Competence in election depends on competent criteria in selection

This write up is inspired by Mr Gurucharan Das’s article on the current Indian elections, “Secularism or Growth-choice is yours” in the Sunday times of April 6, 2014 where he says “ “where he suggests how economic growth is crucial to the lives of the youth who represent demographic dividend. The last line states “ There will always be a trade off in values at the ballot box and those who place secularism above demographic dividend are wrong and elitist”.

Former Union Minister and Infosys chairman Nandan Nilekani had written in his book “Imagining India” how demographic dividend could make or break India. This is only possible through good governance which obviously implies a sincere, competent and experienced prime minister which in turn reminds one of Mr lal Bahadur Shastri . One should learn from history how he came about being prime minister on sheer merit unlike today’s dynastry politics. . Apart from performing very well in several party posts on different occasions , he was also a capable minister in many spheres- He performed with distinction as Railways minister, Transport and communications minister , Commerce minister and even union Home Minister. In the book “The Prime Ministers of India” compiled by Dr R.K.Pruthi, it is mentioned,” In 1964, Pandit Nehru fell ill while attending the annual sessions of the congress. It was decided to strengthen the union cabinet to relieve the prime minister of some of his routine work. Persuaded to return to the cabinet, Mr Shastri became Minister without portfolio whose task was to perform such functions as may be assigned to him by the prime minster from time to time in relation to the ministry of external affairs, atomic energy and Cabinet secretariat.” It is further mentioned that though Nehru did not name a successor, he had been grooming Lal Bahadur to step into his shoes. He had been entrusting to him the most pressing problems of the country and he had tackled them well. This has proved his ability to the masses and when the time came, he was unanimously elected the new leader. Perhaps Mr Rahul Gandhi could have tried something similar under Professor Manmohan singh for getting valuable governance experience. Mr Nehru has spoken extremely highly of Mr Shastri’s competence.

Mr Shastri had governance experience even before Independence- Mr Shastri was elected to the UP assembly in 1937. In 1945, he became secretary to the state government parliamentary board. Re-elected in 1946, he was appointed parliamentary secretary to the chief minister. The following year, he became minister for police and transport. There is mention of exceptional service under state chief ministers as well. It may not be out of place to mention here that he went to Jail for a total period of nine years during independence.

In contrast today’s candidates seem to be found wanting . Though Mr Modi has become chief minister of Gujarat several times, he has no experience of central government. Though not officially announced, one gets to hear Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal’s names is possible PM candidates. Neither has any governance experience to speak of. Mr Kejriwal won the Delhi elections, made a lot of announcements and quit for dubious reasons. Those announcements were touted as achievements which no government had achieved in 49 days. This is like trying to compare cricketer Vijay Merchant’s test batting average of 47.72 to Saurav Ganguly’s 42.17 forgetting the fact that while Mr Merchant had played only 10 tests , Ganguly played 113. This comparison can be misleading as Mr Kejriwal does not have any performance to speak of actually. Well known management writer Ram charan in his book “Execution” states how the best of students of ivy league colleges are found wanting in execution skills though they have excellent articulation skills. Venture capitalists say “ We fund teams(execution), not ideas”. Mr Kejriwal maybe a well meaning man but taking execution for granted and making accusations without proof make his seem naive.Even internationally, there is seems to be quite a gulf between President Obama’s oratorical and execution skills..Mr Kejriwal’s pet issue corruption is a major issue but a less corrupt politician who is not capable enough is equally undesirable.

As for Mr Gandhi, him and the congress party should have a look at what his great grandfather stated on electing his successor “Do democratic leaders choose their own crown princes? Are we Roman Emperors? I know that the ordinary process of democratic politics will pick my successor. Four hundred million people are capable of selecting a leader for themselves. I am not going to do it for them. It would be insolent for me to do it. “ On paper, the congress party may profess to do this but there is clearly a predominance of the Gandhi family. According to media reports, Mr Gandhi has made sincere efforts to induct professionals from other streams. From my experience, professionals only accept somebody who has superior capability as their leader or maybe that does not apply to politics where the stakes are much higher than the corporate world. Apart from shastri all the other prime ministers from the non Gandhi family had plenty of governance and administrative experience and performed better as well. Though we all want competent politicians, the mainstream media rarely highlight this fact. How somebody like Jagan Mohan Reddy can straightaway aspire to be chief minister of a large state like Andhra Pradesh also defies logic. It reminds me of my college days thirty years ago when, being an impressionable teenager, I used to think that the short cut to success was a rich father. I would go around saying

Whether your father makes profit or loss,

When you join him in business, you become automatic boss.

