My tuppence worth on the CAA and NRC debates

I think every country should be able to document its citizens. It should also have a path for bonafide refugees to gain citizenship. I research the plight of refugees in the developed world and those living in refugee camps in the developing world and I know how bad it can be for them without proper documents. They can become easy victims of extortion by the police, racketeering by goons, and human trafficking. Even those with temporary status in a country can face such issues. Life in liminal legality is a life in limbo. Good that the Indian government decided to give citizenship to refugees who have spent a considerable number of years in India. But I fail to understand why the government chose religious persecution as the only credible basis for seeking refuge. Yes, the persecution and forceful conversion of non-Muslims in Pakistan and Bangladesh is well documented. Taslima Nasrin is in exile for revealing just that. But even some Muslim sects in these countries have experienced persecution. Women in particular are victims of persecution irrespective of their religious affiliation. Noted Pakistani Journalist and activists Tarek Fatah says, "I write as a Muslim whose ancestors were Hindu. My religion, Islam, is rooted in Judaism, while my Punjabi culture is tied to that of the Sikhs. Yet I am told by Islamists that without shedding this multifaceted heritage, if not outrightly rejecting it, I cannot be considered a true Muslim." So yes, there are Muslims in Pakistan and Bangladesh who may have experienced persecution in their homeland. Also, persecution can come in a number of other ways. Tamils in Srilanka were persecuted on linguistic grounds, not religious grounds. Of course, it is another issue that the Tamils took to terrorism to fight persecution. But my point is persecution comes in many forms. It is important not to consider religion as the only basis for persecution. That said, I really do not understand why people are reacting the way they are. Protests are welcome but violence is not. Moreover, protestors should offer credible alternatives to the status quo. If not, protests cannot be taken seriously. The current portrayal of the CAA by those opposing it is that it discriminates against Indian Muslims. It does not. Yes, it does discriminate against alien Muslim seeking refuge in India. But there is credible fear in the minds of the policy makers and any sensible Indian citizen that among those undocumented Muslims from Pakistan and Bangladesh who are seeking refuge, there might be bonafide refugees who needs to be protected but there might also be trouble makers. Remember, Kargil war was fought between the Indian army and the Pakistani army that disguised itself as mujahideen intruders. Kasab intruded into India from Paksitan. Had he lost his supply of amo at sea, it would have been hard to distinguish him from a bonafide refugee. In sum, while I think that anyone who has sought refuge in India for genuine reasons should be granted refuge and should be given a path towards full integration, we also need to find a sensible means to separate bonafide refugees from potential threats to our nation. 

The question is, how do we distinguish between trouble makers infiltrating our border (this is a major problem to our internal security) and genuine refugees escaping persecution. Countries like Tanzania and Kenya have prison like refugee camps for this purpose. I think granting citizenship to genuine refugees is important but we can’t do that by compromising our internal security. Unfortunately, our neighbours who systematically facilitate infiltration are Islamic nations that see India only as a Hindu nation. So the extra screening of Muslims from those countries is justified. It makes perfect geopolitical sense and it does matter to our internal security.

While we should be open to all kinds of refugees, there is no reason to see the Muslim clause in the CAA as discrimination against India’s Muslims. Clearly, Pakistan, a defined Muslim state is antagonistic towards India. Bangladesh is friendlier but there are radical Muslims there too. Radical Muslims from these countries propagate hatred towards India and see us as a Hindu state and a sworn enemy. They have on numerous known occasions infiltrated India to cause trouble. Several such infiltrators are roaming around in India. Should India start giving them asylum? Is identifying these trouble makers by their religion discrimination against Indian Muslims? I don’t think so. Same goes for Srilankan Hindus who joined LTTE and took arms against India on more than one occasion. Now that they have been defeated and are in exile in India. Should they now be granted citizenship? There is compassion and there is foolhardiness when dealing with the refugee situation. I prefer caution. 

That said, the thing that is hard to understand in terms of implementation is, if a person does not have any document to prove their citizenship, how will they prove their religion? Any trouble maker from across the border can fake their religion and their intentions. Implementing the CAA will be a nightmare. Anyway, there are far more important things that this government has to address, like the economy, safety of women, and infrastructure. The refugee situation in India is least of the concerns now. Time to take meaningful action on issues that matter.

Finally, to all those who are thinking that another party would have done a much better job at amending the CAA, I think you need to ask what would have been a better alternative. 

