Two-way street

Deepa Narayan of the World Bank, with some thoughtful findings, here.

Trains, planes

After a gap of several months, I went to Bombay's international airport two nights ago. Had to pick up a friend.

Put it this simply: I was stunned. There's a massive new multilevel parking facility, with punch tickets (attendant at each punch machine to do the punching for you) and those levered gates that go up and down automatically. There's a large open area for people like me, waiting for passengers, to mill about and chat to nobody in particular on our cellphones. There are clear signs for airlines and arrivals and parking and so forth. There are clear screens that tell you that the flight arrived over half an hour ago, so the person you want to pick up may have got fed up waiting for you, and gone home.

There are some wrinkles, sure. One minor one is the constant phweet-phweet of some officious soul blowing a whistle. Another is that a huge number of trees were cut to build this new parking facility; young man who came with me spoke sadly of how he used to come play among them when he was a kid growing up nearby.

Still, overall, the place is many times better than the way it has been for too many years. Even five months ago, when I last went to pick up someone, this same area was a godawful mess of rubble, boulders mud and a gargantuan traffic jam; I remember thinking, when is this going to improve? Well, that just got answered.

The next night, I went to Dadar station to see off family leaving on a train.

Put it this simply again: I was stunned. To start with, the approach road was choked with arriving passengers and taxis double parked to pick them up and rubble and other taxis moving the other way ... it took us 20 minutes to negotiate that last 200 metres or so. Right outside the station is pure chaos: taxis and cars and people going every which way, whistles blowing, people yelling. Get through all that somehow, I don't know how. Unload bags and now you have to walk over all kinds of dirt and rubble to get into the station, which seems to have some construction going on so there are bars lying around and unfinished concrete walls.

Wanting to be good citizens, we want to buy platform tickets, and a cop directs us to a window with these words painted large and prominent above it: "PLATFORM TICKET". Long line. Stand in it, slowly get to the head, and what does the man behind the grill say? "Go to window #6" -- or some number like that, over in entirely another part of the station. But what about those two words above this window? "You didn't see the arrow!" says the man. Yep, there's a faint arrow pointing vaguely in the direction of #6.

That eventually accomplished, we make our way onto the platform. This, I don't need to tell you about. But I will: rushing passengers and porters; handcarts laden with stuff being pushed up and down; long lines of passengers squatting and waiting for who-knows-what; hawkers of every kind of knick-knack; beggars; grime and dirt and spit stains everywhere; inexplicable large patches of muddy water; you don't want to look at the tracks, they're so filthy; noise and dust and heat; and bathing it all, the overpowering aroma of piss and shit, in the same breath.

I don't need to tell you all this because this is the way our stations have been for years. Familiar stuff to us all.

Yet: Even today, many many more Indians use trains and stations than do planes and airports. Many of them pay fares -- in the various airconditioned classes -- that are at least comparable to air fares.

Why then is there such a diligent effort to improve our airports out of all recognition, but just none to improve our railway stations? Can anyone explain this to me?

Not joined any other

The IIT Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) results are out. Which means it's time for one of my favourite distractions from my usual trade of thumb-twiddling. You guessed it: looking at the ads issued by various coaching class outfits, each one claiming great success for their students, each one claiming the top rankers are their students.

It was easy, this time. Two days ago (May 26), the front page of the Hindustan Times carried an ad from one of these outfits, FIITJEE. The ad was a facsimile of a handwritten letter from the young man who topped the JEE this year, one Nitin Jain of Faridabad, with his photograph.

His letter was printed again in a full page ad on the front page of HT today (May 28), alongside one from one Prashanth V, who ranked #5.

Congratulations and such like to Nitin Jain and Prashanth V.

That out of the way, here are some lines from Nitin's letter:

"My result is the consequence of dedicated work of my teachers at FIITJEE, school, parents and my own hard work. ... I can say without hesitation that had I not joined FIITJEE and joined some other institute, it would have been difficult to get a rank in top 10. ... Don't confuse yourself with multiple programs. ... I had not joined any program of any other institute. I owe my AIR 1 to FIITJEE only."