When your father is in business, you can be sure of one thing.

Whoever may come and go, you will be the king

Whether it is restaurant, factory or shop

The principle is the same, replace the pop at the top

Practical life proved to be totally different. I worked in one company where there were four candidates from the same management institute- one person got three double promotions over a year but the others got only one promotion which was obviously because of difference in execution skills though everybody had the same degree.

I never thought that my short poem would apply to politics one day which has become a business, a thought well articulated by former cabinet secretary, TSR Subramanian in his book,” Governmint in India”. In an earlier article, Mr Das had stated that there is nothing wrong if a son or daughter of a politician chooses to follow in their parent’s footsteps but nature rarely distributes talent that way. How true. I grew up in the era of Amitabh Bachchan and Sunil Gavaskar. Their sons are hardly a patch on their superstar fathers as many others from bollywood and cricket. In politics, legislative and governance talent is not highlighted or monitored strongly. Bollywood and cricket superstars have to be on their toes(latest hit or latest match) but politicians have a five year term and public memory being short, they can many times get away with being incompetent.

Since I am likely to be accused of Gujju bias where Mr Modi is concerned, people can draw their own conclusions after reading the latest issue of India today on the possibility of replicating the Gujarat model or on the internet. His governance credentials are much better but for somebody who is asking votes for good governance, inducting actors/actresses as legislators in place of people with strong grassroots experience does not augur well unless they really have the capability and sincerity(I read long ago how actor Vinod Khanna had done a lot of good work in Gurdaspur and had won twice from there). Inducting an erstwhile dream girl as a candidate reminds of the famous Sholay song “Jab tak hai jaan, jane jahaan, main nachoongi, main naachongi”.. It seems her sunset years are being used for a different kind of dacne. How different reel and real life can be- for an exceptional display of dance and body, the same lady is not willing to even come out of her Audi. How competence in politics has to be promoted vigorously is something everyone needs to and should study.

Publushed article on elections

Though I am not a Journalist, I began with blogging and now my articles get regularly published in a magazine called Management compass. This article was published in April’2009

Another grand election looms large on the horizon. Newspapers and political magazines are full of how the whole political scene in India has become centrifugal with influential regional satraps calling the shots and no national leader with a pan Indian following emerging. The year when a national party got an absolute majority was two decades ago, ie in 1989. The regional allies are becoming stronger and demanding their pound of flesh as no party is expected to get absolute majority in the new power equations that are expected to emerge. So much so that some congressmen feel that it is the regional parties that pose a bigger challenge than the Bharatiya Janata Party and there are several people with prime ministerial aspirations even among regional leaders.

All kinds of alliances are being contemplated by the regional and two centrist parties. In 1998, the Telugu Desam Party, National Conference, Lok Jan Shakti Party and Biju Janta Dal forgot their secular roots and aligned with the BJP against the Congress at the centre. Though they may have broken off later on, this was the first indication of the fact that alliances were more on the basis of self interest rather than any ideology or principle. That apart, in a diverse country like India, voting often takes place on caste, regional, ethnic and even linguistic considerations. Though infrastructure, jobs, terrorism etc are the major issues, most parties are targeting the various vote banks. One hears of the Lodh vote, the Muslim vote, the Yadav vote, the Thakur vote , the Dalit vote, the Brahmin vote, the Vaish vote etc. Such tendencies are bound to multiply in the absence of a strong national leader who can sway the masses singularly with slogans and oratory and also act as a transformational figure. Apart from the vote banks and regional considerations, one significant factor playing a major role in these elections is the youth.