Even if the congress or any other party amended the law, they wouldn’t have any choice but to do likewise. It is important to find a way to treat persecuted people as persecuted people and grant them refugee status irrespective of their religion. But at this point it is not clear how it could be done.

 

Don't bash the bhakt...

Of late, I have seen a lot of criticism of Narendra Modi. I think that is a good sign of a healthy democracy. But the trouble is twofold. First, the criticisms often come across as personal attacks rather than as attacks on policy and intention. Second, the personal attack is not only on the PM but also on his supporters and sympathizers. I wouldn't be surprised if what gets Modi votes in the coming elections is not his policies, or his faithful bhakts, but all the anti-Modi and anti-bhakt slandering that is going around these days. When you brand every Modi sympathizer (even fence-sitters) as a bhakt, bash them, and question their wisdom and intellect, you won't get them to slant to your side of the fence, but you will end up encouraging them to jump over to the other side with even more conviction. Now that is the issue of playing it dirty in identity politics. If you ignore Modi and his sympathizers and focus on the real issues and the real alternatives, then, perhaps, Modi will be replaced. If Trumps ascend to the Whitehouse has taught us any lesson, it is that don't shame the supporters. Instead, it might be fruitful to condemn the candidate's policy choices and present viable alternatives, both in terms of candidates and policy prescriptions.

My IQ

Back in college, when I tried IQ tests for the first time, I used to clock close to 140 consistently in various tests. Recently, I tested my IQ in an app and it fell below 130 for the first time... I thought the app was not correct. So I tried it again in another online test. That gave a score slightly below 130 too. I was worried if I was becoming less intelligent a I got older. Then I took another test today and I got a 145. Here is the result of that IQ test

A normal intelligence quotient (IQ) ranges from 85 to 115 (According to the Stanford-Binet scale). Only approximately 1% of the people in the world have an IQ of 135 or over. Genius or near-genius IQ is considered to start around 140 to 145. Less than 1/4 of 1 percent falls into this category.

It looks like, it has got to do a lot more with familiarity with the tests and patience rather than actual intelligence. Back in College, I was very serious about these tests as I expected employers to test me on these. So I wrote these exams more carefully but when I tried in recently, I wasn't paying too much attention as I was merely checking out the app. Then when I tried it online, I was still figuring out the format. Now, the third time that I tried, I was more careful in my responses and I really was trying to perform well... just to reassure myself... and walah! here is the score. But again, it is just for the sake of reassurance. It doesn't mean anything. I haven't become smarter or dumber over the years, I have been using my intellectual faculties differently, which is not suitable to the IQ tests. So don't worry if you score less on your IQ tests as you near 40 :) Just pay more attention.

Identity politics

The recent landslide win of the BJP in Uttar Pradesh has caught many "secularist" political pundits off guard. In their postmortem analysis, they pin it all on BJP's evil an divisive identity politics. But the truth is, identity politics is a worldwide phenomenon... Not something that has been "misused" by the "evil" BJP. When Obama contested for president of the USA for the first time, he was able to mobilize the African Americans like never before. When Trump contested for president of the USA last year, he was able to mobilize the "high-school educated, low income, whites". Yes, in UP, BJP did play religious politics (appealing to the Hindus) but the BSP and SP have played both Caste politics (identity based on Caste) and religious politics (appealing to Muslims). The Congress lost grounds in most states in the 60s and 70s because they weren't able to appeal to the ethnic fault lines in those states... the regional parties did and they have never left Congress even a sniff of power in local politics. But Congress did turn into a populist party (politics of convenience) but it was too late by then. The only place Congress is successful at the regional level is Kerala, where it has clearly been playing identity politics very conveniently (appealing to Christians in the Kottayam belt, appealing to the Hindus of Malabar and appealing to the Muslims of Malappuram and Kasaragod) and has the support of the Muslim League, which clearly, as the name suggests is appealing to the Muslims… I don’t recall a time when Malappuram voted the Muslim League out of power for poor governance and corruption. This is the unfortunate state of affairs in global politics… identity over ideology. A consolation to this dirty affair that identity politics is that we are in a democracy and there are checks and balances… Even with a negligible presence in the Indian parliament, the Congress is able to filibuster the BJP’s legislation proposals. We are lucky not to be in Saudi Arabia or China, where identity is the only politics. Democratic politics is as Churchill once said, “the worst form of government, except for all the others.”

