National MODI-lemma is Here to Stay

Irrespective of the political spectrum (right, left or centre) one associates to, nobody can deny the attention Narendra Damodardas Modi commands in Indian politics. With three consecutive victories in Gujarat, Modi has become a self-proclaimed seal of authority and public trust which very few Indian political figures dare to claim.  This self-proclamation has not been affected by a controversial past which gives tremors of unjust and fear in a sizable chunk of our population.  The 2002 riots in Gujarat under this same administration openly applauded for the Gujarat growth story is still an unhealed wound for many. Indian judicial system would take its time and course to decide Modi’s role in the massacre but till then I feel this man has done enough to keep us all interested. I write this blog to reflect on the reasons behind the recent charismatic rise of Modi and the dilemma (and so MODI-lemma) it brings for India in 2014 national polls. I shall start with the situations facilitating Modi’s discussion on a national scale where I think Dr. Singh has played a big “silent” hand.

A Silent Decade with a Silent Prime Minister: A Night Watchman as a Friend Described

The silent image that Dr. Manmohan Singh, our current prime minister, carries has left a lot of us wondering and to an extent frustrated. Political elites like Sushma Swaraj have been on record saying “Pehle to hamare Pradhan Mantri bolte nahi hain or jub bolte hain to aap unki sunte nahi hain” (First our prime minister hardly speaks and when he speaks nobody listens to him) this in one sentence summed up the country’s impression about our leadership.  Not limited to politicians, the same sentiment is shared in jokes on Facebook and other social networking platforms. Compared to this, someone like Modi just by his oratory skills gives an impression of being in control all the time (I think his stand of not being in control in 2002 is very hard to believe).  Modi’s recent popularity has had a very big contribution from the ruling Congress party which has kept a dummy head of state leading to disappointed voters. Dr. Manmohan Singh might be a man with unmatched intellect but his inability to win elections suggests that politics and leadership is not only about being learned and wise. I feel, a decade without a charismatic leader makes an outspoken confident Modi an easily sellable proposition for many political pundits.

Dwindling Economy: India Shining Dependent Upon Cheap Capital in the West

It is now clear that a lot of growth observed in Indian economy till the 2008 meltdown was fuelled by cheap western capital. Except for few intellectuals nobody could predict the global asset bubble brewing and for India it wasn’t different either.  In fact, it was even worse; we were blind-folded with a double allusion. One there was this cheap capital which very few could smell and secondly we had Dr.  Singh at the helm, the man credited to lead the famous reforms of early 90’s.  However as the world economy slowly returns to “normalcy” the news is not encouraging, we had one of the worst performing currencies in year 2012 and a GDP growth rate is hovering around the 5% mark. The 5% growth rate is a dream in the west but for a country like India it’s not enough to satisfy the aspirations of the ever-growing urban young population. On the contrary, the growth stories in states of Gujarat and Bihar are making headlines across the nation.  The rise of politicians like Nitish Kumar from Bihar and Narendra Modi from Gujarat definitely indicates that Indian politics and democracy is slowly maturing to overcome the old cast, creed and religion bias for economic performance and law and order situation to play an increased role. Betrayed by inaction or incapability of Dr. Singh, I feel people hope Modi to deliver for the entire country what he has done successfully for Gujarat. Whether this can happen or not is still to be seen but again I feel Dr. Singh’s inaction is making Modi’s case stronger day by day.

Corruption: 2G, CWG, Coal, Oil, Defence – Government Just Did It

The sitting prime minister has an unquestionable honesty but in the times of social media he has been quickly crowned as the head of one of the most scandalous governments. The corruption portfolio is astonishing and the 2G and CWG scams literally put India on the world corruption map. Can we consider a man honest if he himself is clean but leads a team accused for corruption cases? Modi on the other hand not only has a very clean record in corruption also heads a team with equal dignity. Personally, I feel corruption is deep rooted in our society and I find it very difficult to eliminate it just with the change in governance. However, our nation of 1.2 Billion is definitely capable to provide an honest cabinet on which Dr. Singh has failed miserably. I think this is again big time helping Modi to gain attention as he seems to have delivered this at least at a smaller scale.

