Different Shades of Nationalism – [Part -1 (Tagore)]

This article was first published on Centre Right

In 2000, NDA Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, during a visit to Srinagar, came up with the imaginative and bold promise that the Centre would resolve the Kashmir issue, “insaniyat ke dairey mein,” or within the ambit of humanity. It was an important and attractive departure from New Delhi's previous position that the issue had to be resolved within the framework of the Indian Constitution.

 It raised some eyebrows because it marked a change in the usual stance but it was greeted by thunderous applause by the Kashmiris. I don’t think that Vajpayee was talking of creating a separate country but then what exactly did he meant , how he looked to accommodate the aspirations of Kashmiri people within Indian nation?

Similarly when in an interview Narendra Modi announced that he is a Hindu and he is a nationalist and therefore we can safely call him as a Hindu nationalist, the announcement was covered in the main headlines of all the newspapers. While media’s obsession with Modi was understood what these incidents did were to challenge our normal understanding of the concept of nation and nationalism .It took us out of our comfort zone and forced us to think what exactly is nationalism and gave us a chance to look back into history and ponder upon the concept of nation and nationalism. How old are these concepts and what the different sides to this are.

Nationalism

As per wikipedia “The term nationalism was coined by Johann Gottfried Herder (nationalismus) during the late 1770s.Precisely where and when nationalism emerged is difficult to determine, but its development is closely related to that of the modern state and the push for popular sovereignty that surfaced with the French Revolution and the American Revolution in the late 18th century and culminated with the ethnic/national revolutions of Europe, for instance the Greek War of Independence”

Nation

Again if we look into Wikipedia for the meaning of nation we get the following definition” The term nation is a complex concept that has a variety of definitions. Factors such as time and location affect how people have to come to view the term. There are two widely accepted explanations of a nation, as stated above. To some nation refers to a shared cultural experience, such as the Nation of Islam; a religious organization that holds no physical borders yet shares a common bond because of shared beliefs. Inter-wound in those beliefs is also recognition of a similar homeland: Africa. Some refer to one's nationality as their race or ethnicity; this often categorizes people of similar skin color into the same nation that others do not perceived to exist. Conversely, nation can be viewed as a legal state with internationally recognized borders. Neither definition is incorrect, that is why it is so complex. Each definition is valid and the definitions change over time. While the conventional definition is a people who share a common territory and government irrespective of their ethnic make-up, it is not the only explanation”

But where does India fits in any of these definitions of nation or nationalism, a country where we have different races, people with different religions, different cultures and caste. We can obvious not be a nation of just legal boundaries. This therefore requires that we here in India devise our own definition of nation and nationalism and try to find out the threads which can bind people from different religions, races, castes and color together. Any definition that we come up with will always have to be keep reinventing with changes that time will force but may be if we get our fundamentals right it could be used for a very long time.

Indian Nationalism as viewed by Tagore

When the concept of nationalism as we know today was shaping up in late 18-19^th century there were different opinions on what should be the way for Indian nationalism. Would Indian nationalism be the way we see nation and nationalism in west or does India with its different way will have a more Indian version of this nationalism. To this concept there were galaxy of leaders and thinkers who have made their contribution and I would like to touch most of these ideas as we progress on this read but to start with I will take with the idea of nationalism from gurudev Rabindranath Tagore. His ideas on nationalism were one of the most radical. He was one of India’s greatest philosophers and thinker of his time, Tagore’s work on nationalism divided in 3 essays outlined his idea of nationalism. As Uma Dasgupta in her introduction to Tagore’s selected writings on education and nationalism points out that “Tagore education work and his own nationalism were rooted in an original vision of India’s history amounting to deviation from both colonist historiography and the nationalist ideology of that times…his reasoning was based on his historical understanding of his country’s formation as a social civilization founded on a continual social adjustment.” He totally rejected nationalism as understood in the western sense.

In his essay on nationalism in west he defined nationalism as a combination of politics and commerce whose end goal is to achieve success. “A nation, in the sense of the political and economic union of a people, is that aspect which a whole population assumes when organized for a mechanical purpose”. His prophecies that to survive as a nation man has to give up moral in his own words he said “That history has come to a stage when the moral man , the complete man is more and more giving way , almost without knowing it, to make room for the political and the commercial man, the man of the limited purpose. This aided by wonderful progress in science, is assuming gigantic proportion power, causing he upset of man’s moral balance, obscuring this human side under the shadow of soul less organization”

While it takes some moment to realize that indeed what Tagore said was critical but indeed the times when he said that nations were indeed based on these very ideas? Britain was at its imperialistic best at that time and the pride that men of that nation carried them with could have hardly been morally acceptable under the normal situation. Even today those ideas remain relevant as we see how way each nation follows its interest without a thought about the humanity, and this then makes us think back has humanity become a causality of nationalism.

