More Pride, Less Prejudice

Most written work invokes a lot of reaction, both critical and appreciative, from its readers. And if the writing is about something that questions an individual’s beliefs, the critical reaction is quite often more than the appreciative ones. My last post too had its share of reactions from the limited few readers that my blog invites. Though most of the comments were oral, (I would have certainly preferred the comments to be posted in the blog itself though) I realized that the post needed a sequel to answer some of the questions that were asked. My intent of writing ‘Pride and Prejudice’ was in no terms an attempt to arouse anybody’s nationalistic opinion. It was neither an attempt at jingoism or provoking revolutionary thoughts among people. Lastly, it was no way a release of my own frustrations..... The idea of this post came up when Kranti, my HR manager mentioned something about how a politician is exempted from retirement or paying professional tax, because politics is not considered a profession. This only led to a chain of thoughts which eventually ended up as ‘Pride and Prejudice’. From the very beginning I knew that the topic could end up either controversial or completely stupid. And I honestly preferred it to be the latter. There were whole hearted attempts to keep every line as subtle as I could. I avoided all attempts to use provocative language or situations. And finally I tried to maintain a non-political and an unbiased view of events. The result, I expected to be straight yet simple and the reaction turned out to be quite surprising but nevertheless, absolutely heartening.

We are a nation that is 57 years old. But how often do we wonder if we have grown any bit at all in the last half a century. Whatever improvements our society has had, has got more to do with a natural evolution than a serious attempt at growth. Probably an India under the colonial rule would have had far greater material growth than otherwise. Hong Kong and South Africa are just a couple of examples that could prove this point. However like any sane being, we valued our freedom much more and rightfully got it back a long before the Afrikaner or the Cantonese did. But would our fathers (and mothers), who fought to ensure their descendants live a free life, be proud of our achievements today? Have we done anything at all, significant enough to prove that our life today is worth all the endless struggles and sacrifices they endured to give us half a century of independence, which we proudly boast about every 15th of August? Our report card certainly makes for interesting reading. We have had over a dozen prime ministers trying to rule us. We have had an equally sizeable number of presidents occupying the seat of the first citizen and watching in absolute silence political parties run our nation amok. We have had a dynasty being created of the Congress Party, thus imposing on the nation a genealogy of rulers (and the mahatma wanted the congress to be disbanded after achievement of independence and made an organization serving the people). We have had a virtual dictatorial rule on the nation with the imposing of Emergency. We have gone into war with our neighbours close to half a dozen times, suffered a heavy defeat against China (1962), given a brutal blow to Pakistan (1971) and failed to take any advantage of our superior positions against Pakistan in the other three (1948, 1965, 1999). We started off by creating and heading a Non-Aligned movement; but now have problems with all our neighbours, including Bangladesh (whom we helped liberate) and Sri Lanka (thanks to IPKF). We have been a mute spectator when both our head (POK, Ladakh) and our arm (Arunachal) were chopped off unceremoniously by the Sino-Pak alliance. We have had to witness the ‘License Raj’ destroying any possible seeds of Entrepreneurship germinating among Indian minds. We have had to see Multinational Corporations forced to shut shop due to ‘Left’ led regressive culture of strikes and union troubles. We have had the Five Year plans being planned with great zeal but ending up being re-worked for lack of achievement. We have seen at least one famine, drought or flood striking our citizens every other year invariably. We have seen many a family planning scheme introduced but our population exploding at a rate that could relegate even the Big Bang theory. And the list, as usual could go on and on.......

But life’s not been only a bed of thorns. There have been the occasional roses that have bloomed in regular intervals. We have witnessed the ‘Green Revolution’ that turned India into almost being self sufficient. ‘Operation Flood’ turned India into the largest producer of Milk, while empowering and developing millions among rural India. ISRO is among the most respected organization working on space research today. ONGC is today India’s only answer to the likes of Cairns and Shell. A Yemen returned middle class Indian overcame every hurdle of the great Indian bureaucracy and engineered the development of the largest Indian corporation, ‘Reliance’. The TATAs have continued to make us proud with all their ventures. 'TELCO' to 'TCS' they are all big enough to showcase India in the right frame. Not only was Indica the first indigenously developed car, today they are allover UK too, thanks to TATAs tie-up with Rover. Looking at these limited few examples the fact is pretty clear. What we need today is a strong urge to think big. We need to create products that would be needed by the world. We need to manufacture.

