Telugu Desam, as I have been repeatedly emphasizing are home to pro-separate Telangana and pro-united Andhra Pradesh and that is indeed a great source of inconvenience to their leaders.  Mr. N. Chandra Babu Naidu has remained silent on the issue of a separate Telangana or has only made vague statements.  Mr. Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy, is known to have rushed into the well of the Lok Sabha and argued vociferously for a united Andhra Pradesh.  With the separate Telangana issue becoming the centre of politics in Andhra Pradesh, both these leaders face the prospect of being forgotten if they do not do something to remain in the public eye.  

Therefore in the past couple of months we see that both leaders have been using other issues as diversionary tactics.  Mr. N. Chandra Babu Naidu, at the peak of the separate Telangana agitation last year was found making attempts to draw the attention of the Union Government and of the people to the issue of Obulapuram mines.  Then he espoused the cause of farmers, about whom he had forgotten or did not bother to care, during his tenure as Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh.  He even undertook a fast, a weapon which was never of his choice anywhere in his political career.  Not  to be outdone, Mr. Jaganmohan Reddy organized a rally to draw the attention of the Union Government to the plight of the poor farmers.  He even organized a fast of one lakh people for two days.  And now that the fee re-imbursement issue has come out into the open they are still trying to divert attention by making that the main issue.  In this instance, I will refrain from making any comments on the separate Telangana issue, for my views on this are known to my readers (I believe in unity both symbolically and really because this issue has ramifications for the whole nation) and talk about the politics that surround the fee re-imbursement issue.  

I think one can begin with the assumption that neither the Telugu Desam nor the Jagan group are too seriously bothered about the students.  The scheme itself was hurriedly initiated by the Congress party during the elections of the year 2009, without doing any ground work on it.  It was therefore an ad hoc policy, one among many such.  That ad hoc ism has landed Andhra Pradesh in financial difficulties that seem to elude a solution unless all parties come together in order to find a solution. But given the competitive nature of politics and the attempts at one-up-manship , that situation is inconceivable.  With the non-cooperation movement on and with a call for a two-day bandh to come into effect the day after tomorrow and a call for laying siege to the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly tomorrow, the financial losses to the Andhra Pradesh government will be in huge amounts.  To a financially beleaguered State that is not good news.  It is even worse news for students, because it means that the problem of fee re-imbursement will get dragged on for a few more days.  It is especially poignant and sad because the sufferers are students who come from backward and economically and socially down trodden groups.  Competitive politics have reduced State institutions to arenas of conflict escalation rather than settlement.  In such a scenario, there may be winners and losers in politics but in society and in this case among students more specifically, there will only be losers.

I stand corrected. Apparently I have committed a blunder.

My good friend Pramod who is a lawyer has this to say about my post of yesterdays.  This is his response on Facebook where I as usual advertised that I had made a new post.  This post is not just to show the other side of the spectrum but also to let everyone know that since he is a lawyer by training and profession he knows better than I do.  The only thing I can say is the I made an honest mistake, not something deliberate and I stand corrected.  I also apologise to you all for putting up a post that was not very accurate and hence committed the same mistake that the media did.  Thank you Pramod for correcting me and sorry friends for overstepping a few proprieties myself.

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    Satish: Two things that you need to remember. Former Puisne Justice (of SCI) Sri Krishna is a former member of the judiciary, and not the current member of the judiciary. There is a whale of a difference before you start pontificating about whether one member of the judiciary ought to be commenting about the opinions of another member of the judiciary. There are enough instances of how former members of the judiciary have denigrated the judiciary by getting involved in commissions that are called "judicial commissions" even though such a legal concept does not exist under the relevant laws. Politicians have used former members of the judiciary to give thin cover for their decisions. So, Satish, maybe you want to get your constitutional theory right about who is saying what, and issues of constitutional impropriety? And you may be in contempt of court for having denigrated a judge's comments deliverd in the course of a judicial decision making process about a non-judicial process? Maybe that constitution ought to be re-dusted?
    If you must know, and in case you did not know already, at least three benches, and a few justices of the Supreme Court have stated vehemently that the use of the phrase "judicial commissions" is wrong, as a matter of law, and the way it has been used, to cover up garbage that has passed for commission reports, has brought great disrepute to the appellate judiciary. So no, Prof. Chandra, what the justice did was in the course of him rendering his official duties as a member of judiciary and in the course of rendering judicial functions, whereas that report which is riddled with lies, cooking of statistics and full of the pox is not the report of the member of a judiciary. Don't shoot from the hip Satish, based on newspaper reports.
    