The thought of Gurudev forces us to think in a direction that is so unusual for us whose mind has been trained enough to think in one way. During 19^th century when nationalism actually took the shape that we know today the world was pretty different, while we take proud that at that time while Europe was one race without any color and India was an amalgam of races each finding its own way to get to the ultimate truth, however today as we see ourselves we see the west is changing and they have opened up to more people and different races from different part of the world are earning their livelihoods there. While in past our influence spread beyond mere boundaries of the nation’s today west is also increasingly becoming borderless though within their own area of comfort .Therefore the conventional definitions that we looked above in coming decades may not find resonance even in west.
In his writing on nationalism for japan and the same equally relevant for India Tagore said ‘you cannot with a light heart accept the modern civilization with all its tendencies, methods and structures, and dream that they are inevitable. You must apply your eastern mind, your spiritual strength, your love of simplicity, your recognition of social obligation, in order to cut out a new path for this great unwieldy car of progress, shrieking out its loud discords as it runs”
The urgency with which Tagore push whole of Asia to find out their own definition of nation and nationalism was based on the fact that here in Asia and especially in India the problems with nationalism were never the same as that in Europe especially at his time. While Europe was mostly one religion and one race we had a plenty of both of them. In his own words Tagore specifies the difference of problem between Europe and India “We have to remember that in Europe, where peoples had their racial unity from the beginning, and where natural resources were insufficient for the inhabitants, the civilization has naturally taken the character of political and commercial aggressiveness. For on the one hand they had no internal complications, and on the other they had to deal with neighbors who were strong and rapacious. To have perfect combination among themselves and a watchful attitude of animosity against others was taken as the solution of their problems. In former days they organized and plundered, in the present age the same spirit continues - and they organize and exploit the whole world.

 But from the earliest beginnings of history, India has had her own problem constantly before her - it is the race problem. Each nation must be conscious of its mission and we, in India, must realize that we cut a poor figure when we are trying to be political, simply because we have not yet been finally able to accomplish what was set before us by our providence.” While some of thinkers of that age like Aurobindo tried to find out a common origin to most different races in India considering that people following different religions have mostly been converts from Hinduism and appealed for a racial unity, Tagore accepted the diversity of Indian races and tried to look how did India worked with multiple races over thousands of years. While a lot of other leaders like Swami Vivekananda, Aurobindo, Tilak openly suggested that for India Hinduism was at the core of nationalism, it is surprising to see Tagore who takes a different path and yet there are striking similarities in what he sees a solution for India and Indian Nationalism.

 “Once again I draw your attention to the difficulties India has had to encounter and her struggle to overcome them. Her problem was the problem of the world in miniature. India is too vast in its area and too diverse in its races. It is many countries packed in one geographical receptacle. It is just the opposite of what Europe truly is, namely one country made into many. Thus Europe in its culture and growth has had the advantage of the strength of the many, as well as the strength of the one. India, on the contrary, being naturally many, yet adventitiously one has all along suffered from the looseness of its diversity and the feebleness of its unity. A true unity is like a round globe, it rolls on, carrying its burden easily; but diversity is a many-cornered thing which has to be dragged and pushed with all force. Be it said to the credit of India that this diversity was not her own creation; she has had to accept it as a fact from the beginning of her history. In America and Australia, Europe has simplified her problem by almost exterminating the original population. Even in the present age this spirit of extermination is making itself manifest, by inhospitably shutting out aliens, through those who themselves were aliens in the lands they now occupy. But India tolerated difference of races from the first, and that spirit of toleration has acted all through her history.

 Her caste system is the outcome of this spirit of toleration. For India has all along been trying experiments in evolving a social unity within which all the different peoples could be held together, yet fully enjoying the freedom of maintaining their own differences. The tie has been as loose as possible, yet as close as the circumstances permitted. This has produced something like a United States of a social federation, whose common name is Hinduism.

India had felt that diversity of races there must be and should be whatever may be its drawback, and you can never coerce nature into your narrow limits of convenience without paying one day very dearly for it. In this India was right; but what she failed to realize was that in human beings differences are not like the physical barriers of mountains, fixed forever - they are fluid with life's flow, they are changing their courses and their shapes and volume.

Therefore in her caste regulations India recognized differences, but not the mutability which is the law of life. In trying to avoid collisions she set up boundaries of immovable walls, thus giving to her numerous races the negative benefit of peace and order but not the positive opportunity of expansion and movement. She accepted nature where it produces diversity, but ignored it where it uses that diversity for its world-game of infinite permutations and combinations. She treated life in all truth where it is manifold, but insulted it where it is ever moving. Therefore Life departed from her social system and in its place she is worshipping with all ceremony the magnificent cage of countless compartments that she has manufactured.

 The same thing happened where she tried to ward off the collisions of trade interests. She associated different trades and professions with different castes. It had the effect of allaying for good the interminable jealousy and hatred of competition - the competition which breeds cruelty and makes the atmosphere thick with lies and deception. In this also India laid all her emphasis upon the law of heredity, ignoring the law of mutation, and thus gradually reduced arts into crafts and genius into skill.”

 We see how Tagore looks into past to come up with a solution and he sees some merits in the caste system which was designed to let people from different races co-exist and earn their livelihood from trade and commerce however later that system became so rigid that it became a bigger enemy of the nation. Today we can see the barriers of caste crumbling down and India regaining the flexibility that was lost during the last millennia, we need to remember that now we need to build back something original and suited to Indian context. A copy paste job from west will have the effect of jumping from one evil to another. We have to therefore find out what is the common thread that can hold all of us together.

 From the time of Tagore the west has now become more multi-race and multi-cultural society, and may be now the west also needs to search for answers that we have been trying for long. But while the situation has changed from past the solutions that both may seek may be very different. West has built upon nations with values of equality, liberty and rule of law something that we are also trying to do but then that the west in pursue to build the concept of nation has gone so far that it has removed all any space for any soul, that the west has openly taught us that nation, and the govt should be away from religion. But religion if that mean nurturing every soul , if religion means nurturing the moral of man and if religion does not mean an inclination to a particular practice of a race and their beliefs then should we not look to nurture religion in our  the conscious of the nation.