Today we make such loud noises on nearing a GDP of 7%. China on the other hand has advocated a slow down policy to restrict their growth to 10%. China is among the largest economies in the world today. This is because they believe in manufacturing. America, which does not have a history of more than a few hundred years, is the richest nation because it believes in creating products. That is where the biggest asset of a human being, “The Brain” is put to work. While China is today the manufacturing hub of the world, India on the other hand has turned out to be the service hub. We are proud today at our achievement of being the Back Office of the world. After all IT and ITES services alone contributes a major chunk of our Forex reserves of over a Hundred Billion US$. Today almost all Indians in their twenties and thirties wants to either be a software developer or in the BPO business (non-engineering types). Even Entrepreneurs wants to do these businesses. But developer, as a software engineer is called today, is the biggest misnomer that has come up in recent times. Where are they developing products? They are just writing codes, troubleshooting and testing the ideas thought about in the research labs of the parent company. Be it IBM, Microsoft, Intel.... It’s all the same. It would be a folly to believe these Engineers are creating the next generation products from these big names. No, they are just doing somebody else’s menial job. This is why this is called ‘Outsourcing’ or sometimes ‘Body Shopping’. Even the most respected of our software companies, ‘Infosys’, takes contracts and creates product for other’s needs. Except for a financial product called ‘Finacle’, there isn’t any renowned application from its stables that would have a global appeal. This is where Infosys can never be in the league of a Microsoft or Oracle. While others create products for global requirements, Infosys only delivers to the requirement. This mass exodus into the outsourced business is not restricted to just any graduates or engineers. Even IIT and IIM pass-outs, from institutes which were created to build (build and not serve) India, have joined the bandwagon of outsourced companies. They are writing patents and selling services. Was this the reason for the creation of India’s premier finishing schools????? I’m not degrading the work we do - of providing support to almost the entire world – round the clock. I’m only questioning it’s worthiness in the larger perspective. What will happen to all our Dollar dependant outsourced corporations if the Dollar Exchange rates crashes? Would we shut shop and put the IT and BPO dependant million plus ‘Graduate’ Indians on the streets? What use would these highly-paid million brains, which have only known to write codes for others or speak a foreign language (with a more foreign accent), do? I’m not against BPOs or our Software companies. It has after all provided employment to almost every English speaking graduate (including yours truly) in this county. What I’m disturbed about is our over dependence on the term Outsourcing. Even a presidential debate in the US keeps us interested to know which future American president would support off-shoring of American business. This over dependence on another nation is nothing short of slavery.

Speaking of slavery, even the pre-independence days had people who worked against the popular notions. When the English, exported raw cotton, manufactured textiles in the looms of Manchester and imported it back to India, it took a Jamsetji Tata to realize the obvious loss suffered by India. If not for him, the textile mills of Nashik and Mumbai would never have seen the light of day. Today, we have clothes from Tirupur being exported cheaply to various countries. We then buy the same clothes for a princely sum, only because there is a label on it that reads out, ‘Tommy Hilfiger’, ‘Benetton’, or something alike. How is this different from the pre-independence British dependant days? A cobbler would not find any takers for his shoe, even if it looks very stylish. But if he would spend another rupee worth of leather, cut it into a ‘Tick Mark’ shape and stick it on the shoe, the same shoe would be worth thousands. Any shirt, no matter how well it is made, would find more worthiness among buyers if it has a label that has an English or a Dutch (anything begining with 'Van') element in its name. Any computer software would find more acceptance if it is with a Microsoft brand name. This is where the solution to our entire problem lies. We have to create brands. To do that we need to manufacture world class goods. To do that we need to have great ideas. To do that we need to think. And certainly Think Big. The solution doesn’t stop there. The Enterprising people need to be motivated and provided an opportunity to act what they think. This is where our governments have been repeatedly failing. Everybody from a Sabeer Bhatia, Vinod Dham, Arun Netravali to Vinod Khosla have made it big only because they were distantly away from India. Silicon Valley today has loads of Indian Entrepreneurs because they got the necessary support in the US. Just imagine the kind of red tape they would have had to endure to do the same in India. Rightfully so, America has become the richest nation today.

This is what we have do. Change our perspective. Change our outlook. Change our thinking. Change our Attitude. Change Everything. Else another 40 years later, we will not be known as a hundred year old nation, but a one hundred year Infant still priding on its pseudo beliefs.