    
    Satish: A very simple question. Your post would suggest that you were there in the court room when the remarks were said to have been made by the justice - should I assume that you were indeed in tha court hall Satish or that you are depending on media reports for your post? Are you aware of the detailed context in which the remarks were made, for instance about the particular arguments that were advanced by lawyers? Were every single element of that exchange reported in the so called institutions of deliberative democracy, the media, that you hold dear? Do you think they are accurate? Absolutely certain about it? There was a judgment delivered by the Supreme Court of India about a very infamous business case involving two scions of a business house last year. The stupid media reported it as a 2-1 judgment in favour of the elder brother. The f&%$ing ar$e&Oles in the media had not even bothered to read through the judgments, and only ToI had the guts to admit that the second opinion was even harsher than the first one, and both opinions were in favour of the GoI and not either of the brothers. Satish, for Go'd sake, if you do care about institutions, stop being "at it again" unless you get the facts straight, and can distinguish between a rendered opinion and comments in the course of hearings in a court of law. Stop being Arsenio Hall, if you truly care about constitutional institutions.
    
    
    Satish, every judgment is potentially subject to review by an appellate authority. Now if your logic that you were to advance were to hold then no judge at the lower level of the hierarchy need ever give his complete and true opinion, about facts and material placed before him/her on the ground that he/she could be set aside at the higher level. That would pretty much be the death of constitutional institutions, such as the High Courts, and even more devastatingly than what Prof. C.P. Bhambri may have intended by his remarks about acid. In any number of controversial cases, the decisions of High Courts have been set aside by the Supreme Court or upheld by it. So what are we to make of it? In this particular case you suggest that the judge should have waited for the release of the papers and then awaited a considered opinion? By who exactly? By the public, which does not bother to read those papers, or render his opinion in the course of settling a constitutional question raised by a litigant in front of him? Are you opposed to the judge rendering a decision at all? Or are you opposed to him rendering it in a particular manner? Or are you suggesting that in all such cases, the High Courts merely kick the cases upwards to the Supreme Court, because it is the final stop? If in every controversial case, we are to wait for the judgment of the "deliberative process" then we would never have a resolution, as a practical matter. As a reminder of our constitutional history Satish, please do acknowledge the fact that when in Delhi the justices of the Supreme Court of India had bowed down to the tyrannical powers being claimed by the Central Government, many decent judges in the High Court found ways to not subserve what they perceived to be the cravenness up above. They may have done more to protect the deliberative politics we all talk about, than what the SCI did in some very dark days.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    

    Pramod,

    You are a lawyer by profession so you must know better than I do about functioning of the judiciary.  So I will accept everything you say as true.  I will only say that when I have talked about institutions in Andhra Pradesh withering away, I was also talking of the legislature and the executive and not just the judiciary.  Thank you for correcting me.  It does seem like I was shooting from the hip.

