Suffer silently, suffer repeatedly

Most of us dislike friction. Dislike to be dragged into unpleasant interactions. It is part of our personality that makes us social beings. It is also a necessary trait that helps us recognize that others' may disagree with us and deal with it in a civilized manner. However, there are many occasions where this approach should not be taken. Here are a few examples.

1. Stray dog menace in the neighborhood. Makes it difficult to go for solitary walks. Not easy to take our pet out. We are too busy to look up the concerned authority and complain. We may even try once or twice and give up with the other side doesn't pick up the phone or answer the email. We grumble and move on. We set ourselves up for repeated suffering.

2. Poor service when traveling. Airline staff. Taxi cabs. Ticket inspectors. We have a train / plane to catch; so we can't take enough time out to complain. They get away. Next time we go through the same place, we suffer again. Silently.

3. Government service delivery. We put up with apathy and other attitudes. "what can we do?" we ask.

4. Politics - local, regional and national. We don't like to pressured to pay donations. One particular action of a corrupt politician doesn't affect us directly, so we make a few glib comments among friends and move on.

Surely the world is full of such examples. We suffer silently. As a result, we suffer repeatedly.

Speak up. Even if you don't make a scene right there, use the internet as a medium to let your views be known. Send emails. Post on facebook. Complain on online consumer forums. Tweet about it. Ask like minded people to speak up along with you. Yes, there are huge number of people out there who will agree with you.

It is a start. An opening to make a difference. A great alternative to suffering silently.

Intellectual bankruptcy in Anti-UID arguments

Enlightened debates on topics of public interest are an essential part of any vibrant democracy. We are seeing such debates on a variety of topics - now, more than ever.

However, there is a disturbing tendency evolving. When shouting matches and dramatic rhetoric dominate, most intellectuals quietly withdraw. Clearly, when two intelligent people can argue any topic ad infinitum, how many people are willing to argue until exhaustion? 

Yet, this is only one-half of the problem. Most reasonable opponents of UID are content to let others win their battle for them.These others include those who don't fully understand the issues at hand; those with vested interests and those with narrow political agendas. That, is a serious problem (that intellectuals, even if passively, are siding with the others).

Two reasonable anti-UID arguments I've heard so far are:

• Why can't NPR do the enrolments in one step? Why two separate projects?
• Is Aadhaar cost-effective for what it is setting out to do?

Just because there is a reasonable argument to be had, it doesn't mean that it is automatically right. It is important to tone down the rhetoric. To climb down from positions; to approach the problem(s) with open minds; and to engage in that debate. To accept a let us agree to disagree approach. As opposed to an approach that says I will not rest until you and your opinion are ground to dust. The former permits freedom of expression and encourages diverse opinions to emerge. The latter, doesn't.

Are you taking the latter route? Do you realize that if you sacrifice reason to be extinguished at the altar of win vs lose, then the alarmists win. It will be your turn next. 

If you are one such person, then I ask that while you state your opposition to the UID project, you also denounce the illogic and rhetoric. Not implicitly promote it - just so that you can win.

My friends and I started the ThinkUID website, to express our views. To express support to the UID project, based on our years of thinking and knowledge gathered in relevant areas. To rebut some of the rhetoric we hear. To bring reason to the fore. If your opinions differ, we are fine with that. Not to fight until only person is left standing.

This clarity is important to us. Especially as we are going to step up our campaign to support UID. To engage more people whose opinions differ from ours. With respect, not disdain.

Promo: Please visit ThinkUID - for useful articles, a mythbuster game and news on UID.

Dangerous Lessons from Anna's victory

Public is fickle. Public is gullible. Public memory is short.

You don't need to be a Pol Science major to know this; or a diplomat, to never say it loud. hint: if you didn't object to my blog title already, you have proved a good bit of my point - Is it just "Anna's victory"? "His" agitation?

No doubt, Anna is a hero. No doubt, we must emulate him. But heck, something must be wrong with the whole system if we let this situation come up in the first place - forcing Anna to become a hero in this manner. Isn't it?

So what is my point? The whole exercise has already mislead vast masses into learning a dangerous lesson. That we must fight our politicians to get what we want. Lemme back up a bit... get back to the beginning of what I am trying to say.

1. We are a democracy. We elect our representatives - so that they represent our interests, make laws for our benefit, protect our interests by aligning/steering the bureaucracy to our priorities, and so on... In theory.
2. In practice, we elect our representatives. They do their own thing. We helplessly wring our hands, rave and rant (like here). Then we start agitations and hunger strikes - fighting our own representatives to do things that they are supposed to do to begin with. This is reality, you say?