 In this context it is interesting to hear what India’s former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee had to say on the European concept of "secularism" .He considered European concept of "secularism" inappropriate for his interpretation of Indian culture, He describes the Indian secular as follows:

“Mahatma Gandhi describes the correct attitude towards religion as 'Sarva Dharma Sambhava', equal respect to all religions. The concept of 'Sarva Dharma Sambhava' is somewhat different from European secularism, which is independent of religion ... We may say that the Indian concept of secularism is that of Sarva Dharma Sambhava ... Sarva Dharma Sambhava is not against any religion. It treats all religions with equal respect. And, therefore, it can be said that the Indian concept of secularism is more positive”.It is probably around these concepts that he must have thought to accommodate the aspirations of people from Kashmir to Punjab to Kanyakumari.

Every time we start to look for a solution to Indian challenge in an Indian way we stumble upon Hinduism and It is probably this thread of progressive Hinduism which believes in welfare for all, free from shackles of castes yet having a consciousness and soul of her own built upon the modern values of west can become a base for now and for some foreseeable future for all of us to hold together.

When you read Tagore you flow with his thoughts, he makes you feel what lies beneath the layers and layers of constant abrasion that we have learnt so willingly and have come to accept as the ultimate truth, his concept of nation is so different and yet so beautiful is his way to describe his thoughts that you don’t have a choice but to think and look back if what you think was indeed the right way to see through things. He does not force you to admire upon his idea by the sheer force of arguments or by manufacturing of half-truths in history, by persistent misrepresentation of other races and culture of unfavorable sentiments towards them, He accepts the greatness of all civilizations and the beauty of all, that what they have contributed to mankind but then he touch upon you with the very vital of mankind which man has started forgetting is his moral values. And when he touch upon that he tears apart any shred of doubts that you may have allowed to rest your souls in , or when he tells you how you have allowed your mind to vitiate our soul, that the western concept of saying business is business , war is war , politics is politics is morally so wrong. So relevant his words seems to be in current context , and when he declares with all his moral authority  that man’s business has to be more than mere business, and so has to be his politics and war all the dead that had stuck to your thoughts seems to give way to the fresh and original in man.

Agenda 2014: Can Big Data & Analytics clean up India’s Judicial Mess?

As India moves towards the election year we need to look around the issues that we would like as a country to address that will help India to become a better place to live. India’s judicial system is one such place which has affected all of us. The current state of our judicial system is such that it takes decades to get a verdict and even worse are many million cases that have not seen the light of the day and it is difficult to see any hope for them.

A quick look into some statistics gives us a complete picture; we have more than three crores (30 million) pending cases at various courts. To add to litigants' woes, there's also a shortage of judges as vacancies are not filled: high courts have 32% fewer judges than they should and district courts have a 21% shortfall. India has approximately 11-12 judges per million persons, as opposed to the global average of around 50 judges per million.Some years ago, a Delhi High Court judge reckoned it would take more than 450 years to clear the backlog given then judge numbers.

Judicial Reforms

In order to address the problem plaguing Indian judicial system a range of Judicial reforms have been suggested. Some of the suggestions that are there in common discussion are

      ·         Setting up of more number of fast track courts to quickly resolve the cases

·         Improvement in Judicial Procedures

·         National Litigation Policy - The Centre has formulated a National Litigation Policy to reduce the cases pending in various courts in India under the National Legal Mission to reduce average pendency time from 15 years to 3 years.

·         Setting up of Judicial Appointments Commission

Technology

However after a lot of thought that have gone into these studies on judicial reforms a lot of them have tried to de-link the relation between the judge-population ratios and have pointed to the fact that the answers to streamlining the working of the judicial system are not to be found in resolving pendency by increasing the number of judges. They lie elsewhere, some of the suggestions that they have given are listed above. There seems to however one very critical factor missed by all studies done and that is the Technology factor. It must have found a mention somewhere here and there but no one goes into the detail of how exactly India can use its huge Information Technology capabilities to clear the mess in its judicial system. The answer may however be there in how to use make the correct use of Big data and analytics capabilities.

Big Data & Analytics

Big Data’ is a popular term used to the recent explosion in data, which is fuelled in particular by the ubiquity of the Internet and smartphones. Walking to the bus stop, writing a movie review, tweeting and liking something on Facebook are all common informal data streams. Information of all kinds is produced daily on an unimaginable scale. Conventional data conjures up ideas of surveys and research. The idea is to use this unprecedented amount of information to innovate and change our world. Big Data presents the opportunity to avoid troublesome issues causation, simply looking for correlations in the data to better understand our world. This shift represents one of the most fundamental changes to our society in recent years. Historically, we have been restricted by lack of information, whereas now we have abundance.

However, this data is no good without anything to make sense of it. This is where algorithms step in to frolic in massive data sets. The intelligent extrapolation from large amounts of data can be used to make sense of our world. Using analytics, correlations can help to predict earthquakes, divorce, elections, better allocate resources, optimize sporting endeavors, and revolutionize healthcare provision and countless other uses.

The question is whether this new explosion in data could provide a backdrop to a fundamental change in law. The probable answer is Yes, Big data works with huge volume of data and as I just mentioned above we have millions of resolved and pending cases. Therefore the technology that can be used to predict election results, can be used in medical transcription can definitely be used in the field of law.

Clinical v Mechanical Prediction

An article by Darragh Hyland and Owen Collins “Future of law” gives us an insight into this whole question. Lawyers are often asked to provide predictions. When it comes to prediction, there are essentially two possibilities available.