Pride and Prejudice

Pride has always been an innate part of a human psyche. We have most times (more wrong than right) prided ourselves at the most diverse of our achievements. Prejudice similarly has more often than not accompanied pride. Jane Austen wrote a literary masterpiece about a family afflicted with it. Oliver Goldsmith wrote an essay highlighting it’s drawbacks among people of various nationalities. The purpose of this post is not to talk about Ms. Austen’s work. Neither am I reviewing Gurindhar Chadda’s latest venture by the almost the same name (there’s the letter ‘B’ replacing a ‘P’). This is more about our great tendency to claim pride in being a citizen of a particular nationality. Or to hit the nail straight on its head, this is about our amazing concept of desh bakthi. There is certainly no greater feeling than that of Nationalism and Patriotism. We all feel good that we are part of a great Country laden with cultural history. We claim that we are the mother of all civilizations. But how much of it is more prejudice and less pride. Let’s sample a few.....

We are proud each time we defeat another team in cricket but completely ignore the fact that our football and tennis teams get defeated by miniscule nations. We are proud that we have been world beaters at Hockey but ignore the fact that now every team that knows how to hold a stick beats us all ends up. We beam with pride when a Major Rathore wins us an Olympic medal but forget that this was the first silver medal ever won by Independent India. We were proud when a Lagaan got nominated to the Oscars but ignore the fact that a war ravaged country like Bosnia makes more internationally acclaimed movies than us. We are proud that we are a nuclear state today but shut over eyes at our inability to even manage a gas leak at Bhopal let alone a nuclear accident. We take pride in the fact that we have the finest finishing schools in our IIMs and IITs but forget that 90% of people passing out rush abroad to a life of wealth and ease. We take pride each time a newspaper counts the number of billionaires in our country but rarely care about the hundreds of millions of our countrymen who cannot afford two meals a day. We take pride in proclaiming Kashmir as the Switzerland of the east but care a damn for the near death living conditions of the Kashmiris. We take pride in announcing that we are united in diversity but forget that there have been over a thousand communal riots in the past couple of years. We claim with pride that we won our Independence through non-violence but forget the thousands who lost their lives in the aftermath of partition. We are proud about the fact that our army is among the largest in the world but forget that every thing required by our soldiers from their shoes to coffins have to be purchased at unimaginable prices abroad. We take pride at our great history and culture but conveniently ignore the massacre of our children’s education at the whims and fancies of people who go to the extent of changing history to capture an extra few votes. We are proud of our diverse cultures often claiming that the seven sisters of the north east represent the true Indian diversity, but never worry about the fact that these seven states are distanced so much from the mainstream India, that they feel ashamed about being called part of this great nation. We are proud of................
Should I go any further?????????

So who do we blame for this drastic tragedy? Is it our so called leaders who should have guided us and led the way during the last 57 years? Why do we have school dropouts becoming ministers and highly qualified IAS officers being forced to lick their boots to ensure survival? Why do we force people to stop working after a particular age but let the politicians hold onto their precious seats right into their death bed. Why do we have people who clinically manage world class corporates but also people in power who strangle their own country? Why do we bear with this after all? Is it we, the citizens of this great nation that need to be blamed for choosing our own end at the hands of some wimps who assume enormous power in the name of mandate. As I write this with a true sense of patriotism, I wonder aloud, if this is of any use at all. Does me writing all this serve this country in any small means. Wouldn’t it be wiser to use the same time to put into action those things that are in words? The problem as I realize lies in the very fact that like any true Indian, I’m more of a preacher than a follower. And I guess that is exactly the problem with all of us. I have had my time priding on every aspect of being an Indian and now I realize that it’s only prejudice and not pride. I only wish that all of us realize this sooner than later, for we all know that "Pride always goes before a fall"......

News & the Garden er... Silicon er... Outsourced City

Bangalore has been the most amazing place that I have ever known. Some could say that it’s because I have never lived anywhere else. But then most would agree that it’s one Indian city that keeps making news all the time. OK, Delhi makes news too, but then we are talking about news of the right kind. Beginning of as one of the earliest Industrial Hubs it’s today one of the fastest growing cosmopolitan cities. Not to forget the amazing number of personalities who have grown out of Bangalore and become champions in fields as varied as business, culture, sports .... Right from its people to the weather, everything has been kind to me. The one time I have been really scared of Bangalore was during my high school days. Some of us had become great fans of Nostradamus and had decided for sure that the third world war was to happen in 1996. We had even decided that the war was to be fought between Islam and Christianity with India remaining neutral. A movie also claimed that the statue of liberty would be the target of the first missile attack on America. One of my good friend immediately indicated that if Pakistan had a chance to attack India, its first target would be Bangalore. And why not! Bangalore had the most number of prime industries then (read HAL, ITI, MICO). That’s when I decided I had to get out of Bangalore to a place where Pakistan could never reach. Who cared if Pakistan had a missile that would travel the distance to Bangalore or not, what was more important was that Nostradamus had indicated a war and it was bound to happen.