Fulsome praise for FIITJEE, and that's only part of it.

Today's DNA also carries a full page front page ad about JEE results. This is from a rival institute, Aakash. "3617 Aakashians selected in IIT-JEE 2009", it says. First among those 3617 is, you guessed it, Nitin Jain. Complete with "AIR 1st Rank" and his photo, and his Aakash roll number.

The same Nitin Jain who wrote the FIITJEE letter. The same Nitin Jain who said "I had not joined any program of any other institute."

So what's going on, FIITJEE and Aakash and Nitin Jain? Whose student was this young man, really?

Something is going on, that's for sure. Recall I mentioned that Nitin's letter first appeared in HT on Tuesday, and was repeated today. The quotes above are from the Tuesday letter. I thought it was the same letter that got printed today, but it isn't. While it says essentially the same stuff, and has all that appeared on Tuesday, today's letter is a longer one, and in some respects an angrier one too. Here are some relevant lines from this more recent letter (most of which did not appear on Tuesday):

"I want to make it very clear that I had not joined any program of any other institute. Some institutes even go to extent of going to residences of students and give them some problem sets and programs for free and get them to fill forms and take photographs. I am writing this in order to ensure that no institute should claim any student's results without contributing significantly. Students must check the authenticity of the results of institutes as many unscrupulous institutes claim any student without any contribution. ... I owe my AIR 1 to FIITJEE only."

So again, what's going on? How is Nitin Jain's result claimed by two different institutes? If he claims via FIITJEE that "had not joined any program of any other institute", what is his photo, name, and roll number doing in Aakash's ad? What happened between Tuesday and Thursday?

Want to see all this stuff for yourself, do you?

OK: You will find Nitin's Thursday FIITJEE letter, as well as Prashanth's, on the FIITJEE website, here. Warning: Either increase the font size on your browser, or use a microscope. Sorry, for now I don't have Nitin's Tuesday letter.

The Aakash website has Nitin Jain's photo and rank prominently displayed on the left of the page. Clicking on it downloads a PDF (400+ KB) containing Nitin's Aakash "Admission Form", filled in his handwriting on 12/10/08, signed by him exactly as he signed the FIITJEE letters. Also in the PDF is his school-leaving marksheet and some other certificates.

What was that about "I had not joined any other program of any other institute"?

What is going on? Tell us, FIITJEE. Tell us, Aakash. Tell us, Nitin Jain, you who came first across this vast land, you who are about to enter one of our finest universities.

Are there questions to ask here about the way we educate our children? All kinds of questions? Tell me.

***
I wrote on much the same lines last year: Mine, Mine!.

On another note: the same Aakash ad in DNA also has small photographs of about 50 of the 100 top rankers in JEE. i.e. Aakash claims all these were its students. What's striking about these 50 mugshots is that, as far as I can tell, only two are girls.

Bail

The Supreme Court has just given Dr Binayak Sen bail. Minutes ago. The judge observes, two years is too long.

There is sense, after all.

More details as they come.

(Tweet updates here).

What it meant (I think)

So what did it mean, this election just completed? Five days on, just before Manmohan Singh is sworn in for his second term, some thoughts:

* Is this the end of the era of coalition governments?

A resounding no. The Congress and the UPA improved their haul of seats, sure. But the Congress alone got only 206 seats, the UPA 266. Both short of the required 272 for a majority. We're a long way from the days of 400-seat Congress majorities. Even going by vote-share, the Congress is just short of 29%. Over two-thirds of the electorate voted against the Congress.

That last, of course, continues the trend we've had since Independence: in every election, a majority of the electorate has voted against the Congress.

The Congress is emerging from the nadir of 1999, yes. But I suspect we'll see many more years of coalition governments.

* Was it a vote against the "Left"?

At best, a hesitant nod of the head. If by "Left", we mean the parties that have the word "communist" in their names, yes, they lost plenty of seats.