    
    

    
    

    
    

    
    

    
    

    
    

    
    

Political institutions of Andhra Pradesh have withered away

Today's newspaper makes anything but pleasant reading.  The attack on the Governor in the Assembly by members of political parties, assault on a fellow legislator are all indications that  the  political institutions we have exist  in form only.  The content seems to have completely disappeared.  I find it shocking that elected representatives of the people can exhibit such intolerance and belligerence.  The Governor maybe a very bad man, may have some biases that are inconvenient to some, but that does not mean that the office itself is denigrated by attempts of physical assault.  It is obvious that the conventions that are supposed to be an integral part of behaviour in a legislature have no relevance any more.  It seems fisticuffs are the way to resolve problems.  Maybe the legislature can be turned into a boxing ring and boxing duels and their winners should determine the laws of the land.  If what the legislators did is not disgusting enough, what a Justice of the Andhra Pradesh High Court has done is even more shocking.  The contents of the 8th Chapter of the Sri Krishna Committee have been deemed confidential and have not been disclosed to the people. There has been a petition asking that they be made public.  The Solicitor General brought the said chapter in a sealed cover and presented it to the Justice so that he could determine whether its contents could be made public or not. The good Justice, who read it, sealed it and gave it back to the Solicitor General.  He later passed a verdict saying that the contents should be made public.  Fair enough.  People have a right to know.  But the comments that accompanied the judgement are a little shocking.  He claims that the report is not befitting of the stature of a former Justice of the Supreme Court of India and that it is written in a such a manner that it can be bettered by the front office of a Member of Parliament or the High Command of a political party!!! He also says that it is full of lies.  It maybe, but does one member of the judiciary respond to the work of another member this way?  In a climate where tempers are high and everything is volatile would such remarks not exacerbate the situation?  Why cannot we wait for the report to be made public officially and then comment rather than providing sneak previews like this? It should also be remembered that the Government of India has the right to challenge his decision and if a verdict emerges in a higher court that it is better that it be kept a secret, then what?  I am not defending the Governor, or Justice Sri Krishna but only raising questions of propriety of behaviour of people in responsible positions in offices of repute.  The actions of the legislators and the inaction of the Executive we can see what those two institutions are like.  And due to the comments of the Justice of the Andhra Pradesh High Court it is now obvious that the Judiciary is also in tatters.  If his comments about Justice Sri Krishna are right, then it is obvious that the members of the judiciary are not what we think they are. And if he is wrong in his comments, it still means that the members of the judiciary are not what they are supposed to be.  Classic Catch 22. My old teacher Prof. C. P. Bhambri who was a passionate Marxist used to joke that in Bihar the State has withered away without any revolution.  This was a reference to Lenin's idea that once classes are dissolved by the communist revolution, the State will wither away. I suppose the same can now be said of Andhra Pradesh, only less wryly perhaps.

Why deliberative politics and deliberative democracy are now a must

My previous post, the one that I made yesterday, was meek, weak and cowardly.  Let me explain why I say that.  When I read what Mr. K. Chandrashekar Rao had to say about "self rule" I was righteously indignant but somehow when it came to writing, I ended up making that a small part of a larger post, while the focus should have been on that particular utterance.  I have been thinking about my cowardice and have now decided that I shall post what I should have yesterday itself, today.  I don't know what kind of repercussions this kind of writing will involve, but I shall go ahead nevertheless.  Any Indian, with a concern for the country, should be alarmed by the nature of the separate Telangana agitation and the utterances and actions of the leaders of this agitation.  The last one year has completely and comprehensively demonstrated that democracy as a system that leaves decisions to elected representatives is deeply flawed at least in the context of India.  The reasons are straight forward.  In India, we know the various machinations and manipulations of voters that bring leaders into power as elected representatives.  It could be anything from distribution of money, distribution of liquor to plain intimidation that can bring a person into power.  Over and above that if one sees the performance of the elected representatives it is very clear that what we have today is a mockery of democracy rather than democracy.  Otherwise how will one explain the fact that pan Andhra Pradesh political parties like the Congress and the Telugu Desam have people in their ranks (Members of Parliament and Members of the Legislative Assembly) clamouring for both separate Telangana and United Andhra Pradesh at the same time?  What do these parties stand for?  Are they mere aggregation of individuals?