First -The clinical method. ‘From my experience and in my opinion, it is likely that you have a good/bad case.’ This method of handling data is informal and subjective. It is the method that prevails today. The legal expert determines from his opinion, experience and expertise the most likely outcome of the case before him.

The second approach is known as mechanical or actuarial prediction. With this method, we look to statistical means of prediction. The opinion of the lawyer is irrelevant in this context. Rather, the outcome is predicted by following an analysis of patterns ensconced in previously acquired case law and general legal data.

If you think this mechanical method sounds inflexible and entirely robotic, you are not alone. However, empirical research has consistently and definitively proven this type of prediction to be superior to clinical prediction. For our actuarial prediction we look for as large a data set as possible. This data would tell us about cases and how they were decided. More data means a better chance to find correlations.

Application Area

India should be seriously looking to explore this option and more discussions are required to identify the level till which this technology be used to help aid our judicial system. While some may argue that this should be limited to be used only for lawyers or law firms I see it having a role even on the desk of the judges at least in the lower courts. My argument stems in the fact that most of the court cases in the lower court are more about judicial procedures and the application of correct laws for a particular case. Say for e.g. take the case of thousands of pending accidental claims cases which usually takes 6-7 years to get a verdict however if we look closely into the case details we will see that it is investigation by the police (which gets ready within in matter of weeks) that remain as the most conclusive piece of document on which the judgment will be based. What if this assumption is verified by an analytic system which across millions of cases in the past is able to tell the judge and the lawyers that the party against which the investigation report was based lost the case in a majority number of times? Will the party who is supposed to lose the case will still spend a considerable amount of time and money on such a losing case?

The way Indian judiciary works we have lower courts, high courts and Supreme Court. It is however left to high courts and supreme courts to interpret the constitution and it is only there where a huge expertise of the constitution however at the lower court level big data and analytics can prove to be a major helping hand for judges, lawyers and the parties in the dispute. Analytics may be able to guide parties in dispute even before they come to the courts about their chances of winning or losing a case. It may also show the variation for a case won against all the odds as what were the extra pieces of evidence or legal data that were invoked in such a case.

Question of Quality – Judicial accountability

On the question of quality we need to look into perspective, to reduce the number of pending cases a huge number of fast track courts were set up. More than 1,000 fast track courts have disposed of more than three million cases in past few years however in order to achieve quick resolution did they compromised on quality ? Hasty trials raise fears of possible miscarriages of justice. But what if the fast track courts were given a helping hand in the form of big data technology where the judges took a leaf out of millions of similar cases to arrive to a quick judgment, definitely this will improve the quality of the judgment.
The technology may even flag a possible judgment as against the popular predictable judgment which happens a lot in cases being fought for the poor people. The judges may then have to give an extra explanation as why did they choose to give a judgment against the normal sense. While technology may not be binding it will introduce accountability in the system as the system will question on the wisdom of the judges. This may come as an extra benefit for the use of technology.

Roadmap for Future

What is suggested here is however bound to disrupt the way we see judicial system as of today but predictive coding is a disruptive innovation that will change how law is practiced. The magnitude of the problem gives us an opportunity where we can apply technology to the problem and come up with a totally innovative way to address this problem. Increasing the number of judges by too big a count is not the answer to our problems and it will create even more problems to deal with.

However even if we look to choose to adopt the technology there has to be ground work done, instant digitalization of our huge amount of legal data records will be the first step, so that the same information could be used to produce a pattern ( it is in addition to all the Judicial reforms suggestions mentioned above). Again this will require some funding, can this be done by private corporations? Again a different way of looking at problem but then if corporates are allowed to come in the judicial system will it not do good for the complete industry? We already have LPO’s doing similar kind of work being outsourced from outside can’t that strength be used to deliver things for our own country and in turn generate jobs and deliver quick justice. Will we be able to move in this direction? All I can say is that the time is ripe to start this debate.

Laughing stocks of world: the sound gets deafening

It was just a few months back when the usual reticent prime minister of India said that the world is laughing at us; it was said in context of disruption of parliament by the opposition. However ever since that comment we have been forced to think again and again that is the world actually laughing at us and if yes then why are they laughing?

From the events that have unfolded in the last decade when Prime Minister ManMohan Singh has been in power the world may have looked at India with losing faith, amusement and disbelief at the same time. Definitely Mr. Singh didn’t look at the past record of his government in last 9 years else he may have realized that the world is indeed laughing at us but it is him who has made the country a laughing stock.

Did the prime minister who was once hailed as economist listened to what the time magazine had to say about his achievements, or how did they rate his tenure in one word as “Underachiever” (ohh yes his men shouted this as an internal affair of this country, only if this was a visa call for Mr. Modi they would have thought otherwise).Only if he could have heard what the common man of this country is saying we would have posed some questions to him?

 For e.g. did the world had a right to laugh at us when we could not even conduct a proper common wealth game when countries around us can host successful Olympics? Or did they had the liberty to laugh when A Raja mislead our innocent PM to loot the country of 1.86 lakh crores and Kapil Sibal ji had a zero loss theory to suggest to the mango people of this country?

Did he himself have a laugh when our growth rates halts to near zero and budget deficit reaches unmanageable heights with the economist Prime Minister running the country? From a surplus balance of payment between 2001-02 and 2003-04 to CAD equivalent to around 5% of GDP, from 2008 when our foreign exchange reserves, which were sufficient to finance 3 years of imports, we are now hardly capable to pay for only six months imports. Or did he manage to laugh when his ministers were caught red handed checking the English grammar of CBI’s report? Did he laughed the night when the Lokpal bill was conspired to be dropped at parliament in midnight and the country was fooled? My sense of humor is quite crude and unfortunately I felt like crying when I recall these things?