My predictions for the outcome of the Republican Primaries and Caucuses

There is a lot of speculation about who is going to be the republican nominee for president of the United States. Although Donald Trump is clearly the front-runner now, he is hated by the folks in the republican establishment, who would rather see someone like Jeb Bush getting the nomination. Now that none of their favorite candidates are in the race, it boils down to one of the four who are in the race. The second in line right now is Ted Cruz and he is also someone the folks in the GoP establishment love to hate. The other two simply don't have the numbers. The question is why are they still in the race. Marco Rubio is in because he is expected by the GoP establishment to win Florida, a winner takes all state, and deny Trump or Cruz (mostly Trump) a majority needed to ensure automatic nomination. Similarly John Kasich is still in because the GoP establishment hopes that if he wins his home state of Ohio, another winner takes all state, Trump will not be able to gain a majority, denying him an automatic nomination. If all this works, the GoP establishment can field a preferred candidate - someone like Mitt Romney - who will replace Trump, despite not being in the race. But what the pundits at the GoP are not calculating is that Cruz and Trump can broker a deal wherein they could say one of them will get the presidential nomination and the other will be the running mate. It is win-win for them both. Ideally, Trump will become the presidential candidate for the republicans and Cruz will be his designated deputy. Since Ted Cruz is relatively younger he can get a good shot at occupying the White House after Trump's term there - i.e., if Trump gets elected as President. But even if Trump loses the presidential race to the democrats (most likely to Hillary Clinton), it is no big deal, Ted Cruz will still be a favorite candidate for the republications the next time around. So he has a lot to gain by joining hands with Trump. But assuming that doesn't happen and the GoP establishment fields a non-contender as their presidential candidate, this will piss Trump and Cruz off and both may run for president as independents. This will make victory easy for the democrats in this years presidential race. I would not be surprised if Hillary even wins with the highest victory margin in American history if this happens.

ICICI Bank's Social Responsibility Gimmick

I recently came across a news report on one of ICICI Bank's corporate social responsibility initiative. The title of the report was "ICICI Bank to let women work from home for a year". At first glance it sounds all rosy and kind but ICICI Bank's social responsibility record is abysmal... They sell insurance products as though they are the best investment alternative out there... They hire goons to recover bad debts from the poor and broke... they place unrealistic targets on their sales personnel that many end up choosing unethical means (with their boss's blessings/direction) to meet their insane targets... they don't allow investor's to book their profit, instead they ask them to reinvest in another "scheme"... So I suspected this "women friendly" initiative cannot be as rosy as it is made to sound. Exactly as I suspected, this initiative is biased and is just a publicity gimmick... According to the report, "Women in all roles, except those in direct customer-facing ones, would be eligible for this initiative based on their life stage needs." A majority of women who work in ICICI bank are in "direct customer-facing" roles... So it is pretty much for the upper management and corporate elite... that is a shame!

HRD Ministry's Priorities

I read a recent report in the Economic Times about an initiative of the HRD ministry to identify institutions that will emerge as world class in teaching and research. I welcome this initiative but I am a bit concerned about the priorities of the HRD ministry. Yes, we need to identify potentially world class institutes and such a ranking process can be very helpful but the priority should be on research not on teaching. Don't get me wrong, teaching is important but the quality of a institute has to be judged by the quality of the research that comes out from there. Right now, there is Indian institutes that can match up to the top schools of the world, or even Asia for that matter, in terms of research productivity. We need to fix the teaching as well but it is important to identify that the priority should be research.
I recently had the opportunity to visit three of the top institutes of management in India and interact with the faculty and grad students in these institutes. I made a few observation there. First, most of the faculty that I met there were motivated to do good research. Of course, there was a bit of self selection here... the ones who are not keen on doing good research would not be interested in spending time with a visitor who was invited there for a talk... also the ones who consider themselves to be good researchers already will not be motivated to spend time with me. Second, the amount of time they spend on teaching was insane... it is simply impossible for someone to spend that much of time on teaching and still find time to do good research. Third, even the super motivated ones who squeeze time for doing research are not trained at their grad schools to publish their work in leading journals in their field... in fact they are strongly motivated against it. They even are trained to believe that international journals are biased against the scholarly work of non-western researchers from non-western schools. This is why they aspire to publish their best work in the Economic and Political Weekly rather than in the American Economic Review or the Quarterly Journal of Economics for instance. Yes, international journals have had their biases in the past but they are much more open these days to non-western scholarship. The Chinese and Koreans have been able to overcome such biases, if any. So why can't we? Mindsets need to change and incentives need  to be aligned. My suggestion is not that we start copying what the Chinese did or the Koreans did, which essentially was blindly copying what our western colleagues did. My suggestion is that we learn to embrace our history, experience and current realities in doing our research. This will allow us pursue research that matters. But the trick is making what matters to us also relevant to the world. This leads to my fourth observation: Grad programs should train grad students to engage in phenomenon motivated, theory rich research, using cutting edge research techniques... Further, Grad students should know that the PhD dissertation is not the end of one's research journey but just the beginning. The role of teaching should be to inspire students to enjoy their research and publish their best work in reputed international journals not in obscure domestic ones (or obscure international ones). Only then will research from India gain visibility and recognition.
So when the HRD ministry ranks the potential of Indian institutes, it should use a rubric that places a greater weightage on research than on teaching... this would mean that an institute that affords more research time for its faculty will be higher up in the ranking.