Now to come back to the question of Mr. K. Chandrashekar Rao's utterances.  "The only solution to the Telangana problem is the self rule of people of Telangana" is what he said, among many things.  In my timid post of yesterdays I only said how does one establish the nativity of a person and say he/she is from Telangana.  And I left it at that, thanks to my cowardice.  Today, however, I shall raise some points and demonstrate the dangers that are lurking within that statement.  First of all let us consider the legal aspects of what goes into the question of local and non-local, the categories that are determine whether someone gets a seat in an educational institution or a job.  A person in order to be called local has to live continuously in a designated area for four years without a break.  When a person does not satisfy this criterion he/she becomes a non-local.  Now when you say that only Telangana people should rule themselves, there are questions.  What if a family from another part, be it Coastal Andhra or any other, has made a part of Telangana their home for the last say ten years.  Now if someone from that family chooses to contest elections will they be considered non-Telangana and therefore barred from contesting an election?  The constitution clearly says that anyone of a sound mind and body over the age of 25 years can contest an election from anywhere in the country.  In the light of what is written in the constitution how does one justify KCR's statement?  Somebody said that non-Telangana people can contest elections but people will not vote for them. My question then is why cannot the same be done in the present day Andhra Pradesh itself? Let the voters of Telangana not vote for those who come from other parts of the country and are contesting elections in their region.  Why does one require a separate Telangana for that?

Already I see in the Osmania University (and I am sure this is the case in other universities and government offices) when it comes to promotions people point fingers at their opponents and say so and so is a Tamilian and therefore a non-local (it does not matter that the person's grandfather also lived here in Telangana only) or that someone is ineligible for the post of Head of Department (which comes routinely) because he/she has some relatives in Coastal Andhra or has antecedents in Coastal Andhra.  I hope my readers are able to see the dangers of this argument without my having to elaborate on it further.  Doesn't this constitute discrimination? Do we need to introduce newer forms of discrimination into a society that is already riddled with discriminations?  One of my friends argues that the situation is no different in Coastal Andhra and that people from Telangana are discriminated there.  I believe my friend fully.  The solution is taking the fight to Coastal Andhra against discrimination rather than saying we will discriminate against you here.  One discrimination only reinforces the other, something that is detrimental to the good health of a nation.

One of the things that frightens me about this whole nativity thing is that tomorrow this could be used against minorities and that could culminate in the re-ignition of communal passions which thankfully are dormant today.  Already those belonging to certain political parties believe that people belonging to some religions are not indigenous people and in order to prove their patriotism they should follow certain things.  The kind of parochialism that the Telangana argument raises over questions of nativity will most certainly at some point in the near future find place in questions pertaining to religious minorities as well.  Also the language that is being used by Mr. K. Chandrashekar Rao and other leaders about self rule and nativity are bound to spread to other parts of India where there are some active parochial movements and some passive ones. If this goes unchecked and unnoticed here, one day the whole nation stands to be harmed.  It is therefore very surprising that no editorial pieces or op-ed articles appear anywhere in any newspaper looking at the deeper implications of this kind of language and utterances.

And that is what brings me back to the point that I made in the first paragraph about the failure of the existing model of democracy.  Given the fact that political leadership in the country by and large consists of lumpen elements, it is difficult to believe that only electoral politics and a democracy based only in them can find solutions to the problems of this country, be they demands for separate statehoods or corruption or anything else.  I do not want to be misunderstood here.  Electoral politics cannot be done away with.  But in themselves, they are inadequate.  Deliberative democracy has to come into the picture in order to question the wrong doings of elected leaders and also to suggest appropriate amendments to various failed public policies. Most problems of the country today are the doing of elected representatives, so to expect them to solve them is akin to expecting a thief to catch a thief.  Deliberative politics will ensure that elected representatives constantly get a feed back about what people think of them and therefore will pressure them into working for the people, rather than for themselves.  For this to happen a vibrant print and electronic media are required.  That this country does not have them yet is another story and therefore a subject for another post.  Till then Ciao. 