But if we mean instead the ideology of the left, I'm not so sure. After all, in West Bengal it is the ruling CPM that has worked hard to attract big business and capital. It is Mamata Banerjee and her Trinamool that has found new popularity in being the voice of the small farmer and the near-mythical "common man". (Case in point, Nandigram. Say no more). And Mamata, with the seats she won, is now an important part of the UPA.

* Was it a vote against regionalism?

A hesitant thumbs-down. Yes, such regional parties as the Shiv Sena and the AIADMK lost in their heartlands (and what a good thing that is).

But consider then the performance of such other regional strongmen as Chamling in Sikkim, Nitish Kumar in Bihar, Naveen Patnaik in Orissa, and Karunanidhi in TN. Or Mamata herself, in WB. None of them have any presence outside their states.

Who, then, is sounding the bells of doom for regional parties, and why?

* Was it a vote against "communalism" and for "secularism"?

At best, a hesitant thumbs-up. The BJP lost seats for the second election running, the Congress won seats for the second election running. But does BJP vs Congress equate nicely to communalism vs secularism? Not in my book, and in many ways.

One example: One Congress winner in Bombay used to be in the Shiv Sena. Another Congress winner in Bombay is named in the Srikrishna report in connection with a ghastly murder. What's communalism and what's secularism in politics, I'd like to know.

I think the vote can be interpreted -- if the BJP is so inclined -- as a signal that "Hindutva", as the BJP has articulated it, does not appeal to most Indians. Time for some introspection on what that means. If the BJP is so inclined, of course.

* Was it a vote for good governance and stability?

A qualified yes. I don't believe Manmohan Singh's government gave us unstinted good governance over the last five years (though it was a huge improvement over its predecessor). In my state, I believe Vilasrao Deshmukh's Congress/NCP government was, at best, a non-performing nonentity. After last November's attacks, it was excoriated, and rightly so, for its non-governance.

Yet the Congress has won more seats than 2004 both nationally and in Maharashtra. So what governance were voters voting for?

Again, the signs are in the regional results. Naveen Patnaik and Nitish Kumar have, from all accounts, given their respective states a better, cleaner and more responsive administration than they have seen for years. Voters there recognized this and rewarded their parties. One the other hand, Mayawati has given UP not much more than a huge Lucknow memorial to her own ego, complete with rows of stone elephants. Voters there recognized this and punished her party (though even that punishment was a qualified one, see below).

Nationally, I think this was a vote for the minimal prospect of a stable government under a clean man. I also think it was a vote against the much worse prospect of a much worse government by any of the other contenders (BJP, BSP, etc).

* Was this the coming of age of one Rahul Gandhi?

Well, yes and no. Sure, he scripted something of a revival for the Congress in UP. It's been years since the Congress was a player in UP politics, and this may be where that turns around. But let's remember that the party still came in only third in vote-share, well behind the BSP and the SP in that order.

In UP, Rahul Gandhi showed that while there are enough people who try to write him off as a nincompoop newcomer, he has a nose for politics. He will no longer be so easy to write off. This is no baba in the political woods.

But does that qualify him to be PM? Not for me. I want more from a PM: a greater breadth of knowledge about the world, a vision for this country, things like that. Maybe Rahul Gandhi will grow into that kind of leader. For now, he remains what he is: one more Congress MP, that's all.

And on that note, good luck to Manmohan Singh and his government.

Please raise it

Ten questions for Manmohan Singh, as he savours an election victory and gets ready to embark on a second term in office.

Note that this is by no means an exhaustive list. There are plenty of other questions to ask, plenty of other concerns to pay attention to. In particular, there are foreign concerns: like the goings-on in Sri Lanka and Pakistan, to pick two. Those are important, no doubt.

But I tend to believe in the maxim that we must clean our own house first, before looking outward. And I believe too that there are questions to be asked about justice in particular. So with no further ado, ten questions. About justice.

