Mardani

Watched Mardani and found it entertaining.  Indian cinema has consistently been reinforcing the belief that systemic changes are not possible and the only resort available is personal heroics.  The heroics in Mardani are performed by the heroine, Rani Mukherjee.

Our heroine finally and physically prevails upon the villain running a human trafficking gang.  Thereupon the villain smiles and says, "Go ahead and beat me if it gives you any satisfaction for that is all that you can do:  This is India and people like me with the right connections always go scot-free in the end."  Surprisingly, the heroine acknowledges the observation as a fact and then hands over the bruised and defeated villain to his victims.  Then she walks away after making a loud observation that it is precisely for this reason that many criminals get subjected to "public outrage."  The victims beat the villain to death.

The chief minister of UP has much appreciated the film and exempted it from the hefty entertainment tax burden.  Is that an encouragement for using "public outrage" as the only available weapon against well connected criminals and an admission that government and law are helpless in the matter?

Politics and CMM

There is a lot of vigorous debate going on about the current choices that emergence of leaders like Arvind Kejariwal and Narendra Modi have thrown up.  Like everyone else, I also have my views in the matter and would like to share them with everyone else with a few explanations.

But let the disclaimers come first.  I have lived in Gujarat for over a decade and I simply love the state and its people.  I must add that my familiarity with the state was limited to the cities of Ahmedabad, Vadodara (Baroda), and Gandhinagar.  The people seem to be so mild,  peace loving and business minded that the recurrent riots used to come as a surprise to me.  And though the riots peaked in 2002, mercifully it has put paid to the annual ritual.  Coming from UP, I found the government departments, in a quite small number of encounters with them, far more responsive and much less corrupt.  When in Gandhinagar, I was very impressed when Mr. Modi had a Sai temple razed to the ground.  It was said to be an unauthorized construction and it was reported that a couple of hundred more temples scattered over Gujarat that were unauthorized met the same fate.

I saw Gujarat as a state that had all the right ingredients built into its DNA and a good leader could take it to great heights.  I believe that Modi did so.  And yet I had doubts whether he would be able to deliver on the same scale if he were to be transplanted to UP.  The northern states seem to have a DNA that is quite different from their southern and western brethren even though many common strands do exist.  If one could use, somewhat loosely, the terminology from Capability Maturity Model (CMM), the northern states persist at the lowest CMM level while those in South and West have climbed a step or two up the ladder.

So in Gujarat we had a good leader leading a great state and the results could not be otherwise than what we have seen.  But then the country as a whole is different and much too complex.  It is at a CMM level that cannot guarantee consistent great outcome.  It may give an acceptable outcome in combination with the personal heroics of a good leader, or it may not.

The burning need is NOT so much to get a great hero who can bulldoze the system but to move the system up on the CMM scale.  And how can that be done?  By creating institutions and structures that can prevent all the devilish acts that have been going on for decades.  We need to create Lokpal, we need to carry out police reforms, we need to make bureaucracy accountable and responsible and we need to amend Representation of People Act to ensure better parliamentarians and legislators.  In short, what we need most is not personal heroics but a more mature institutional framework with Acts and rules that enhance the capability maturity of the country as a whole.

It is indeed surprising that few politicians are talking in terms of enhancing the framework itself.  Most are busy praising the virtues of this leader or criticizing the weaknesses of that leader.  There is little debate on the issues that we have highlighted in the last paragraph.  And though Modi is talking of governance all the time, he is not talking about how that will be brought about: perhaps he is too sure of his personal heroics.

Under these circumstances, AAP comes in as a gust of fresh breeze.  It is not talking about personal heroics but about the extremely urgent need to repair and enhance the framework of governance in the country.

I also dare say that unless the higher level CMM framework is created, a strong-headed leader may even pose a risk to the system.  For he / she, in his / her impatience to deliver, might further damage the existing rickety framework.  And that will be like a medicine that alleviates your symptoms temporarily but paves the way to a much greater problem.  Many of the readers must have had an experience of emergency in 70s.  Things improved dramatically in government offices and elsewhere.  And we also know what followed.