Readers up to this point may assume that I am for granted taking Modi to be the prime-ministerial candidate and winner for the right wing Bhartiya Janta Party.  This is not the case and now I discuss the MODI-lemma which we shall face in case Modi actually contests for the prime ministership.

An Expensive Experiment: Can We Even Afford It?

Living outside my own country has definitely given me a glimpse of how quickly a “minority” can be targeted or blamed for individual and political gains. I am fortunate to live in a country with a reliable law and order situation but in India history shows us how easily the situation can escalate to go out of administrations control. If India decides on Modi to be the next prime minister we risk giving a free hand to right wing fundamentalists. Modi has once already failed to control the spill-over effect in 2002 would he be in a position to stop the same at a national scale is anybody’s guess.  A deteriorated law and order situation specifically hostile to a chunk of the population is the last thing India needs at this point in time. India is a unique county with so many religions and cultures living together and as citizens we should do everything to protect that identity and heritage.

Judicial Process: The Law Shall Take its Course

Indian judicial system is well recognized for its pace and it is no different in Modi’s case. I am very much sure that before 2014 polls judiciary would not have given its final verdict and I think that is the most sensitive point in the story. There is almost no guarantee that judicial process will remain independent and bold enough to take action against a sitting prime minister (in case Modi contests and wins). The dismal record we have in sending our Netas behind the bars should make us think   twice before electing or even discussing a man with a tainted past for one of the most coveted positions in the country.

The Indian Irony: Is He the Only One?

Yes Modi has been discussed widely and very enthusiastically in various circles and this being one of them. However, it is still not clear that whether he shall be acceptable on a national scale. For example his acceptance in Uttar Pradesh (having most seats in the national assembly) would hold the key. Can we take the riots in 2002 as one off and forget that heinous crime against our country men? We need to remind ourselves that the “secular” congress instigated the Sikh riots in 1984 but since then has “comfortably” ruled the country.  I feel, in case Modi contests and wins (without his name being cleared) then a political party would have again used the “short” public memory to its advantage.  Internationally speaking, Modi means controversy, recent discussions about him in European circles, US visa issues, and invitation followed by decline from Wharton does suggest that this man has an identity confusing enough for many. How shall India as a nation respond for such controversies surrounding a sitting prime minister? I don’t think anybody has an answer right now.

Modi is not the only chief minister to win three consecutive elections. Shiela Dikshit has done that for congress in Delhi. However, in the current political sphere Modi exhibits almost an unmatched charisma and a pro-growth agenda which indeed is the need of the hour. I definitely feel that MODI-lemma would have been less acute in case Dr. Singh had lived up to his expectations and not delivered a puppet show.  I think, it’s an Indian irony that Modi has a past very difficult to forget and forgive.

  

I Hang My Head in Shame

Delhi is again in news for a heinous act of crime against a 23 year old female student. Over the years, the National Capital Region (NCR) has earned a notorious reputation of being unsafe for women. Several rape cases have made headlines but have mostly fallen on deaf ears. Every case has a similar trend of media coverage, and promises by politicians and police administration for situation to improve. Things hardly change and as soon as media has something new to discuss victim's agony is forgotten and life moves on. There is no denying that crime against women is a scar on the face of our society. Although NCR is undoubtedly the Rape Capital of India unfortunately other Indian cities are not untouched. The frequent report of crime against foreign tourists especially girls in Goa is another example. In daily news we find numerous sad incidents being reported in various Indian cities. As I said earlier, things hardly change and to our horror we continue to move from bad to worse.

 Talking about reaction it is both easy and logical for public to vent out its anger on police administration. However we all need to realize that the men in uniform are people from the society sharing ordinary man’s mindset. Another fact is that Delhi has a population of roughly 17 million so there is a limit to effective policing that can be implemented. I am not defending Delhi police for not being able to ensure safety of women. I believe effective policing has a big role to play but we need some cultural changes to make public life safer for women.

