Indian Budget 2008 and Farmers' (continued) suicides

Never mind that it was a populist budget—a budget that looked beyond at the ensuing elections and therefore without but not within. No other government would have done it differently but the ruling coalition did it, to say the least, with humility and grace. Finance Minister did sound sincere when he said that the nation was merely acknowledging its debt to the Indian farmers when he announced the farm-loan waiver scheme. I did feel happy for a while but realized that the Government was taking care of the farmers’ today but what about their tomorrow and the day after. Farming for many of our brother-farmers has ceased to be an economically viable enterprise. Loan waiver therefore, at its best, would treat the symptoms of this grave economic ill but leave its root cause untouched. The question that rises in one's mind is --do these suicides indicate a much graver ailment? – a socio-economic tragedy–in-being rather than merely a current economic setback ? Post-budget suicides have continued in Maharashtra, probably since the farmers realize that the Government can render only a one-time help and this short-term measure can hardly be a long term solution for their woes. The problem, up to this limit of reasoning becomes socio-economic although it may have appeared to be merely economic to many of us, judging by the public reaction to the remedial measures announced for addressing it.

It was probably more than a month ago, as a pre-budget debate about farming- loan waiver was raging in the local press when, a very sane voice of Dr Abhay Bang, while commenting on increasing incidence of suicides by the farmers, warned us that waiving the loan given to the farmers was only a part of the solution and something also needed to be done for their increasing alcoholism. How true! But are we so blind that we need a social activist to tell us that the problem is more sociological than economic?

What disturbs me is a thought that goes beyond this cause and effect-based socio-economic reasoning, and which whispers that it may even be a beginning of a sociological problem. Why suicide? This would certainly be the biggest price to pay for any set back in life. Yes, businessmen in heavy debt have been known to resort to committing suicide but not the farmers. Are people no more afraid of dying? Does the thought about their wives and children being left behind to fend for themselves in this world, not deter them any more from taking such an extreme step? Has death since become such an easy option? Suicide seems to be losing out on its elite status among all deaths, and looks more commonplace --almost epidemic now! Aren’t these the indicators of a sociological change?

Manaswini informs me that fees charged by some prestigious business schools in the States vary, and depend upon whether one wishes to pursue a career in a non-profit or a profit-making organization. Fair enough, but we need to do much more in India where agriculture remains and will remain a major occupation for its inhabitants, never mind its share in the national GDP. I think the poor returns in the agriculture sector in India should pose a worthy challenge for hundreds of management graduates that pass out from India’s business schools. I do not expect bright students from the IIMs to take a plunge in to this sector like Dr Abhay and Dr Rani Bang have done in the field of rural health and child care. Here perhaps Indian corporate sector can provide the lead and take up this challenge of making agriculture economically viable. This program can be a kind of private-public-partnership enterprise, with Governments, both Central and State, providing the bulk of the funds while the Corporate sector providing necessary management skills. The Corporate sector can draw its management cadre for this enterprise from amongst the bright students passing out from various business schools, by paying them at par with any other industrial/commercial project. Isn’t this Corporate Social Responsibility in its true form?

Taare Zameen Par

It is a beautiful movie but it leaves us with a feeling that it would have been certainly a great movie if ………….

The movie is about a very talented boy who suffers from dyslexia and consequently has learning disabilities that are neither understood by his teachers nor by his own father, although his mother, probably like all intuitive women, knows that there is a problem but cannot identify it until Mr Aamir Khan – the new art teacher in the school -- comes along and makes a correct diagnosis and the story moves forward.

The movie, to say the least, does come as a whiff of fresh air after having watched or (having refused to watch) most of the stale and stereotype movies that Bollywood has been offering all these years. It is technically very sound; its musical score is different but faithful to the spirit of the central idea. Now more about the ‘ifs’. These ‘ifs’, to me, mainly comprise of some exaggeration in portrayal of some characters and some inconsistencies in the behavioral pattern of the central character—Master Ishan Avasthi.

The credit titles, at the beginning, hints at a little exaggeration, when they inform you that the teaching staff at the School was not as bad as may have been projected. Fine, but the movie exaggerates a little beyond that. Almost all members of the faculty of the boarding school are ill-disposed, rather unconvincingly, towards the students’ community in general, and particularly hostile to Ishan. A behavioral change, to be convincing, has to be gradual and cannot travel from one extreme to another in a jiffy, without any apparent justification.