In a youth survey conducted by India Today magazine in February 2009, Narendra Modi was the number one choice of youth as the prime minister of the country and at 16 per cent of the vote got double the percentage of vote as the official nominee of the BJP, LK Advani. What and how the youth thinks would be a key factor in these elections. The report further stated that the youth have chosen a leader who delivers, a leader who has found redemption in the hard work of reform. They have chosen the doer and rejected the wafflers. If this is indeed so, it is surprising that prime minster is number four and Rahul Gandhi is number two. This is a clear indication of the fact that apart from performance, biology does matter. One got to readon how an 81-year-old Advani was rushing out playing hi-tech games, launching trendy websites, meeting IIM graduates and spoke of his experiences to the Microsoft headquarters in Seattle. The desperation to reach out to the youth is also visible in the fact The Hindustan Times report on February 22 about popular blogger Sidin Vadukut refusing to be a part of ‘bloggers for Advani’ programme. This is what he had to say in his refusal letter “Obama’s greatest success perhaps was in infusing his nation with optimism even during a period of great economic crisis. With your blog and website, you have the power to do that.” Where just the youth factor is concerned, future politicians will have to keep in mind this experience of the experienced Advani — “Javani nahin hai gavani” (can’t afford to be old). Considering the youth factor in demographics, this may actually be a good thing for an Indian Obama to emerge.

In another India Today study that was published in September 2008, it was stated that Amethi, which has elected members of the Gandhi family — Sanjay Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi (twice), Sonia Gandhi and now Rahul Gandhi — (five times out of 10 polls) ranks 484 on the socio-economic index and 475 on the infrastructure ranking. Phulpur and Allahabad, represented by Jawaharlal Nehru, who was prime minister for 17 years, ranks 409 out of 543 on the socio-economic index. Barring Surat, which elected Morarji Desai, none of the prime ministerial constituencies figure anywhere on the top 100 list.
Though business management and politics are drastically different in India, some reference to the management world is not completely out of place. One of the best write-ups that I have come across about the credentials of family members in running their businesses is this extract from the father of modern management, Peter Drucker’s What makes an Effective Executive? which has been selected by Harvard University among Drucker’s best. There, Drucker writes on the well known company Du pont, “In the successful family company, a relative is promoted only if he or she is measurably superior to all the non-relatives on the same level… Beyond the entrance level, a family member got a promotion only if a panel composed primarily of non-family managers judged the person to be superior in ability and performance to all other employees at the same level. The same rule was observed for a century in the highly successful family business J Lyons and Company when it dominated the Britsh food-service and hotel industries.”

Considering the fact that in politics, the scale of problems is much greater than in business and the country is not anybody’s private property, the vetting and validating process of separating the wheat from the chaff should be even more stringent. I once worked for a boss who got several double promotions in one year and went on to establish several businesses of his own. He was much better than three other people from the same management institute. In this context, if I were to compare him to the chairman’s sons, no amount of business training or coaching would have made them as good as he was.

However irrelevant the parameters of voting may seem on parochial considerations and whatever the political drama that may ensue, from a management perspective, one has to look at the entire scenario on the basis of performance. Though the economic performance has been no doubt exemplary, since this government came on the promise of aam aadmi or common man in 2004, certain comments in this context made by the the comptroller and auditor general (CAG) made headline news in the Times of India on February 23. The CAG reported “Over Rs 51,000 crore was allocated for the government’s flagship schemes in 2007-08 which got transferred to the bank accounts of NGOs, autonomous bodies and district authorities. However, the government has told CAG that it was not aware of the actual expenditure by these organisations. The aggregate amount of the unspent balances in the accounts of the implementing agencies kept outside government accounts is not readily ascertainable. The government expenditure, as reflected in the accounts to that extent is, therefore, overstated.” The report also pointed out how the social and infrastructure development fund (SIDF) — created in 2006 for funding initiatives such as the employment of physically challenged, insurance cover for rural poor, etc — was diverted to unspecified programmes like celebration of 150th year of the First War of Independence and towards grants to various cultural organisations. The report concluded that the CAG’s observations in an election year, just before dates are to be announced for Lok Sabha polls, is a big blow to the UPA government’s pro-poor, pro-development posture. That apart, according to other reports, even the Rs 2 crore-per-MP-per-year local area development scheme has become a tool for nepotism and rampant corruption in some cases. So much for the aam aadmi. It seems that instead of the recent award winning movie Slumdog Millionaire the poor execution is more on the lines of Slumdodge Millionaire. It is dodging the real people towards whom the funds are targeted and to whoever they are going is probably becoming a millionaire.

From my experience as executive assistant to my father and managing director in another company, I can say that where implementation is concerned, there is indeed a slip between the cup and the lip. However the executive assistant to the top man’s presence in what is called “Management by walking around” could mitigate all this to a significant extent. Rahul Gandhi could have put his considerable influence in the party and the government to bring about a systematic change rather than help some poor individuals sporadically like highlighting the plight of Kalawati Bandurkar of Vidharba where he had gone visiting.