The biggest change I think has to come at the family level. The indiscrimination towards the girl child in Indian societies (especially in Northern India) is far more than common. There are numerous studies indicating Indian parents discriminating in providing better health care and education to the male child. I see the problem here two fold, first the girl child starts to feel unwanted and unsecured at a very early stage of life. Second the favoured male kid just by chance of birth starts to get a false sense of superiority over the other half of the society. Male child from early stages of upbringing is nurtured to believe in having a command over the “weak” women. This false empowerment of the Indian male child is reinforced in following behaviours: 

• Lot of people generally feel absolutely normal in bringing “vulgar” sense of dressing as a reason for instigating eve-teasing and sexual assault against women. Male child feels like his birth-right to comment upon the clothing the women should wear. I have seen a significantly younger brother trying to control and comment on the clothes his elder sister is wearing. May be it’s the guilt of normal conversations about women in Indian male circles that instigates this sharp and defensive reaction. Question is why to have such discussions in the first place?

• Derogatory language used by people is mostly limited to target women. This trend is disturbing and to an extent again certifies the notion of a weaker section of the society.

• Rape by no means is a pleasurable experience even for the male culprit. However, the belief is to “Teach Women a Lesson” because she is not abiding to the “rules” set up by chauvinistic pigs.

• Certain male members also discourage girl/women of the house in speaking against harassment they face in their public life. This is the most dangerous trend of all as it only increases the confidence of a culprit. Girls should be absolutely vocal about any harassment they face and not listen to people (even own father and brother) discouraging them to do so.

Talking to any regular female commuter in public transport in Delhi would bring out shocking stories of molestation and sexual harassment. The fact is that the public transport system is mostly used by not-so-well-off section of the society. Upper middle class, rich and our elite hardly ever board a public bus. Especially our policy makers never use public transport and so have no idea about the existing pathetic conditions and over stressed services. Mahatma Gandhi used to travel in third class just to feel the pain and agony of a common man. However, as the country has “progressed” after independence examples of elites using public transportation, which they in turn are responsible for, is practically impossible to find. Disconnect within the elite and the normal man on the street has to go before we make public life (especially travel) safer for women. It is not a coincidence that almost all the rape victims come from relatively poorer section of the society and are targeted on roads at night waiting for public transport.

Recent shocking incident has created a big uproar among the citizens of Delhi. Some people living in denial may cite the fact that in most of such cases “outsiders” are the culprits and native citizens of Delhi have their hands clean. However in general people demand action and are unanimous in slamming the law and order situation. A bigger problem is the absence of fear and respect people have for rules set out for the society. People have been slamming Delhi police for not being able to stop the bus with tinted glasses in the 40 minute duration of the crime. However, our personal behaviour needs to be scrutinised. The number of cars operating on the roads of Delhi with dark glasses is just huge. A major section of the society simply refuses to comply with the administration’s order to not to have filmed glasses. People need to be more responsible and have a broader perspective of the consequences their actions can have on a stranger’s life. Driving drunk is another example; people take pride in discussing their drunken driving skills socially. The fear of law and understanding the broader consequences of not abiding to it has to come at individual level. The so-called educated section of the society can definitely be more proactive and cooperating as thousands of cars with tinted glasses and drunk drivers cannot be controlled by the police alone.

As I write this article a lot of us are concerned and terribly confused about what is this all about. Is this a total breakdown of the society or we are seeing a big divide where people relying on public services are left on their own destiny. I firmly believe that this crime against women is a result of wrong attitude developed by years of false upbringing. Things would have to change and that would definitely take time. One thing is certain that we need to fight this battle at individual level and it can’t be left only to policy makers and police. Reason I say individual attention is needed comes from the fact that UP government which has offered to takeover the medical expenditures of the victim in the recent case has sitting MLA’s tainted with rape charges. We as a society should show zero tolerance and make sure that goons are not elected to coveted positions. Situation looks grim but we can take strength from the fact that India gave one of the first women prime ministers to the world. For now, I hang my head in shame.