And then our external affairs minister whom we saw on TV roaring like a lion and threatening a person asking details of his NGO talking the language of meek and his sound so weak? Where do the bravo and the macho men of congress leave their masculinity when they dealt with china? From people on top of their voice to all of a sudden we saw men in their feminine side advertising a face cream which will clear the intrusion on the face of mother India, I am sure you must had a good laugh on this and if not then laugh out soon because this time the Chinese will had the last laugh. It’s funny to know that we need an army on which we spend 100’s of billion every year when what we could have achieved was just a face cream? It was a shameful surrender that we did in front of the Chinese and retreated back from our own territory in order cajole them to go back to the LAC.

And now the external affairs goes a step ahead and justifies the snooping program by the United States govt, he suggests that it is indeed helpful for anti-terrorism work. I wonder what a humorous day they might have had in the States listening to what our External affairs minister said. For last 9 years we have hardly done anything against terrorism or terrorist and have made some of the most disgusting political motivated moves of suggesting that terrorist such as Ishrat Jahan were indeed innocent people. We have failed to get any kind of access to David Headley from the United States and in fact what use we will have having his access when what he said is we don’t want to believe but then we support snooping by US for anti-terror help. Isn’t this amusing that even Europe which is so close to USA mind being snooped but we don’t mind that. Can any self-respecting nation say what Mr. Khurshid said?

Moving to the comedy of errors the next in list is the recent Jet-Etihad deal and the bilateral agreement with UAE, do you find it amusing that just a week earlier you were in support of this deal and now papers are leaked in media saying that you acted on the advice of your top four minsters? The world finds it funny that you make a decision on one day and then just go back and forth defending and accepting, god please it is so confusing. Either you are at the helm of this country so you accept what you did or else its time you go back home. I was watching a television debate on how your own civil aviation minister suggests that deal can go only after your approval and how the other members in the debate were having good laugh. And the congress party which must have send all his top shots to defend a private person (Mr. Vadra’s ) land deal was missing defending our PM having a relook at the deal.

Our soldiers head were beheaded and your minister held a biryani party for the offending nation PM and then an innocent was hammered in the Pakistani jail and there was hardly anything you could do , didn’t even host a biryani party this time as the Pak PM was not around here , maybe we can do it sometime later.

And the parliamentary democracy that you were so worried about never had a PM as weak and as indecisive as you. What the world must be thinking about us when they realize that it is not you but then an extra constitutional body called the NAC is what runs this govt. One by one this govt has belittled all constitutional bodies, have you ever had a laugh on any one of them. The list of comedy goes long in your tenure and there are numerous episodes I forget to mention which we will definitely recall when we go to vote in 2013-2014 but hope you had a good laugh on all of them till then. My advice : Stop worrying about the world  and take some actions so that the world can have less humor on our expense , that’s not the destiny that we are destined to, we have a far greater future than what your nervous nerves can think of.

The journey from Uphaar to Uttrakhand..What Next? Many more disasters waiting to happen

As we witness the horror in Uttrakhand we all will like to understand what we learnt from this great tragedy or whether at all we have learnt anything from it? A week after the tragedy exactly how many people died in the catastrophe is still a puzzle; from a figure of 882 to 10000 anything is possible. Isn’t it’s a farce or probably it’s more than that. How many people went into the state of Uttrakhand ,how many were out there in the holy city of Kedarnath , how many more have been perished and forgotten forever in the nearby areas where silt thick by several meters have taken everything inside it and no one ever will come to know what happened in those remote areas. Yes it’s sad but true that in 21^st century our govt’s don’t have any such databases or mechanism to keep that information.

But now the question which comes before us is whether this could have been averted or whether it could have been dealt in a better manner, the answer to both these questions is a big YES and it has been discussed in detail in various blogs and news across the country as how Uttrakhand govt. kept all rules aside to pursue a path of ecological disaster.  From small disasters of local nature like we saw in Uphaar fire accident or many similar accidents where no preparations were there to prevent a fire accident to what we saw in Uttrakhand we seems to be ruled by governments which seems to be working hard not to learn from mistakes.

TIRUPATI

Coming down to my own state of AP to the temple town of Tirupati the scenario is not much different. What happened in Kedarnath may happen in our own holy town of Tirupati. The disaster here may not be so much as from rains but what if a major fire breaks in the temple town. How well prepared is the town for such an eventuality? A peep into the audit report (CAG Report AP year ended March 2012) for the temple down preparedness on the fire safety leaves you down with horror.

 “The temple town of Tirupati (a pilgrim center) has a population of 6 lakh and a floating population of about one lakh per day. Heavy congestion in public places like bus terminals and railway stations, etc. and the increasing number of multistoried hotels pose the risk of fire accidents. However, there was only one fire station at Tirupati covering urban, rural and four surrounding mandals, as against the requirement of 12 fire stations as per SFAC norms. Government replied (November 2012) that the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD) was requested (September 2012) for funding the establishment of five new fire stations at Tirupati and Tirumala.”

 Yes you read it right “ONE” fire station at Tirupati.I am sure the situation of other temple towns in the country will not be very different.