Three incidents over the past couple of weeks have suddenly increased Bangalore’s fame. Firstly the Merriam-Webster Dictionary gave a new meaning to the word.
Bangalored: 1. Outsourced 2. to have your work done by another.
There were even guys walking about in the US wearing T-shirts that read “I have been Bangalored”. It certainly was quite innovative of the guys at ‘Merriam-Webster’ to come up with such a thing. But let’s look at the backlash. Suddenly all Bangaloreans have turned out to be the worst possible lot on earth. All we do is get the poor Yankees ‘Bangalored’ and have fun doing their job. Further, our poor kids have another English word that they need to learn and do horrible things like ‘spelling tests’, ‘dictations’, ‘sentence construction’ and what not. However newsmakers are having a field day going about announcing that we are only the second city in the world to have our name as a part of the English language and that it’s the most prestigious thing that could have happened to all of us living in Bangalore. Being the true bangalorean that I’m; I want to correct these claim makers on two accounts. Firstly, it’s not the first time that Bangalore has been a part of the English language. The term ‘Bangalore Torpedo’ has been in vogue right from the pre-second world war days. Secondly, the only other city that is a part of the dictionary (Shanghai) has a meaning-
Shanghaied: to put aboard a ship by force often with the help of liquor or a drug.
Anybody claiming that the whole thing is prestigious for Bangalore, needs to be shanghaied and sent to the top of Statue of Liberty during ‘Nostradamus’ Third World war’.

The second Incident that came into light recently was the American Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry’s claim that Bangalore was the best wired city in the world. Infact his statement went like this “If Bangalore in India can be completely wired, so should all of America”. Let’s all forgive the poor man for saying something as absurd as that. The American presidents generally have very little quotients of Intelligence (or anything else for that matter). Mr. George Bush during his run-up to the presidency did not even know who the President of India was, when questioned by the media. And you certainly don’t need to be the smartest person on earth to say with absolute certainty that he still wouldn’t know. A president before him was dumb enough to use his own office for some of his adventures with his secretary while his army was on theirs in far-off Serbia and Montenegro. Mr. Kerry’s statement is certain to have made most Americans decide that Bangalore is the place to be in. They are probably imagining Bangalore to be a completely Wi-Fi zone with the entire population carrying Laptops permentantly connected to the internet. Bangaloreans, for them must be the most hi-fi people with each one carrying a satellite phone enabling constant connectivity. We must probably be carrying out every activity of our day, right from shopping to education through the internet. I bet they think that power and telecommunication failures are unheard of in Bangalore. Little do the poor souls know that clearing the CAT exams and getting into an Engineering college itself takes half a year at good old Bangalore. And talk about an international airport!!! Well talking is all that we have been doing for over ten years now. Anyways let the world live their fantasy and we will live in our reality.

The third news about Bangalore that hit the headlines was the IT bosses’ including Mr. Premji’s announcement that they wished to move their operations out of Bangalore. Now when the announcement talks about moving from Bangalore to places like Kerala and Orissa, it’s time to realize that something is seriously wrong. Mr. Premji’s claims were the following- Bangalore had very high labour costs, very poor technical infrastructure and very little developmental plan. I could never disagree on any of their points. Only the other day I left office to get back home and realized that if only I had moved the other direction on Hosur Road, I probably would have reached Salem, in the time I took to reach home. The traffic situation in Bangalore is the worst I can think of. Traveling on the roads during evening hours could come only second to watching Saas-Bahu serials in terms of self inflicted torture. As for the high labour costs, the IT moguls themselves are to be blamed for that. They after all started the trend of poaching and offering bizarre salary packages to get hold of quality manpower. Now when they realize that the employees’ demand is getting beyond their reach, they are getting on to the blame game. Nevertheless these public statements made by some of the reputed companies are definitely a cause for concern and we certainly hope that the powers responsible act swiftly to take care of the infrastructure and developmental requirements of these job providers. Else there would occur a time in the near future, when half of Bangaloreans job would be Bangalored.....

P.S: I made an error in saying that CAT instead of CET exams are cleared to get into engineering colleges. With regards to the word Bangalored; the information is courtsey 'Times of India' and a lot of other sites on the net that can be found through Google. I had also checked the online ‘Merriam-Webster’ dictionary before posting and had realized that it was not updated as yet. - Anyways thanks Nikhil for pointing that out.