Some perils of blind patriotism

Patriotism is a good thing but it should not blind your from reason. There was a time when great freedom fighters in India like Subash Chandra Bose was ousted from the INC for their extremist views. In some fairness, Nethaji did try to forge an alliance with Hitler, one of the most cruel dictators known to us in the past 100 years. Sure now many feel that Nethaji's actions were justified because he was pursuing a patriotic ambition but his patriotism did blind him... he was forging an alliance with an evil man. And sure, in retrospect, Nethaji and Gandhiji could have worked their differences out. In fact, many condemn Gandhiji for not attempting to save some extremist freedom fighters from the gallows when he certainly had the power to intervene in such matters. Gandhiji too, perhaps, was blinded by his version of patriotism.

An ideal way to sort out differences is to have constructive dialogue and for that you need to go beyond blind patriotism. When the Berlin wall came down it re-wrote Europe's history. It wouldn't have been possible if people remained patriotic to their respective sides. The CPI and CPI(M) are legitimate political outfits because Pandit Nehru took the risk of engaging the communists in a constructive democratic dialogue. It was a banned outfit before Indian independence but post-independence Nehru felt that it was necessary to have a healthy dialogue with the communists, however divisive and seemingly unpatriotic their party's ideology might be. And as he expected the communists' strong leftist ideology checked an balanced the ideology and policies of INC by anchoring the INC to the center. Thanks to the push from the communist parties we were able to nationalize banks and bring credit to rural India. But the communists also went out of line in some occasions. For example, during the 1962 war with China, the CPI leadership often aired China's view on the disputed border between Indian and China. In that sense, they could have been branded as anti-nationals and jailed on sedition charges. In fact, many from the CPI leadership were jailed for their pro-China stance. This event even culminated in the split up of the CPI into two separate parties. But it was continued dialogue between the establishment and the communist parties using the electorate as a judge that actually prompted the communists to revise their stance in later years... had the communist not been brought to the mainstream they would have fought from the outside and created havoc... the damage done by the naxals and the maoists are sufficient illustration for my point.

My point is very simple. If a section of the society is unhappy with the status quo it can lead to an uprising... it can even turn unpatriotic in nature. But the way to deal with it is not to condemn their protests with sedition charges. We need to understand what is making them unhappy and identify means that will make them happy without harming the unity and integrity of the nation. Kashmiri youth in India are unhappy with the establishment because they have had a disturbing childhood and they think that the Indian army and the Indian state is to be blamed for their misery... propaganda from Pakistan is only adding fuel to their imaginations... Clearly, they aren't to be blamed. The government should lend its ears to the youth of Kashmir and find out an amicable way to integrate them into mainland India. Encourage the rest of India to welcome our Kashmiri brethren with open arms. Give heavy incentives for Indian corporations to set up manufacturing and service establishments in Kashmir. Invest heavily in infrastructure and education in Kashmir. We need to find a way to ease the mobility of people in and out of Kashmir from and to the rest of India. If this happens in a matter of a few decades the psyche of Kashmir will be fully integrated with the psyche of the rest of India.

Jai Hind!