***
Sir, perhaps you can't actually do something about the questions I ask below, given both the compulsions of politics and what are state subjects and what aren't. Yet as Prime Minister, and one who has just won the clearest mandate Indians have given in two decades, your voice carries an authority that cannot easily be ignored. Thus:

1) Will you raise your voice about bringing to justice those responsible for the massacre of Indians in Delhi, 1984?

2) Will you raise your voice about bringing to justice those responsible for the massacre of Indians in Bombay, 1992-93?

3) Will you raise your voice about bringing to justice those responsible for the massacre of Indians in Gujarat, 2002?

4) Will you raise your voice about the sorry plight of Kashmiri Pandits, this country's forgotten refugees? About finding a way to return them in safety and dignity and on their own terms, even now, to their homes in that state?

5) Will you raise your voice about the imprisonment of Dr Binayak Sen for two years and counting now?

6) Will you raise your voice about how an administration only shirks its duty when it arms civilians and calls this "Salwa Judum"? About how this futile exercise only deepens a bloody and tragic crisis? About enlightened and statesmanlike ways to address both the great threat of Naxalism and the reasons for its rise?

7) Will you raise your voice about the unprovoked venom and attacks against "North Indians" in Bombay, and similar attacks elsewhere in the country? About how we are all daughters and sons of this Indian soil?

8) Will you raise your voice about the attacks on ordinary Indians and their places of worship in Mangalore and Orissa over the last several months?

9) Will you raise your voice about the attacks on women in the name of protecting Indian culture, in Mangalore and elsewhere?

10) Will you raise your voice about the way too many people are treated in the name of "development" -- whether in proposed SEZs or in the Narmada Valley? About the meaning of development in the light of such treatment?

So says the chart

The latest issue of India Currents carries this article I wrote, about percentiles, doctors and a mining town.

Your thoughts welcome.

What we want, and don't

Continuing the thought train started from the previous post ...

After the 2004 elections, which saw the BJP tossed out of power, one of its more fervent and vocal supporters wrote an article eloquently mourning the loss. Among other gems (many many gems) in it was this proclamation:

"I feel Indians do not really know what they want."

This, because the result of an election was not to his liking.

I wrote a note to the man, saying this:

If the BJP and its supporters, like you, are unwilling to do some introspection about why [the party lost power], if you will ascribe it merely to the fact that we Indians "do not really know what we want", I assure you the BJP will lose again next time.

Well, it is now "next time". We Indians who do not really know what we want have just voted again. Low voter turnout yes, spoiler parties yes, all that. But the fundamental reality of this election is this: the BJP lost again. It lost seats from its previous tally. Again. So did its coalition.

Proof that the BJP and its supporters did zero introspection about what happened in 2004. (Check the contents of innumerable blogs run by BJP fans, for example).

And that leaves me with curiously mixed feelings.

Glad, because with its preoccupation with some mythical Hindutva and a temple and stoking resentments, my hope every time is that the BJP loses.

Sorry, because if it ever learns to evolve beyond that preoccupation, the BJP can be the strong right-wing party that, even if I disagree with them, I believe a vibrant democracy needs.

Sad, because neither the BJP nor its fans has ever shown any inclination for that evolution. Nor do I see it happening now.

So what happens next time with us Indians who do not really know what we want?

Not the PM

Watching the early elections trends on my laptop on a slow connection on the beach near Alibag, this one thought:

A man wanted to be Prime Minister on the back of riding a Toyota around the country and calling it a chariot. On the back of fueling resentments, nurturing victimhood and selling weakness. On the back of no vision for this country of any kind.

LK Advani has lost probably his last chance to be Prime Minister of India. Thank you, voters.

I hope he and his party and their various supporters will now learn the lessons that they clearly haven't since 2004. Abusing those who disagree with you, feeling constant resentment and claiming perpetual victimhood -- these things only go so far. They take you to that mark of about 25-30% of the popular vote. They don't take you further. You don't get people to vote for you, or those you favour, by calling them names.

I'll have more later. For now, I am simply relieved and grateful that I live in a country whose government will not be headed by LK Advani.