Email-users to Active Passive and Missing eSOCIALizers for the Changes to Come!

Only indubitable subject today is the change societies are going through. Unless the Dooms day advocates have their way, there is no debate that the change process shall continue and I suspect the rate of change only to go north. Change- almost like an uninvited guest, without taking our permission- continues to alter our personal, social, familial and professional conduct. I assume a lot of agreement in identifying globalization and technological advancements as the “change drivers” of the contemporary world.

Globalization continues to impact our surroundings like products we buy (my parents recently bought a China made microwave from a Walmart store in India), movies we watch (MI4, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel do show a trend) and people we interact with (ethnic diversity in German Kindergartens). Globalization by nature being a top-down approach has left a room open for discussion. Recent criticism of the Indian government of being “too slow” in reforms is an example. On the contrary, technology with a bottom-up approach is embraced much faster by individuals. Adoption of latest mobile communication over the fixed telephone connections in Sub-Saharan Africa is a result of a bottom-up consumer driven approach. Technology impacts us (irrespective of reluctant habits) and would continue to alter our conduct, and is the theme of discussion here.

To start, let’s define any form of social interaction over an electronic medium as eSOCIALization. Examples include Emails, blogs, voice and video chats, on line forums, intranets and the recent inclusion of social networks. Internet initially developed by government funding gave rise to Email in the 70’s. Email as it got popular, transformed our habit of posting hand written letters to an electronic exchange with our contacts and loved ones. Further, individuals embraced blogs and online forums to connect to a wider and mostly unknown audience. Let’s refer Emails, blogs, online forums and intranets as first generation eSOCIALising tools. First generation tools are easy to comprehend and not hyper interactive, novice beginners can easily control who received what, when and how much information?

Modern tools are taking eSOCIALization to a new level all together. With the advent of very interactive second generation eSOCIALising tools like Facebook, Google+ etc. the personal/public boundaries disappear unintentionally. Already in brief existence, their role in the Arab spring uprising has been widely acknowledged. Not only these tools brought societies together for a cause but also provoked ideas about a bright future in distant groups. If societal impact is a measure, these tools have clearly left the first generation counterparts far behind. Minute by Minute, hundreds and thousands of individuals across the globe are getting hooked to form a human information chain. To understand our interaction with this information chain, let’s classify second generation eSOCIALizers into three categories (according to activity behavior). I enlist common actions (not a conclusive list of course), individuals in these categories would generally engage in.

Active eSOCIALizers: Have readily joined all the possible social networks and indiscriminately share a lot about life online. These people have adopted the technological advancements with a “don’t-care” attitude. Without getting into the details, they have gone with the flow to become the cheerleaders of next generation eSOCIALization. If an individual does most of these tasks on a regular basis, I assume her to be an Active eSOCIALizer:

• Add an acquaintance as a friend during the first meeting using a mobile device
• Checking in your location as soon as reaching a target destination
• Upload photos instantly with new acquaintances without bothering to check face expressions and nearby surroundings
• Enthusiastically posting trivial activities like jogging, outings and online activity scores etc.
• Mostly using social networks with the default settings provided by the platform (a darling for your service provider)

Passive eSOCIALizers: Are the people who have social network accounts but exercise caution. People here are watchful in putting any personal information (for different reasons like introvert nature, not very confident or fear data misuse) but enjoy observing what their peers are up to. A typical user here may spend the same amount of time online as an Active eSocializers but is mostly consuming information rather than posting something personal. Common activities include:

• Cautious approach in adding friends, differentiate between personal and professional contacts
• Use social network only to promote personal skills and services
• Not very keen to post location and details of people accompanying
• Carefully select photos and maybe Photoshop them before uploading it to the social platform
• Trying to understand various settings so that uninvited people don’t have access to too much of personal data
• Skeptic  that social networking tools might lead to personal data leaks on the Internet

Missing eSOCIALizers: This is the group totally averse to social networks and considers it as a mad wave engulfing a section of the society. This group mostly includes people with regular internet connection but not an active social network account.  You are self-immunized against social networks (not permanently I believe) and find the change happening amusing and in some extreme cases, deplore the phenomenon.