Time to address racism in India

Newspapers across India have been reporting the case of violent racial discrimination in India where a 21-year-old Tanzanian girl was repeatedly beaten and made to parade around naked while the police was watching all this. This is pathetic and painful, to say the least. Here is a link to the article This is not an isolated incident. A documentary by the Times of India shows how bad our behaviour has been towards our darker skinned brothers and sisters from other countries.


It is no secret that ours has been a country of racists... It has gained deep roots into our popular culture too. For example, our movies openly promotes discrimination based on skin color. Here is a clip from the movie Sivaji that shows how accepting we are of racism. The director and the "Super Star" in this movie think that this is funny! What a shame!

What is surprising is that the true cultural heritage of this country suggests that we have celebrated diversity in skin color in the past. We have colored our gods black, blue, green, red and white... So perhaps the widespread racism could be attributed to some extent to our colonial past. Whereas our colonial lords discriminated us based on our skin color, we have silently aspired for fairer skins to gain a sense of superiority from the rest of us and equality with our colonizers. This is probably why brands like fair and lovely thrive here. It is high time we acknowledged that we are infested with this disease and actively vaccinate against it. The role of the government is paramount in this endeavor. The government has to actively step in and crack down racism in our country... be it against foreigners or locals.

High Status Firms and Corporate Illegality

I and Rekha recently published an article in the Academy of Management Journal (Krishnan and Kozhikode, 2015). This article was mentioned in today's Globe and Mail. Here is an excerpt from it.

"The research posits that the sense of security enjoyed by elite organizations has been greatly overestimated. Many are so eager to maintain their reputations that they will engage in deviant behaviours – even acts of illegality – out of fear that they may not be able to meet the expectations of associates and shareholders."

The Globe and Mail piece can be found here...

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/business-education/why-some-elite-companies-cheat-to-stay-ahead/article28457505/

Is it about time to reinterpret the Big Mac Index?

I feel that the usual interpretation of the Big Mac index is a bit misleading... it is better to interpret it as how much the US dollar is overvalued against the focal currency rather than how much a focal currency is undervalued against the US dollar... A Big Mac is more like a rich man's food in India. A poor man's breakfast – let’s say a plate of 2 Idlis and a Vada – in a true Indian city fast food outlet would cost only about Rs 30 - i.e., about 50 US cents... A Big Mac on the other hand costs three to four times that... So it certainly is not a poor man's food, as it is in the US. Yet, a Big Mac in India costs less than 50% of what it costs in the US. To me, it says that a poor man in the US has to pay twice as much as a rich Indian does to get a meal. So I would say the US dollar is overvalued... an American can buy a lot more (two burgers from India - i.e., two portions of a rich man's food) with one US dollar in the international market than he or she would in the domestic market. Perhaps it is time to revalue the US currency. It might reduce wastage in the US substantially given that most US good are imported. I have seen good quality plastic cutlery (imported, let me add) thrown into trash cans after one use or many times even unused. I often see that a lot of food (with a lot of imported raw materials) wasted in US restaurants… people order a lot more than what they can eat and fast food chains tempt people into buying food that they don’t need. The same goes with toys and clothing… most of which is also imported. When one of my friends from China visited Philadelphia he wanted to buy a souvenir to take home and he decided on a miniature replica of the liberty bell that he saw at a souvenir shop. Though he liked it, he found it pricey. Nonetheless, he picked one up and got into a long queue in the souvenir shop to pay for it. Just then he noticed that it was “Made in China”. He got out of the que right away and said, ‘I can go home and buy one of these for a tenth of that price’. If the US dollar were to the rightly revalued, there wouldn’t be as much wastage and as much consumption of unwanted stuff… I even think that the US economy may truly recover.

New Year and the Illusion of Time

I, like most, look forward to the New Year. But I do so more silently... No pomp and show for me. I am of the belief that New Year's Days, Birthdays and such are just another days in our lives that do not deserve much attention. A Friday morning on any week of the year should be seen as a Friday morning and nothing more, irrespective of what the Calendar says about that day. What I had to do a Friday morning, I still have to do... nothing changes. Sure a News year's day (don't get me wrong, I mean the hours of day light in the Northern Hemisphere...) is slightly longer than that of the New year's Eve... but the second day of the New year is also slightly longer than the first... it is only because the Winter solstice was 10 days ago. But resetting a calendar does serve an important purpose... it brings us hope... Each and every one of us messes up some way or the other and want to get a fresh start but the past often haunts us... resetting the calendar somehow tells us that it is time for a fresh start. Each and everyone of us have a purple patch that we want to last for ever but when the year comes to an end, we are somehow forced to consolidate our gains thus far and take a fresh start in the next year... we can only sincerely hope that our purple patch follows us into the next year as well.