The people are impatient now and they want all the symptoms to be overcome at the earliest.  Few have the patience for the kind of changes that are the crying need of the hour.  And this is the essence of the BJP-AAP debate.

They say great organizations are those that can consistently get extraordinary performance even from average people.  And that happens when you have a great framework of processes and governance.

I know that Modi Sarkar is well on its way.  I welcome it too, for we desperately need Congress out.  But let us keep AAP - the voice of sanity - alive.  I must also add that BJP's victory may even be seen by the great System as its own victory against forces trying to change it for the better.

The proverbial last straw

As we grieve with the parents of Amanat and fellow countrymen, a few thoughts come to my mind that I would like to share with you.  This most unfortunate incident has been the proverbial last straw and released an avalanche of pent up feelings.

We have a saying in Bhojpuri which roughly translates to this - "I was feeling like crying and (fortuitously) something poked my eyes (and gave me an excuse to cry.)"  The unfortunate and brutal tragedy that "Amanat" suffered is this poke that has precipitated the tears that a growing number of population has been finding hard to hold back for some time now.  This is the section of the population that is more concerned about the real issues affecting them.  These are the economic issues, the law and order issues, issues concerning opportunities for growth, issues of creating a more egalitarian society, issues of accountability for highly paid bureaucracy and politicians, issues of corruption eating into the vitals of the system.  They are unlike their mothers, fathers and elder brothers - those victims of the earlier feudal system who were happy with condescending politicians and babus who occasionally threw crumbs to them and pandered to their base instincts for competitive identity management. This new breed of people is not willing to put up with an apathetic and manipulative system and they are crying out for change.  A change that will mean a clean break with the way we have been running this country for six decades now.  To me this restless desire for change looks like the harbinger of a new era and a ray of hope.

What truly beats me is that the present system is not able to see this deep craving for change at all.  The politicians remain apathetic, the police oppressive and manipulative, and the bureaucracy unconcerned.  Probably the politicians feel that while they have divided the populace along umpteen lines of religion, caste and creed, they remain highly united in their skilled manipulations and that the dust will settle down as always.  And the police and bureaucracy partake of their complacence.  Hopefully this dust will not settle down, not this time.

And this is why Modi and Kejariwal are emerging as new icons of hope.  While Kejariwal stands for bringing about systemic changes that can put a stop to the current rot, Modi symbolizes robust performance and a no-nonsense approach.  And this is what this new generation of Indians desires above everything else.

Let us hope a new dawn is about to break and that this sad loss and this angry uprising will not go waste.

Paan Singh Tomar

Just finished watching Paan Singh Tomar (PST).  I had not anticipated the film to be good and kept on postponing watching it.  It has turned out to be a real good film and I recommend it without reservations.  The film beautifully brings out the the depravity of our system.  I depicts the individual greed so strongly built into our psyches, and the apathy and exaggerated self importance of our self-serving government machinery.  It sympathetically highlights the fact that faced with these callous elements the only option before an upright and straightforward citizen is to opt out and oppose the system despite an almost assured gloomy outcome.

The film is set in the era of 1950s, the time when foundations were being laid for the newly born Republic of India. Our traits shown in the movie persist to date unchanged, more or less.  The central character, PST, is a born athlete and joins the Indian army.  In an interview with his officers he proclaims the government to be immoral and a thief while showing great respect for the uprightness of the defense forces.  After an early retirement PST returns to his village where he is confronted by his avaricious cousin and a corrupt and indifferent government machinery.

I was abroad when the film was released.  I do not know if the film was promoted the way some recent imbecilic films like Bol Bachhan have been.  But if its collections have not been good it could only be due to lack of promotion as its name does little to suggest the brilliance of the movie.

A must watch movie.

A passing thought: We have all witnessed how the surface tension between defense and government on account of their perceived different traits has ultimately and unfortunately resulted in drawing defense closer to the government and not the other way round.  This is brought out by the defense establishment figuring prominently in some of the recent scams.  Look at some of our neighboring countries where the army has no such moralistic pretensions but has succeeded in keeping the political system subservient to it and under its thumbs!!