As individuals get hooked with different intents and behaviors, it can be realistically argued that all the participants cannot be grouped into three broad categories. In all probability, there is a huge chunk of readers that might fit between Active and Passive or Passive and Missing eSOCIALizers. We might also see people, based on personal experiences, changing groups with time and age. I personally don’t have a favorite category but I do have a point for the Missing eSOCIALizers. Friends!, irrespective of who you are, how old you are and what you do for living, by abstaining you have unilaterally decided to close your eyes to a big transformation our society is going through. Agreed there is a lot of irrelevant content being posted and discussed on these hyperactive platforms but is everything exactly irrelevant? Consider the prospect of three family generations interacting freely in public domain. This was not a possibility in the past but would be business-as-usual in the future. Let’s try to enlist major implications that social networks could have on us as individuals. I won’t be surprised if some of the Active, Passive and Missing eSOCIALizers have already experienced one of the following:

• We are in an era where parents and kids (especially teenagers) can be together on the same platform. Parents have a choice to use social networks as a policing tool or as a medium to bridge the gap that generally exists between middle aged parents and teen aged kids. An Active eSOCIALizer kid in the family can by chance post sensitive family matters in the public domain so parents of the 21^st century have an extra mentoring task assigned. Personally I feel that Missing eSOCIALising parents might find this more difficult to achieve.
• Knowing consumer preference and behavior would take a center stage and it would be normal to see companies trying to socialize with an individual consumer. Big multinationals would be very careful in counting an end customer as a single individual (consumer empowerment). Even a small misconduct of a company being discussed on social networks can spread like a wild fire and hit its bottom line. Already there are reports of customer mistreatment apologized by companies after a bad consumer experience was fed into these info-chain reactors.
• Professional talent hunt would take into our eHabits into account. It would be in our personal interest to maintain a dignified eProfile. Active eSOCIALizers might start considering consequences before posting uncontrolled content under their name. Employers, basically our peers in this eSOCIALising era already do considerable checks on our online activities (it is very easy, just Google your name from a new computer or your existing browser after clearing all the cookies) before considering us for potential job offers. Recruitment would evolve and it is in our best interest to understand the future.  Networking, impressive CV’s and a well maintained existing ePofile and eContacts might unlock the jobs of the future.
• Existing hierarchal structures within societies and companies would feel a flattening force being applied. I foresee very formal student teacher relationship in countries like India being redefined in the 21^st century.  The uncontrolled online interaction would push people and ideas closer for the better. Big multinational companies’ aspiring to bridge the communication gap between senior management and the workforce would also be benefitted. Today’s teenagers would enter the workforce tomorrow as competent eSOCIALizers and feel very comfortable using eSkills for work. Understanding employee profile, big companies would adopt corporate social networks to supplement the normal communication channel which now-a-days is primarily the Email. Static corporate intranets as they exist today would be redefined to provide an interactive environment for employees who meet occasionally in big corporations.

I truly feel that we are in a transformation process, lot of aspects and impacts of eSOCIALising are still not clear. People engaging on social platforms are not exactly aware of the hidden costs of the “free service”. A recent survey in a high school in the UK indicated that most of the teenagers didn’t know how Facebook and Google make their money and why the service is being offered for “free”. Extending this survey to an adult community might also give us some interesting insights. However, for the future we would see people much more informed about their digital life. Regarding conduct, eEtiquettes are not clearly defined and might never be but a careful thought at individual level can just serve us right.

Lot would change and new things will always appear, the discussion here is, by no means, conclusive. I hope that prospective readers through comments can also contribute other avenues where eSOCIALization might impact us. As one might guess, the option to become a Missing eSOCIALizer is not the one that I proclaim (of course, opinion is open to discussion). I firmly believe a balanced approach for good can guide us into the new era. Remember, basics change seldom.