So, I Wish Us All A Very Happy New Year! Let us all conveniently live in the illusion that there are new beginnings at the beginning of each year and that with the resetting of the calendar we erase our mistakes from the previous year and of course take our purple patch with us into the new year.

Sivakumar's thoughtprovoking interview.

The title of this embedded video is misleading... It has nothing to do with the "Beep Song"... But it is a must watch.


I respect Sivakumar for speaking his heart out on some of the serious social issues facing multicultural developing nations like India. All linguistic fanatics must watch this... So should those who are hell bent of defaming some of our past national leaders like Gandhiji and Pandit Nehru who contributed a lot to our society... sure, like everyone else they too had their shortcomings but they cannot defend their actions now... they are long gone. So what is the point in smearing filth on them? I am guilty of this too. Hope I refrain from being too critical of our past national leaders.

But don't get me wrong, there are some leaders who have been pure evil... dictators who established a predatory state that espoused draconian laws of segregation and discrimination. It is important to get the facts straight about these barbarians as history is often too kind to these villains (what more can you expect when they themselves appointed their historians). That said, there is no point in lamenting about the treachery imposed on our ancestors, it might only build hatred against the innocent kith and kin of these villains.

Rafeeq Muhammed Saved Our Deepavali

Deepavali is a festival of lights. But when there is a power outage on Deepavali, it is no longer Deepavali. Call it mother nature's Deepavali prank, if you will, the Northeast monsoon has washed out the most of Deepavali in Ooty... which meant that there was no opportunity for fireworks in the outdoors. And to rub salt in the wound, there has been a power outage since noon in most of the city. Later I realized that all our neighbors had their power restored but it was only our house that was devoid of power. So I complained to the TNEB as usual in the sincere hope that the kind folks at the TNEB will send a technician home and restore our power in a few hours. But that was not to be... I was told that most of them were on a holiday and the few who were working the holiday shift had been busy fighting the massive power outage due to fallen trees elsewhere in the city. I was told that it is highly unlikely that someone will come to my house today and restore our power. So Deepavali was as good as gone... It was nearing dusk when I called TNEB again. The folks there confirmed my fears... all the technicians have gone home after their day long ordeal fixing the massive power outage. Upon pleading a lot I was told that although the holiday shifts of all technicians is over some might still be around and if I am lucky they might be willing to take a look at my situation. So I rushed to the TNEB office and as mentioned by the operator all the technicians had left for the day... when I was about to leave without anymore hope, I saw a fully drenched individual seated in front of a room heater, perhaps drying himself up. I told him about our situation and he said he is very tired from cutting down trees that had fallen on power lines in the morning and restoring power in that part of the city. He offered to fix it early next morning. I thanked him and started walking out with disappointment... Seeing the disappointment in my face he called me and said "ok, let me take a look... if I have to climb the electric post to fix it I won't be able to do it today. but if it is something in your fuse box then I can fix it today" I was delighted... there was hope again. When he came home and took a look at the fuse box he said, "this can be fixed but I don't have all the tools for it right now"... but he improvised with whatever tools he had and fixed the issue. Thank You, Rafeeq Muhammed! You Gave Us Light on Deepavali.

Dear Mr. PM, please vow to leave no room for religious intolerance in India

Modi Ji, it is time for you to speak up. Whatever is happening in India right now in the name of Hindutva warns us that the one thing that we feared when we supported your Candidature as the Prime Minister of the world's largest "Democracy" is actually coming true. Please stop this religious intolerance before it is too late.

Hinduism is a pluralist religion that openly accepts and encourages various forms of worship of the Supreme Being (if any) and even is open to criticism from atheists and agnostics... If you are trying to defend the interests of the adherents of this beautiful religion, then please do us all a favor and let India be pluralist as it has been since time immemorial. We all take pride in our pluralist country… please let us not hang down our heads in shame.

