A Facade willing to Rust - not change its pillars of the 19th Century just yet!

The Euphoria about 2008 India - the Growth Story!

In response to a published article by an IAS.

How can the Government of India ever claim that they had a roadmap ahead of them? If that was so, more incidents or events would have occurred in succession in a logical and sensible direction. That 64 years have been a series of successive of nut and bolt repair, is reflected by the last minute facade just when the castle sunk. And as I see the daily occupation of a few friends in the top Government positions, I am reasonably stronger in my view that the preoccupation is worse than alcoholic addiction.

Thanks to the Social Media that gives an Indian the liberty to express honest views, using words, language and sense in freedom.  A country that lives on words does not quite accede to a challenge just yet. The Constitutional freedom of expression is crafted in finest words yet its practice crippled  by a camouflaged dictatorial regime that is smartly driven, not by the legislation whose life term is limited but by the Majestic executive that once seated holds the fort for a lifetime.

For if one were to say that the major economic changes that happened post 1990 is borne out of compulsive coincidences than a visionary plan, the Government of India would revolt. Yet ask if Manmohan Singh had a choice?  What Chandrasekharji left for the Government exchequer there was possibly no choice but bow to an emergency measure. In the normal circumstances that would not have occurred as bring a change goes against the grains of our Governance that enjoys staying with the fort. One can either then celebrate an emergent coincidence or brand MM as a champion of economic liberalisation  to massage our ego of Doership.

It was another coincidence that when the world took recession, India was knocking away its casks of regimented business lifeline. It was a coincidence that the Indian business giants stepped up the global content. Hungry as the Indian enterprise is, they found way to cut beyond the Hyndais, Samsungs and LGs of the world. The Indian consumer saw his corner shop compelling with newer attractions as his pocket had swelled against near 4 times pay hikes given in the Government services. The inability to call, in a country obsessed by gossip mongering, surrendered to the mobile services offered for peanuts. The land mafia worked to keep the unreal prices bar. And the banks evaluated funding on overly priced land as the best security. That was a bubble shifted Mr Government of India. Not done yet. 

India is a paradise where emergency thrives because an ordinary crime is no crime: it must get grotesque and pervasive before that is attended to.

A Government office from the level of the village to the PMO begins the day by attending to the most emergent case. Quite right, as top priority case must be first sorted out. However, the emergent cases in India are those that are most compelling to save a disgrace or favour a grace.

Favour a grace would include attending to a complaint or a recommendation by the most influential. And that must be done overnight before the story leaks that someone has been done a favour. So the officer concerned would continue to attend urgent phone calls by their boss if the job was done. The entire department would get busy sorting that issue that benefits an individual.

Take an example, a trader who made a huge building illegally ran into a problem with the energy department. Since the trader is a friend of a top authority and that any further relay of the news would open up a pandora’s box, such an issue must be set right in no time – hook or by crook. Until the job is done a few hundred officers and their entire departments would be busy making calls, following up or relaying information. End of the day, as the job is done, all concerned awarded and praised, would ease their fatigue over cups of tea. Some other work before another such crises occurs.

With millions of cases of corruption, there would be plenty that keep the entire Government busy and the variety would range from laughable to distasteful to rogue or unjust.

It takes a few hours to swallow the peaceful life of a person who may have given his life to make a success for his business or profession. He may have gotten on the wrong end of an extremely powerful person. In order to either save from disgrace or to favour a grace to a powerful person, an honest or innocent could hang. A battalion of tax officers, police and vigilance department arrive early morning to seize offices and residential premises and before the person could take lunch, their entire life is marooned.

Cant he take a legal recourse? Well if he waits or sustains 30 years, he would.

Storytelling of the Government of India through Press Releases or public statements is a unique art using appropriate or suitable facts and figures to compel that behind the good that happens in India is culled out of a plan. As indeed the Government officers are trained to formulate and cultivate facts or figures out of perhaps the world’s largest baggage of paper and documents, that are selectively shared in the public domain. It is a great art also how documents or papers are written – so thick and voluminous that the reader gets frustrated seeing the sense easily, and as he would not have the luxury of time that our planners have, would most often end digging out of the outlines.

If only there would be time out of emergencies that a good plan could move at the same rapid speed! But isn’t it all about what is written in words.