I still cannot believe it

I am still not posting about education reform because I am yet to arrive at a proper solution or even the makings of a proper solution.  Dr. Y. S. Rajashekhar Reddy seems to have left behind a legacy of muck and filth.  It is so saddening to see that private educational institutions providing, MBA, MCA and Engineering courses have been having a stand off on the fee reimbursement issue.  They are threatening to close down colleges indefinitely.  It had to happen.  I think YSR has left behind a tiger on which the Congress government is riding and it cannot get off.  My deep sympathies with Mr. Kiran Kumar Reddy who seems to have occupied the hot seat at a time when it is scorching.  When I look at the state of affairs in the country and in Andhra Pradesh, I feel terribly dismayed and depressed.  The Central Government is in the centre of a storm of corruption and money laundering and the State Government is clueless about anything.  The Prime Minister and the Chief Minister seem to just wander around looking for some opening that will take them away from their troubles.  This is a nation of one billion plus people and we do not have alternatives.  The alternative to the UPA is the NDA, another coalition with equally corrupt people in all parties that form the coalition.  On record, in India, all people with criminal records are ineligible for election, but off it, only they are eligible.  All other people are happy to give all this a miss and get on with their life as if this whole muddle is an insignificant sideshow.  Complicating matters are useless campaigns such as "Jaago Re" thought out by some stupid advertising agency.  Such campaigns only take the seriousness out of the situation by offering silly, simplistic and improbable solutions to what are actually deep rooted problems.

What is happening in Andhra Pradesh today is even more dismal.  Since Mr. Rosaiah took over as Chief Minister, it is as if there is no administration in this state.  Today, the 17th of February, is the day which is supposed to be the beginning of the non-cooperation movement where people will attend to places of work without actually working.  So what is new in this?  Isn't that what always happened?  I see traffic police constables sauntering around and chatting on cell phones when there is a huge traffic snarl right under their nose.  Osmania University and other state universities have long stopped functioning.  In government offices, work is done only if bribes are given.  With the non-cooperation call, the amounts to be given as bribes will quadruple at the least, meaning an increase in corruption and the rates of corruption.  Prices that are up will not come down in this country and we all know that through experience.  It was amusing and saddening to see a statement by an electricity department worker who said that they will attend to duties if people put a Jai Telangana flag outside their house.  Yet again K. Chandrashekhar Rao talks about "Self Rule", vocabulary used by the freedom fighters when they asked the British to leave.  Next I suppose will be "Quit Telangana" and "Sri Krishna Commission Go Back".  How does Mr. KCR propose to establish the nativity of Telangana people?  I assume that the first criterion will be that they should belong to his family and next to his extended kinship.  In all this rubbish, national resources are being wasted.  Difficult to say, where all this will lead, but somehow it doesn't seem like it will lead to anything good.  Fatalists that we are, we shall accept whatever comes our way, saying we don't like dirty politics. And so we will deserve that which we get.  Then at least, let us have the gumption to not complain.

Ethics, education and subsidies

Towards the end of my last post I had said that I need to still think about the way forward with education reform which will essentially include free, fair, equal, quality and relevant education provided by the State.  I still believe that the State should be the agency to provide education from kindergarten to the doctorate level.  The question is how does one ensure this in a system that is corrupt and presided over by unethical and self-serving politicians?  I must confess that I am yet to find that answer since I am still unable to understand how one can reform politics of this country by creating a public sphere that is based in deliberative democracy.  I am heartened to note that the people of Egypt were successful in ousting Hosni Mubarak quite peacefully by coming together.  That plus the homegrown example of India's own freedom movement perhaps show the way forward to better politics.  But that still needs thinking and truth to speak I am not yet ready for my next post regarding the reform of the education system.  So obviously this post is not about that.