The right and the most urgent thing to do is to fix the system. Make our representatives (read: our, yes our politicians) fight for us. They are our main channel/recourse to get our work done. That is why we elected them. Not to put them on a pedestal, write them off (while still continuing to invest in that channel through taxes, btw) and setting up alternative systems (agitations, et al) to get our work done.

Fortunately, Anna is already on the job ("right to recall elected reps"). I am with him on this. 

Easy Topic - Politics and Corruption

I am yet to meet someone who doesn't have a very strong opinion about "Politics and Corruption". That we absolutely must root out deep-seated corruption in our politics and in the government is something everybody agrees upon. Outpouring of self-righteous anger and integrity-bound-high-seat are common sights in such discussions.

While Anna (Hazare) doesn't need a lecture from me (especially me) on this topic - I submit that the popular treatment of the topic is superficial and misleading. To imply that our politicians and the government are the epitome of corruption and rooting it out must begin there - is to look at the tip of iceberg and steering our social Titanic right over it. Why?

Our politicians are not born and brought up outside the system - despite all the implications of Baba Ramdev's famed assertions about their wives and daughters. Every politician (corrupt or otherwise) had had a childhood, had (and still has) friends and grew up pretty much like others, within limits of statistical and wealth variations in our society. While they were growing up, their value systems were influenced by their parents, friends, teachers and the environment around them - just as it did all of us.

This is true for all those others (especially in the government) whom we accuse of unadulterated greed, opportunism and moral turpitude. So I ask myself: How is it that within the same system, we are able to produce innumerable number of morally upright, high-integrity people (counting all those - including me - who freely lecture on the ills of our system with copious prescriptions to anyone who will listen) and yet fail so spectacularly in checking corruption?

To explain this, I propose that the problem is not as localized as our newspapers and demagogues have us believe. It is deep-rooted, widespread and insidious; its tentacles are embedded in nearly all of us.

Just that some of us are more blatant than others. Most of us readily justify our minor transgressions with "Look, I can't change the system alone, can I? I had no choice!" or "I wasn't greedy... I wouldn't do it if it were not for my son's future!". Something like that.

Haven't any of us come across these:

• A driver pilfering petrol or fudging travel logs and diesel bills?
• A junior or a colleague submitting inflated travel expense statements?
• Someone whose medical bills and LTA bills are not entirely above-board?
• Bought a place in a queue or a berth in a train from a porter / TTC?

I need not say more. It is never "us". While we stand in our self-righteous glory, someone next to us is doing all that. On the rarest of the rare occasion that we are forced to do it, we never do it out of greed or other base motives. We are compelled, had no choice, and so on.. (insert your glib rationalization here). 

Don't get me wrong. We must root out corruption. No doubt about it. 

However, let us not deceive ourselves that it can be done by addressing the tip of the iceberg alone. In order to treat the whole iceberg, we must begin by coaching our children - at home, at the schools, in the play grounds, everywhere. Teachers need to take our "Moral Science" subject seriously in schools. Anna Hazares (and Sas3s too) of the world need to carry their voice into all walks of life - in the form of education and social awakening programs. 

Oh and I couldn't resist this one; pardon me for falling for sensationalism. Unless Nandan was misquoted, he is losing his touch... Here is a multi-part quote from his interview to Raj Chengappa, reported on the July 3rd. My interspersed comments are in italics. 

"Personally I feel that in the whole debate about corruption, passing a law will not stop anything." 

Yup.. I fully agree. 

"I believe if you systematically re-engineer the public-services - if food is distributed to all concerned on time, if money is delivered to bank accounts and you can keep track of it - then you will be able to clean up the system and the whole thing can be sorted out." .... now IMHO, this is misplaced optimism. Having tried a few eGov projects for reform, my experience has been that our people are unbelievably ingenious. Most service seekers, including the poor (surprised?) want corruption because it gives them the unfair advantage that they so badly want (and sometimes"need"). Service givers (read: Government) are only happy to oblige, by rapidly innovating around any re-engineered processes and IT systems. 

Back to my pet theory. While Aadhar-enabled services are necessary, they are not going to solve this particular problem as described by Nandan. They will surely get some benefits to targeted beneficiaries and plug some really big retail leaks. However, they will not have any impact on grossly wrong targeting systems, politically motivated largesses window-dressed as benefits programs, wholesale loopholes and such. 

I think that for a deeper, wider, longer-lasting impact, we need to take our social awakening ("activism" alone is an insufficient concept) programs into all walks of life ... especially the lives of our children. Better still, ask them to lead us on this crusade, before they learn too much of "let us be realistic" rationalizations from us.

Surely, there is more to this problem and the solution(s). Deeply linked, are concepts of population-growth, resource-starvation, food-insecurity and even deeper - sentience itself!! I hope to be able to write more on this in my later blogs.