Even on terror, the common man suffered considerably. The Times of India reported that after the Mumbai blasts of 26/11, the Maharasttra government put forward a slew of security measures. Some of these measures had already been put forward after the Train blasts of July’06 but never been put in place. This clearly hints at faulty execution. The public outrage at 26/11 also revealed how the political class as a whole is derided in India. This is not restricted to the central government or terror alone. One article in India Today on the Maharastra government had this to say of their track record: “Despite criticism from various quarters, the government is falling back on populist schemes. Once announced, no one bothers to see when the schemes are actually implemented.” This reminds of a dialogue that Amitabh Bachchan says in the aptly named movie Sarkar “Pass ka faayda dekhne se pahle door ka nuksaan dekhna chaahiye” (one should look at the long term loss instead of the short term profit). However, in general and the election years especially, it is exactly the opposite — all the governments are only concerned with winning the elections and all kinds of populist schemes and loan waivers are announced without a thought to how the future governments and generations will cope.

When one has a ringside view of how difficult it can be to run even a medium sized company, one is able to realise the fact that one needs really good talent to run a diverse country like India. I was around 20 and a college student when Rajiv Gandhi became the prime minister. In his first year he was very impressive with the kind of speeches he gave and the business-like manner in which he went about signing the Punjab and Assam accords. Apart from the Gandhi name, his sweet smile, charming manners and handsome looks could have bowled anybody over. He came with noble intentions but was not able to fulfil all that he had promised initially and faltered on several other spheres. The experienced Nararsimha Rao made a better prime minister performance wise. He, along with his finance minister, Manmohan Singh, made possible the “garibi hatao” slogan that India Gandhi had coined in the election of 1971. This alone shows that merely depending upon family names or slogans can prove deceptive and the best orator need not be the best performer.

In his book India from Midnight to the Millennium and Beyond, Shashi Tharoor has this to say of the 1971 Lok Sahha: “The majority of backbenchers seemed to be out of their depth; they knew how to get elected but not how to legislate.” Tharoor is himself standing from Thiruvanthapuram to perhaps reverse this trend. The word “legislate” reminds me of eminent jurist, the late Nani Palkhiwala, whose speeches on the budget in matters of fiscal legislation used to be more popular than the budget itself for the manner in which he exposed the government blunders. When asked why an eminent and intelligent man was not in the higher echelons of the government, he replied “I don’t mind being nominated but I will not get elected”.

The manner in which Rajiv Gandhi was elected prime minister also deserves some mention. In the first February 2009 edition of the magazine The week, this is what I Rammohan Rao has to say of former President, R Venkatraman who died recently: “When RV became the vice-president, I was the director of news services division of All India Radio. The day Indira was assassinated; President Zail Singh and home minister PV Narsimha Rao were abroad. I sought RV’s permission to broadcast the news. He came to the studio and announced her death and the swearing in of Rajiv Gandhi as prime minsiter.” One wonders can even the student leaders be elected like this. Varun Gandhi’s inflammatory speeches on religious grounds reflects a desperate attempt to perpetuate dynasty politics.

This is why it is said that democracy is more vibrant in fully literate societies where politicians can get elected on merit instead of caste, religion, region, language etc. When that happens, it is more of a mobocracy than democracy. There are other newspaper reports on how some politicians are planning to get into the bandwagon of reality shows. Unfortunately even the majority of talk shows are more obsessed with discussing issues and raising awareness than monitoring what exactly the politicians are doing. Instead of the talk shows, there should be walk shows to know whether or not they are walking the talk.

Home Shanti Home

Though I should have written this post long back, it kept getting postponed for one reason or another. A week after “Om Shanti Om” was released, a Nigerian friend of mine who had left India way back in 1975 suddenly popped in front of my residence. For a while I thought it was a mistake since we are several families living in a flat system. When he muttered the word “Baba” and his residence number of the seventies, I was able to put two and two together and welcomed him in.