I saw in the newspapers today that the Telangana Rashtra Samithi is calling for non-cooperation from all quarters by launching a peaceful movement for the realization of a separate Telangana.  Fair enough, in a democracy every one has a right to dissent and demand whatever is legitimate.  Ideally one should not have a problem with what the TRS is calling for.  But then the TRS has given a twist to the story.  They have asked all employees of the Government of Andhra Pradesh, in Telangana, to attend their offices but not attend to their work.  They want to paralyze the administration.  I need a small clarification here.  Will not attending to duties involve the bills sections of the various offices in Telangana and will it include the staff of the Pay and Accounts Office?  Going by the logic of paralyzing of the administration one will have to assume that those too will be included.  But I suspect they won't be, simply because if they too suspend their work, then the employees do not get their salaries.  I would love to see how many government servants go to work, do nothing and come back home and not collect salaries.  So we will see all other work of the government come to a stand still but that bit of work that needs to done to get salaries will carry on.  Interesting.  This means that while the non-cooperation movement ensures that the government offices and officials will not serve the people for whose sake they are there, but will continue to serve themselves.  Robert Merton would have been proud to see yet another perverse twist to his theory that bureaucracies fail because they concentrate on house keeping functions rather on the ones for which they have been created.  Hegel and Max Weber needless to say will be turning round and round in their graves.  So the movement of the TRS is not so much for the people as it is against them, since ultimately it is the work of the people that will not be done.  Far cry from the Indian National Movement which tried to create problems for the rulers and not the people.  And the rulers were foreigners in the days of the National movement, not people from ones own country.  Fasts, hartals and non-cooperation are being made into a farce and I am sure young children who are taught about the freedom movement of India are already wondering how these things worked in the first place (fasts, non-cooperation etc).  As if this is not enough the person who has given this call is an employee of a state university, in this case the Osmania University and continues to attend college (minus teaching like the rest of us) and gets his salary.

This post of mine also comes in the context of some discussion that I was having with a few friends regarding subsidies.  Most seem to think that the farmers or the industrialists get unwarranted subsidies and that is what is weakening the economy unnecessarily.  I think the time has come for people to talk about how much money goes into the payment of salaries of government and university employees and how much of that is actually justified in terms of output.  While everyone is happy to bash the bureaucracy (and rightfully at that) they have forgotten universities which are breeding grounds for laziness.  It is time that someone asked the government through the Right to Information, how much money is doled out (and I used that term fully aware of its meaning) to employees of the government and universities especially.  Until people stop the politicians and their cronies from making a mockery of politics and the political system, the performance of the State and its institutions, including educational institutions will not improve.  And until that improves there is no point in talking about reform in the field of education or any other for that matter.  

What reform am I talking about?

Today has been a bad day, a sad day. These days when I set out for work I do not even know if I will be allowed inside the university campus by the police who at the drop of a small dust particle within the campus will seal it off. Inside, you never know which student group or organization is doing what. Going to work therefore is always a like a suspense thriller (albeit a C grade one). Today as usual I was not allowed inside by the police and therefore I had to try another entrance and I was allowed inside on production of my identity card. When I reached the Arts College I noticed sloganeering by one of the student organizations and throwing of furniture to shut the college down. Some of us decided to adjourn to the university canteen for a cuppa and some chit chat before going home. However, even in the canteen there was mayhem, student leaders (some of them doing PhD) appeared on the scene smashed a few things in the canteen and asked everyone to get out, which we did since there wasn't anything else we could do.

But the whole thing got me thinking. It has been more than three or four months since anyone in the university has gone to class. There are no examinations, no classes, the hostels are open and the university staff gets its salaries on time (at least so far). Students hardly pay their mess bills and some of the dues I am told run into over fifty thousand rupees per head. All this is tax payers money, completely unaccounted for. Any attempt within the university to set things right will only unleash a reign of terror and those who dare to dissent will be beaten black and blue. Today nobody knows who is striking for what and nobody even wants to question anyone or anything. The motto is take it easy baby, take it as it comes (Jim Morrison would have been proud to see this). All this has to do with the unholy student-teacher nexus about which I have talked ad nauseum, pathetic Vice-Chancellors who want the position but not the responsibility that comes with it and teachers who in the conceivable past have not read a line of anything other than manufactured news (mostly they only contribute to the manufacturing process and hence like to check on their achievement) in the vernacular press and consequently cannot teach a thing about anything in a class room. The politically appointed Vice-Chancellors and their cronies among the teachers play one student group against another for information and when the situation gets out of hand they hide somewhere till such time tempers cool down. University administration is run with political strategies that are akin to those of political parties, by breaking student and teacher numbers into caste denominations. I once thought that Osmania University and other State universities were areas where those who aspired to become bureaucrats but couldn't, became teachers and tried hard to be bureaucratize the university. It now appears that generation of people have moved on and most of the present teachers are failed candidates for politics and are using the universities as surrogate grounds for some politics of their own.