Here is a story from the Mahabharata about a ascetic who had to learn a lesson on Dharma from a Butcher...

http://literature.syzygy.in/mahabharata-rajaji/chapter-38-i-am-no-crane

Rural Banking Policy in India and Dormancy of Private Commercial Banks

Organizations in democratic societies often encounter detrimental public policies that are later reversed due to rather predictable political cycles. The standard organizational responses to detrimental public policies that we know of include exiting the market altogether, attempting to change the public policy through various political strategies, or passively complying with the policy. But these responses might not be suitable when a detrimental public policy is likely to be reversed. In a paper paper that is forthcoming in Organization Science, I proposed organizational dormancy as, a temporary reduction in an organization’s level of activity, as a viable alternative response. I tested this idea in the case of Indian Private banks that were exposed to a detrimental banking policy that was enacted in 1980 and reversed in 1990.

While commercial banks are epitomes of capitalist organizations in developed economies, the government of India has used the banking industry to promote several of its socialist agendas, such as unemployment reduction and poverty alleviation. One such policy was the rural banking policy initiated by the government of India in 1980.The policy require private banks to open four branches in rural areas for every branch a bank opened in a urban location. This measure was taken to increase private participation in rural areas,which were virtually without banks until the late 1960s. But the challenge for private banks was that they could no longer grow bigger without serving the rather unprofitable rural areas. But expansion in rural areas meant that a bank had to undertake substantial risk and reorganization of their lending activities as they had to deal with poor credit histories and borrowers who lacked collaterals. In the view of many business historians, the new banking policies therefore had a detrimental impact on private banks. 

To avoid this risk, several private banks reduced their branching activities substantially. By foregoing the opportunity that came with opening new branches in the lucrative urban areas, private banks were actually able to reduce their exposure to rural areas. This strategy of reducing their expansion activity in response to the detrimental policy indeed paid off for the private banks. The detrimental policy was eventually relaxed in 1990.

While the enhancement of rural credit delivery was welcomed by the Indian electorate, industry associations and Chambers of Commerce voiced concerns about it. These parties criticised rural credit delivery and other similar detrimental policies that were imposed on private corporations during the 1980s. For example, the Confederation of Indian Industry’s theme paper in April 1991 urged Indian policy makers to implement liberal economic policies and lift several trade barriers that were hindering economic growth. With respect to the banking industry in particular, various industry associations recommended that the branching restrictions imposed on private banks be lifted and that the banking sector be liberalized. These issues were only addressed when the economy took a toll in the late 1980s due to the Indian government’s socialist policies.

The weak economy also resulted in an unstable political order and no party was able to gain a majority in parliament. Following a balance-of-payment crisis in 1990,appealed to the IMF and the World Bank for hefty loans, which were granted by these agencies with a clause that the Indian economy will be liberalized. The new government appointed several committees to get input from industry associations and Chambers of Commerce to kick-start the sluggish economy. These committees revealed that liberalization was unavoidable if the Indian banking industry was to be globally competitive. The Government of India responded to this call by introducing several banking sector reforms in 1991. Although the government was still monitoring rural credit delivery, private banks were no longer required to open four rural braches for every new urban branch.

After the Indian economy was liberalized, the growth rates and profits of private banks increased due to their newfound legitimacy. Other areas of the Indian economy also witnessed tremendous growth. The manufacturing and service sectors, which were concentrated in the country’s urban and metropolitan areas, played a specifically strong role in triggering India’s economic progress. This sustained growth of the Indian economy also helped revive private banks in India. However, private banks that already had a strong focus in urban areas were best suited to cash in on their revived legitimacy and the growth opportunities in the Indian economy. 

The response of Indian private banks to the detrimental government policy that was later reversed reassembles the notion of dormancy from physiological ecology. Dormancy (also called torpor, aestivation, and hibernation) describe the flexibility of an organism’s metabolism in response to predictable changes in the physical or biological characteristics of the environment – which eventually help the organism to increase its rate of reproduction. During dormancy, organisms remain only minimally active, insulating themselves from adverse climatic conditions while remaining able to resume their normal metabolic rate when the environment returns to a favorable state.

I theorized that organizations might emulate organisms in dormancy when organizations reduce their activity to buffer against a detrimental public policy and become active again when the policy is reversed. I formally define organizational dormancy as a temporary reduction in an organization’s activity following the onset of a detrimental public policy that allows it to avoid unwanted radical adaptation and rejuvenate when a favorable policy returns. Remaining dormant enables organizations to avoid the damage caused by full compliance and conserve their routines. It promises some of the benefits of exit, without a loss of legitimacy, and allows for voice tactics in the quest for a policy reversal.