Imagine meeting him after 32 long years. When we had parted ways, I was taller than him and we were of the same built but now, he was much more taller and heftier than me. After the initial exchange of pleasantries , he tried to speak in hindi or whatever he remembered though in 1975, he spoke as well as any Indian. He would speak a few words here and there which sounded funny. He said that he was out of practice but had not forgotten “Zeenat Aman”, “Yaadon ki Baraat” and Amjad Khan of Sholay. Some things are beyond the domain of language. We also remembered how his elder brother, Nuhu would wear goggles and look like Clive Lloyd( West Indies captain on their tour off 1974) and we would run after him shouting “Lloyd”, “LLoyd”

When I took him around the colony and the local club, we remembered our childhood days in the early seventies when we had spent three years together. He was extremely naughty and that gleam in his eyes had not receded over the years. Though a year younger than me, it was he who gave me my first “Sex Education” lesson at the age of nine( He was eight at that time) . Though I did not ask him at that time, I could not help asking him where he had received his sex enlightenment from at such a young age. When he arrived at his old house, he showed me the tall wall between his and the house of an American couple who used to stay there. He said that he had a naughty chowkidaar who used to put him on his shoulders and show the American couple “doing it “ at a certain time in the evening. He said that he learnt both theory and practicals like that. With or without internet, those inclined to learn will learn. Imagine, him coming after a gap of 32 years and telling me all this.

Om shanti Om was a tribute to a movie called Karz which was released sometime in the seventies. In the seventies, there used to be a great commercial movie director,”Manmohan Desai” who used to make films on long lost brothers who would separate as children and unite as adults. The best among them was the Amitabh staarer “Amar, Akbar Anthony”. You may enjoy such films as children but one tends to outgrow these things. Never in my wildest imagination I would have thought that Baba would return after 32 years. As far as I was concerned, he was out of sight, out of mind. I could not have traced him on google as I did not know his real name. He would not have been able to trace me had I not been staying in the same colony at a different place. Brothers or friends, it feels great to be reunited after such a long time. Hindi movies have a logic after all and I should say “Home shanti home”

Who watches the watchdog?

Today it came in the papers how Sachin Tendulkar had to repeatedly clarify that he was not contemplating retirement because of the controversy sparked by his one statement ,” At 34, it is difficult to recover after a one day match” . The report said that how some Marathi newspaper stated he was contemplating requirement and then how he, the manager Rajiv Shukla and Rahul Dravid described the report as completely false. What a waste of energy!. About a couple of months ago, it happened with Saurav Ganguly. I don’t remember what the issue was but in the end Mr Ganguly was telling the journos ,”I can understand that there is tremendous competition in the media but at least you should have checked with me. I was just a phone call away”

In recent times, the Jessica lall case is one case where one can really be proud of the media. One wonders why it has to resort to all this. I was in Rajkot about a month and a half back where I asked a very reliable source about the case of Pooja Chauhan who had roamed the streets of that town half clad to protest against dowry. While there is some element of truth in the story, we learnt that someone from the media encouraged her to do that. That’s being really proactive.

When I read Hindustan times editor MR Vir Sanghvi’s lucid articles and a lot that is written in newspapers and magazines, one really wonders whether the so called communication revolution can bring about a change for the common man or is it all a sham or intellectual fun.? There were so many articles about the common people favoring Abdul Kalam continuing as President and even the fact that had there been a direct contest, Mr Kalam would have won hands down. Yet, the elected representatives were able to thwart democracy or the voice of the people. How is then, the common man any better off than his ancestors with all the communication hullabaloo ? Even Internationally, Mr Bush went ahead with the Iraq war with practically the whole world against him.

Now, the Times of India has started a leadership lead India campaign. They are encouraging young people who “have it in them” to apply. One of the surveys says that a majority of people believe in honesty as a trait. That is obvious but if I shout from the rooftops how I honest I am, after the way Satyameva Jayate failed, is it going to make a difference?. How does one monitor honesty while the person is in office. Going by the old saying “Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely” and the fact that the future is not always an extension of the present, how can one ensure that somebody continues to be honest. How does one judge the honesty and competence of politicians ?.

Instead of running after Sachin and Saurav, the media should also report why the board President is not appointing a CEO to run cricket affairs as promised. It is strange that Sachin is accountable to Mr Pawar and the nation for a poor world cup performance but nobody bothers about how the board or its President performs. That is why we have only symbolic presidents (Pratibha means talent in Hindi) instead of performing Presidents( Mr Abdul Kalam)

A day after(8/9/2007) writing this post, it came in the papers that the sting operation on Delhi govt school teacher Uma Khurana maybe a fraud. This only vindicates what is written in the post above. Then during the last one day international between India and England, Sachin Tendulkar was again given out when he did not seem to be so. What is use of technology and the third umpire then? That is also kind of media and one is not proactive when one supposed to be.