So great. Why am I saying all this? Especially since this is familiar to most people who read my blog. I have been a huge optimist and believed that bad times do not last forever and that things will get better. I have argued that creation of a deliberative public sphere will change things and create a better and sustainable democratic order. Today, I have almost lost all my hope. What use are words when confronted with cannon fodder? When teachers and students in universities take recourse to verbal and other forms of violence at the drop of anything, where will deliberative democracy set in? When anti-social elements parade as teachers and scholars but have scores of the lowest order (mainly caste) to settle, where is the hope? I have waxed eloquent about a failed system of education especially in the private sector which has turned it into a profit spinning enterprise. I started off with a solution that said that the State must provide free, uniform and quality education to all. Today I see that the position is possibly untenable. I delayed my post about how there could be an accountable system of education provided by the State since some of my friends did send literature on where private education worked but also because my own working conditions and the unaccountability that we are enjoying has raised questions about the State providing education.

All this has something to do with the nature of politics. Everyday one reads in the newspapers various scams pertaining to all walks of life. Equally frightening is the attitude of opposition political parties who will do anything to end the term of this government. When I say anything I mean anything. There is no bottom to this. It is like a black hole. With teachers and students aspiring for various political positions or politically dispensed positions, the battle lines are clearly drawn. In this whole thing of oneupmanship among the educators and students, the political parties have gained in drawing one constituency or the other on to their sides. The non resident Indians who fund such politics but take care of themselves and their children's future in other countries stoke this fire to settle old scores. If politics and politicians are like this, then what can the State be? Can a system consumed by decay regenerate something? With such dirt and filth in politics, can I really think that the State can be trusted with something as valuable as the education system? Today I am pessimistic, but I hope this feeling will pass. So I will not talk about reform of the education system under the auspices of the State, till such time that I can sort out my thinking and make an honest assessment of things. For me State sponsored education for all is the way forward. The question is how? I am sure there is a way, even if it is full of thorns.

The Telangana Sons of the Soil argument explained

I promise I shall keep this post really brief. In many of my previous posts I have lamented the fact that politics have become pragmatic and divested of any moral bases. I have also said that the separate Telangana agitation seems to legitimize the David Easton paradigm of authoritative allocation of resources and proximity to power. Recently I have been talking to some friends about the validity of an argument that says that people from the same country will be called settlers. They have all agreed that this is probably not very right but refuse to budge from the sons of the soil and we shall govern ourselves arguments. I asked them as to who is governing them now and they say it is the Andhra and Rayalaseema people. I asked them what their problem with that is and I was told that they wanted someone from Telangana to govern them. I stretched the logic and asked them if a Prime Minister who is not from Telangana is acceptable and they said that this was another question. When I asked what the difference was, they said if the person is from Telangana they have an access to that person and can 'get things done'for themselves. Classic Easton!!!Most of these are the upper castes who feel dis-empowered by the Coastal Andhra Kammas. These leaders have found a captive audience in the never ever educationally empowered students of various Telangana universities and mainly the Osmania University to lure them with promises of a brave new world that will give them jobs even if they are not educated and give them fat salaries. The hopeless have been shown a totally false hope. If and when the separate Telangana is achieved these unempowered students will see no change in their situation. This is a bit of an interlude. My next post will be about reform of education again. Thank you.