Major Metros in India – Hyderabad

What about the situation of major cities in the country? Again the picture is grim, in words of the audit report (CAG Report AP year ended March 2012). “For effective functioning of the Department, it is imperative to have a comprehensive database containing the details relating to area-wise distribution of population, service area villages and houses with category of premises (like hazardous/non-hazardous), fire stations and their location, geographical mapping of distances between places, short/traffic free routes, etc. within the jurisdiction of a fire station along with the water sources in the vicinity. Audit scrutiny revealed that such a database was not maintained by the DFOs in any of the sampled districts. Further, the Department had not developed any Standard Operating Procedures for combating fire in high rise buildings, earthquakes and other natural disasters.”

 

How on earth will they manage a disaster if it happens if they do not have these details? And till now we are just discussing fire and rains. It sends chill down my spine when I think about a major catastrophe like a nuclear or a biological disaster and how will we deal with it if we can’t even do a proper firefighting.

Situation across State - AP

By now you must have accepted the fate; the situation is as grim across state. As per CAG report SFAC (Standing Fire Advisory Council) recommended a scale of one fire station for 10 sq km radius for towns and one for 50 sq km radius in rural/open areas. As per this norm, the requirement of fire stations in Andhra Pradesh would work out to 5,502.

 However the audit(CAG Report AP year ended March 2012) reveals the following

There were only 253 fire stations (shortfall: 95 per cent) in the State to cover an area of 2.75 lakh sq km10. While the Government issued administrative sanction for six new fire stations (including one in AP Legislative Assembly) in May 2011, as of November 2012, these have not been set up due to non-provision of funds non-allotment of land.

·         Not a single fire station was set up during the period 2007-12.

·         Each fire station covers 16 to 144 sq km in urban areas against the norm of 10 sq km, and 144 to 1,480 sq km in rural areas against the norm of 50 sq km.

·         One fire station covers 3 lakh population on an average as against 50,000 population as per the SFAC norms.

·         875 Mandals (out of 1,12811) and 89 (out of 294) Assembly constituencies did not have a fire station as of November 2012.

 

·         The situation of hospitals , malls and other places of public gathering have the same kind of scary figures

Whom to blame

The govt has to be blamed for obvious reasons, from poor urban/rural planning to lack of funds, lack of will power, lack of coordination to insensitive and indifferent attitude of the government is clearly visible in all the facts laid before. But the blame does not end with the government we as general public also has little respect and understanding for a culture of disaster planning. From my own experience of working in a Hi-Tech industry some of the big names in the industry hardly have any kind of firefighting or disaster management plan. The place for the admin in these companies is filled with mediocre talent, people who have little understanding or appreciation for such a preparedness. Fire drills are conducted to fulfill legal obligations instead of actually preparing people for such a disaster, people walking of the normal routes instead of talking the emergency route are just some of the example of how seriously drills are taken. Most high rise building will have vehicles parked around the premises of building which will obstruct any kind of fire tender machine to work effectively in case of a fire event.

 

In a country where we jump lanes and drive in the opposite direction in a one way road I wonder what exactly we try to save, few ml of petrol or couple of minutes and at what cost? But here also can’t the govt do anything, when it can spend millions of tax payer amount to publish advertisements on their party leaders’ birth, death and congratulation messages, the govt could definitely spend some amount on creating awareness among the people. Countries in different part of the world have shown that people can be educated to understand the benefit of such programs. Hope creating awareness on the value of life isn’t that difficult if the government has the right intentions. Hope the govt start to learn something from this tragedy and comes out of its slumber.

 

 

By: Saurabh Sinha

Twitter: @saurabhsinha10

Email Id : saurabhsinha10@gmail.com

Mobile: 91-8008299172

Andhra Pradesh Microfinance Crisis And Its Aftermath

The microfinance industry served millions of poor in rural areas providing them small loans to earn their livelihood, but AP govt brought an ordinance in 2010 and it brought the industry to its knees. Its impact not only killed the industry in Andhra Pradesh but also had its impact felt across the MFI in India. As per a report by “M-CRIL Microfinance Review 2012: MFIs in a Regulated Environment” M-CRIL comes up with the financial and social analysis of this whole issue.

As people stopped making payments whole Microfinance industry came to a standing halt, the sentiment that people had was that the govt will not allow the industry to work anymore therefore no need to make payments, this problem was also abetted by political parties who asked people not to make payments anymore to MFI’s anymore.

From 62% per annum growth in terms of numbers of unique clients and 88% per annum in terms of portfolio over the five years 2005‐2010 – and around 32 million borrower accounts around October 2010, India was the largest MFI sector in the world. This number reduced and the number of effective clients served reduced by 35% by the end of year 2011 to 21 million account.

 As people stopped making payments on the one side on the other side Commercial institutions who were more than willing to provide finance to the MF industry pulled back their hands. During 2011‐12, the private sector banks were in full flight from the microfinance sector, dismayed at the prospect of huge losses on the AP portfolio. By end‐March 2012, institutional lending to MFIs had declined to Rs 15,136 crores ($2.97 billion), down by over 20% from the estimated peak of around Rs  18,000 crores in October 2010.

 

From a PAR of 0.67 in 2010 the PAR has increased to 29.5 % in the state of Andhra Pradesh, this makes it extremely risky portfolio which will act as a deterrent to any institutional lending to the sector. Operating efficiency has been adversely affected as portfolio management issues and client protection compliance expenses have increased OER. Cost per borrower has risen sharply as MFIs first pursued growth at all costs and now have to put considerable effort into client protection measures and follow up of repayments

 

As industry comes to a halt the ones who are most severely affected are the women in rural AP. The relation between women and MFI can be understood from the fact that the overwhelming majority (98%) of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh borrowers are women and similar is the case in India

 

By November 2012, one medium‐sized MFI that worked exclusively in the state has effectively been taken over by its lenders through the conversion of a significant part of their debt into equity and some of the larger MFIs have negotiated a six‐year restructuring of their debt with their major lenders. Elsewhere, the shrinking portfolios some MFIs (in the absence of bank funding) have caused operational problems and led to the take‐over of at least three MFI managements by investors. More acquisitions of this type are likely to occur in the near future.