We all sit up when Ishan tries to interpret a poem as – “one sees things, sometimes, even when they are not there and sometimes sees them not even when they are actually there”. Very profound and very surrealistic indeed! . We all know that it would be very difficult to show a continuation of this central idea and realize that this quote was used merely to improve the form of the movie and had nothing to do with its substance. As the movie nears its end, we see that on the day of the Art Competition, Ishan leaves his hostel dormitory early morning and goes to his favorite landscape so that he can recapture it in his painting for the competition and which he does so effectively. He paints what he sees. But then what happens to the great surrealistic promise that he had made to us while explaining that poem?

I now recall something what an army friend had said many years ago, about Hindi movies– Hindi cinema is NOT self-conscious. Notwithstanding what I have written above, this movie is certainly self-conscious. Besides that, one should see it for some great acting. Aamir Khan is, as usual very competent. The boy, playing Ishan is incredibly superb but kudos also to the Casting Director who selected him after screen-testing hundreds or rather thousands of them. But I was struck by the pair that plays boys’parents. I have not seen more believable parents on the screen. They are not filmy whatsoever, they look absolutely real. The woman’s face did look familiar and I may have seen it on the small screen earlier, but in this movie she was faceless or rather she had the face of every Indian mother. I was particularly impressed by the actor who played Mr Awasthi senior. He shouts, bullies and uses the usual parental template while dealing with his younger son; grudgingly concedes later that he may not have been able to understand root cause of his son’s problem and cries profusely in the end after realizing that he had almost failed his son till Ishan was rescued by the art teacher. But probably these are also the tears of joy – a great tragedy had been averted and his son had, at last, been restored to him and to the world of material success, to which he – Mr Awasthi senior --had always belonged.

Commitment to the game

I spent most of the day today, watching cricket --the first match of the Best of Three finals between Australia and India. I did feel happy that India had won but frankly speaking, a little happier that Sachin had scored his forty second and his first ever limited-overs century on Australian soil.

Convergence of individual goal with that of an organization is absolutely an ideal situation as it happened today when for both, India and Sachin, it was a win -win situation. But when these two goals are clashing with each other, then it would be difficult, almost impossible, to convince anyone as to how consideration for an individual can ever outweigh contrasting claim of the organization to which he or she belongs.

I too was surprised when I heard about someone doing it for the first time. Many years ago, we founded a Cell in our Army Headquarters, for advising the Government on merits of various statutory complaints (about denial of promotions, unjust confidential reports etc) submitted to the latter, by the aggrieved serving personnel.

Personnel for staffing this advisory Cell were hand picked, probably for their sense of fair play and integrity. But for most people in uniform all these character qualities come to a grinding halt when there appears to be a clash of interest between the Army as an organization on one hand and an aggrieving individual on the other. Here, natural tendency would be, although it ought not to be, to side with the Army- the Organization.

Fortunately, when this cell was formed, we had a visionary Army Chief who did not feel restricted by such a narrow sense of loyalty. He also could imagine that no member of this Cell would dare go against the organization unless he as the Army Chief, held his hand and therefore felt the need of giving, what we term as, command guidance to the Cell before they could start their work.

He directed that whenever the Cell found that the complaint by the aggrieved serviceman had an adequate merit and that it could be negated only by giving greater weightage to the interest of the Service (Army), the Cell MUST support the aggrieved serviceman and not the other way round. I am not sure how many Army Chiefs around the world would have the courage to take such an anti-organization stand. This is what I call a truly unshackled- free thinking.

We have seen above two digital situations when interest of an individual either clashes or converges with that of an organization. But, is that the only way to look at these two? Must we look at them only as a combination -- when these two either support or contradict each other? Why not view them as separate from each other and judge them independently? Agreed that sometimes, the interest of the organization, like in a World Cup Tournament, would certainly rule supreme and put even an exceptional individual performance into pale. On the other hand, winning or losing loses its sharp edge when myriad such games are played regularly as in Cricket one dayers. Against this background, one must view an exceptional character quality of an individual player – his commitment to the game. Commitment is Dharma. Unfortunately, this commitment can be acknowledged by others only when a player comes good with a sterling performance as Sachin had done today and not otherwise.

Does the argument “team interest outweighs an individual performance” always hold good ? Is commitment to the game less patriotic? Does it always matter whether your team loses or wins even if it may be only of statistical significance?