I drew on extant research on corporate political activity to identify four important sources of organizational heterogeneity that determine if an organization can use dormancy as a response to a detrimental change in public policy: a) political awareness and capability, b) discretion in making strategic choices, c) fitness to the detrimental policy, and c) capacity of limited activity to sustain the organization. I also theorized that remaining dormant while the detrimental public policy is in place increases an organization’s performance when a favorable public policy is implemented. I found support for my theory of organizational dormancy by examining the shifts in branch banking activities in an unbalanced panel of 35 private commercial banks in India that were subject to a detrimental change in branching policy in 1980 and the reversal of this policy in 1991. 

Here is an SSRN link to the article: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2655260

Long live the new wave movie maker

When Indian film makers make a movie about a rose, some overemphasize the thorns, others exaggerate the beauty of the flower, and still others try to send out a "message" by showing that beautiful flowers can grow in thorny plants or that even a beautiful flower is surrounded by thorns... as though the viewer cares. But then there are those that don’t make too much of the thorn or highlight the flower more than its fair share or try to send out an unasked-for message... they just say a story of a flower that grew in a plant with thorns... after watching such movies the audience don’t feel bad that their life isn't as good as the rose, they don’t feel bad for some flowers that are surrounded by thorns or take home a message that their life can be better if they learn to appreciate the flower in their thorny lives or strive to blossom despite the many thorns in their lives... they just come out of the theater with a “that was a good story” feeling. And that is the feeling that I want when I get out a theatre. Premam gave me that. So did Neram, Soodhu Kavvum, Jigarthanda, and a few other recent movies… Long live the “new wave” movie maker.

Full many a gem...

Thomas Gray wrote thus in An Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard

“Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.”

It is my dad, a writer, who introduced me to these seemingly beautiful lines... but the poem bothered me in a profound way. It portrayed a very grim picture of small town lives. Our country sides are full of geniuses that perish without being discovered. As a boy who grew up in one of the smaller towns in India, I sincerely hoped that one day I will make myself renowned in the world for whatever that I am good at but I feared the curse of the small town.

Thankfully my dad also introduced me to a Malayalam translation of these immortal lines. In it, the poet, a wishful thinker perhaps, added one additional line that loosely translates to "Of those one gets noticed one day".

My observation over the recent years have taught me that it is no longer wishful thinking, it is not just the occasional odd gem that gets discovered but these days several gems are getting discovered in regular intervals, thanks to the internet and the networked world that we now live in. And even some of those gems that have been shining for decades without getting a glimmer of attention are now being spotted with ease. Can anyone forget Susan Boyle?

Today, I would like to introduce one such gem from Madurai: Mr. U. Subramaniam. He is a writer who has published six short story volumes over the years. Here are a few short writeups about him that have appeared recently in the popular press.

Hope this gem gets discovered soon and gains all the accolades he so deserves.

Legacies of Indian Prime Ministers

Most Indian prime ministers who held that office for at least 5 years have left a long lasting legacy... It is Jawarhalal Nehru's vision for an educated India that gave us the IIMs, IITs and AIIMS. It was Indira Gandhi's vision for alleviating rural poverty that gave a strong rural banking network. It was Rajiv Gandhi's vision for a technologically advanced India that paved the way for technological behemoths like Infosys and TCS. It was Narashima Rao's shrewd political acumen at the time of an imminent national crisis that showed that coalition governments can last for the whole term and more importantly, pulled India out of an abyss of poverty and self-destruction and charted a bold new course towards a vibrant India. I fear to imagine what India would have looked like today had he not been at the helm in 1991. It was Atal Bihari Vajpayee's vision for a connected India that saw the sprawling national highways of India transform into an efficient highway network that seamlessly connected India's big cities. Also to his credit was the revival of India-US political relationship. It was Manmohan Singh's silence that exposed the many weaknesses of the ailing congress party and brought an end (hopefully) to the Dynasty's control over Indian politics. Our current prime minister, Narendra Modi, I am sure will leave a legacy that far exceeds that which most of his predecessors have left... His vision for a powerful India will see India becoming a permanent member of the UN and eventually transforming into a superpower to reckon with. His foreign policy is of the kind that we have longed for all these years.