 

All microfinance stakeholders, whether within or outside Andhra Pradesh now await the passage of

“The Micro Finance Institutions (Development and Regulation) Bill, 2012” tabled in the national Parliament on 29 May 2012. However the bill is stuck in parliament and with the central govt unable to come out of the firefighting mode due to spate of corruption scams by its ministers and therefore has been unable to get this bill passed.  

In the meantime, the Government of Andhra Pradesh continues to challenge the constitutional validity of the bill on the grounds that in the Indian Constitution this despite the same party ruling at both center and the state. And if such a thing does happen it will be the end of road for the MFI in AP and those who will suffer will be millions of poor who will be denied a chance to earn their livelihood by their own efforts.

By: Saurabh Sinha

Twitter: @saurabhsinha10
Email Id : saurabhsinha10@gmail.com
Mobile: 8008299172

Microfinance: How AP govt Killed it .. An Detailed Analysis

What is Microfinance & How it all started?

It all started somewhere in Bangladesh when Muhammad Yunus during visits to the poorest households in the village of Jobra near Chittagong University, discovered that very small loans could make a disproportionate difference to a poor person. Traditional banks did not want to make tiny loans at reasonable interest to the poor due to high risk of default. But Yunus believed that, given the chance, the poor will repay the money and hence microcredit was a viable business models. In 2006 Yunus and Grameen Bank received the Nobel Peace Prize "for their efforts through microcredit to create economic and social development from below. Microfinance was able to do what none of the governments had been able to do that earlier, provide loans to the poorest of poor to earn their livelihood from their own savings and help them come out of the not‐so‐benevolent arms of moneylenders.

 

Microcredit in India and its journey in the state of Andhra Pradesh

What Yunus did in Bangladesh was something we in India also required to do to reach to the millions of people who were financially excluded from the formal financial system. From here microfinance made a beginning in India. In India AP was one of the states which took a lead on this form of finance for the poor and the industry flourished till brakes were put down on it in 2010.In 2010 AP govt brought an ordinance which changed the future of microfinance in India. There were several reasons why the govt brought such an ordinance but the knee jerk reaction to the ongoing crisis resulted in a totally breakdown of microfinance industry in Andhra and up to a certain degree had an impact on microfinance industry across India.

Reasons for the ordinance

• While the industry flourished in those years it started getting into unfair practices ,excessive lending by MFIs in the state of Andhra Pradesh lead to over‐indebtedness which caused distress to low income microfinance borrowers
• More than 200 poor, debt-ridden residents of Andhra Pradesh killed themselves in late 2010, according to media reports compiled by the State government
• Coercive behavior by MFI staff in collecting from these over‐indebted borrowers suffering from the stress of keeping up with their repayment obligations
• One woman drank pesticide and died a day after an SKS loan agent told her to prostitute her daughters to pay off her debt. She had been given Rs 1.5 lakh in loans but only made Rs 600 a week.
• Originally developed as a non-profit effort to lift society's most downtrodden, microfinance increasingly became a for-profit enterprise that serves investors as well as the poor. As India's market leader, SKS has pioneered a business model that many others hoped to emulate.

AP Ordinance

As a result of hundreds of deaths the State Government of Andhra Pradesh passed a sweeping Ordinance governing all lending activities in the state by banks as well as non-bank finance with stipulations that no collateral may be taken, repayments must be monthly, nobody must have more than one loan outstanding, all financial services business must be carried out in government offices and the permission of government agencies must be taken before any loans can be taken. This wrote the death knell for Microfinance industry in AP and had its impact in the country.

The Impact of the AP govt Ordinance on Microfinance Industry

In its annual report “M-CRIL Microfinance Review 2012: MFIs in a Regulated Environment” M-CRIL comes up with the financial and social analysis of this whole issue. Following are some of the points being observed.

 

People Stopped making payments for loans

 

The industry plunged into crisis when clients in AP stopped payments .The AP Government’s ordinance on lending by MFIs made it virtually impossible for them to continue their operations in the state.

 

The unspoken message to clients was that MFIs would not be allowed to operate and, therefore, there was no need for them to repay their MFI loans.

 

Given the populist nature of (particularly) local level politics in India, this message became “spoken” when politicians actually went around the state with the message that MFI borrowers no longer had to repay their loans.

 

Discouraging borrowers from repaying their loans is an irresponsible act since it makes clients ineligible from receiving further loans and thereby disrupts their lives and economic activities even as it de-stabilizes the financial market. There can be problems in the functioning of any market; concern about such problems should lead to corrective actions and reforms, not to the destabilization and total shut down of whole segments of economic activity.

 

Growth of the sector has been undermined

While MFI operations continue to be a significant component of the financial system in the country and its contribution to financial inclusion continues to rival, if no longer exceed, that of the rural banking system, the efficacy of that contribution has been undermined by the crisis and its aftermath.

 

 

 

Portfolio of MFI’s based in AP got a huge setback making the industry unattractive and risky.

Analysis of portfolio quality data from M‐CRIL’s sample of 56 MFIs indicates that the MFIs in India as a group have amongst the worst portfolio quality ratios in the world. The sample average of PAR30 at 23.7% is exceeded by the L‐10 group (at 29.5%) – of whom 4 have their main operations in AP. This is in sharp contrast to the reported portfolio quality ratio of 0.67% for end‐March 2010.The figure also shows how the ordinance impacted other MFI across country where political interference resulted in losing confidence in the future of this industry.

Analysis of portfolio quality data from M‐CRIL’s sample of 56 MFIs indicates that the MFIs in India as a group have amongst the worst portfolio quality ratios in the world. The sample average of PAR30 at 23.7% is exceeded by the L‐10 group (at 29.5%) – of whom 4 have their main operations in AP. This is in sharp contrast to the reported portfolio quality ratio of 0.67% for end‐March 2010.The figure also shows how the ordinance impacted other MFI across country where political interference resulted in losing confidence in the future of this industry.

• From a PAR of 0.67 in 2010 the PAR has increased to 29.5 % in the state of Andhra Pradesh, this makes it extremely risky portfolio which will act as a deterrent to any institutional lending to the sector
• Operating efficiency has been adversely affected as portfolio management issues and client protection compliance expenses have increased OER
• Cost per borrower has risen sharply as MFIs first pursued growth at all costs and now have to put considerable effort into client protection measures and follow up of repayments

 

Commercial banks pulled their hands out of MFI’s due to lack of Confidence in the sector

 It is apparent that the heavy handed October 2010 ordinance of the Government of Andhra Pradesh has resulted in a delinquency crisis of huge proportions. All banks and capital market participants have immediately stopped or reduced extending any funding to non-bank finance companies on a nationwide basis 

• During 2011‐12, the private sector banks were in full flight from the microfinance sector, dismayed at the prospect of huge losses on the AP portfolio.
• By end‐March 2012, institutional lending to MFIs had declined to Rs 15,136 crores ($2.97 billion), down by over 20% from the estimated peak of around Rs  18,000 crores in October 2010.    

 The resolution of the current crisis now awaits the restoration of confidence of the commercial banks and other investors in the microfinance industry 

Impact on Women

 

The relation between women and MFI can be understood from the fact that the overwhelming majority (98%) of Grameen’s borrowers are women. Women traditionally had less access to financial alternatives of ordinary credit lines and incomes. They were seen to have an inequitable share of power in household decision making. In fact the whole model of Microfinance revolves around women especially in rural areas and killing this source of finance means major unemployment in rural areas and talking away the opportunity from millions of rural women to earn their own livelihood and support the survival of their families.

With around 21 million borrower accounts the size of the microfinance sector more than matches’ significant parts of the Indian financial system in terms of the number of citizens affected a majority of them being women.

Future of MFI’s in Andhra Pradesh

 

A detailed report by “M-CRIL Microfinance Review 2012” shows the deep impact this crisis have taken on AP those MFIs that work extensively in Andhra Pradesh. By, November 2012, one medium‐sized MFI that worked exclusively in the state has effectively been taken over by its lenders through the conversion of a significant part of their debt into equity and some of the larger MFIs have negotiated a six‐year restructuring of their debt with their major lenders. Elsewhere, the shrinking portfolios some MFIs (in the absence of bank funding) have caused operational problems and led to the take‐over of at least three MFI managements by investors. More acquisitions of this type are likely to occur in the near future.

 

Future of Microfinance in India

Debate on the Dependency on commercial institutions

While this is an area of debate whether Indian Microfinance industry should be too dependent on commercial lending by financial institutions or should it follow the Grameen Bank model of Bangladesh. Unlike Indian model the Grameen model uses the deposits from the clients to finance their lending requirements 

 

The 1.5% savings orientation of Indian MFIs is clearly very low by global standards. The L‐10(top 10 MFI’s) – more visible and, therefore, more vulnerable – have a negligible savings ratio, down substantially from the 23.7% of the 2003 M‐CRIL sample. All Asian countries with flourishing microfinance sectors – Bangladesh, Indonesia and Philippines – have deposit ratios that account for substantial proportions of portfolio – see exhibit above. Also, the rural banking system in India undertakes all it’s lending from deposits (portfolio deposit ratios >100%).

 

Policy paralysis at the Center:

 

All microfinance stakeholders, whether within or outside Andhra Pradesh now await the passage of

“The Micro Finance Institutions (Development and Regulation) Bill, 2012” tabled in the national Parliament on 29 May 2012. It is generally thought that the bill has the following positive features

1 It specifies that the central bank, Reserve Bank of India, will be the regulator of MFIs

2 It provides for MFIs regulated by RBI to accept thrift from their borrowers – thus, no public deposits but the provision of a savings service to borrowers

3 It clearly removes microfinance from the ambit of state‐level money lending laws greatly reducing the risk of interference by state governments in the provision of financial services to low income families.

However the bill is stuck in parliament and with the central govt unable to come out of the firefighting mode due to spate of corruption scams by its ministers and therefore has been unable to get this bill passed. Hope the govt comes out of its policy paralysis to pass this bill in coming monsoon session.

In the meantime, the Government of Andhra Pradesh continues to challenge the constitutional validity of the bill on the grounds that in the Indian Constitution this despite the same party ruling at both center and the state. And if such a thing does happen it will be the end of road for the MFI in AP and those who will suffer will be millions of poor who will be denied a chance to earn their livelihood by their own efforts.

 

 

 

By: Saurabh Sinha

Twitter: @saurabhsinha10