The Indian School of Discrimination

The Ash-Abhi wedding was supposed to be the biggest media story this fortnight but the dynamic duo of Jade Goody and Shilpa Shetty decided to take the top spot sweeping this hot news from all the channels. Everywhere, you had stories of the British model of racism and the suffering of Shilpa in the hands of a bully Reality TV contestant, Goody, and suddenly UK and India were locked in the biggest diplomatic row between the two countries in recent times.

Enough has been said of the so-called racist attack by Goody and her gang against Shilpa and I’m not going to get into the nuances of the attack involved. Clearly, there were racist remarks involved and Ms. Goody (no longer a Goody, I guess) has been thrown out of Big Brother while the media and the governments on both sides have denounced the racist behaviour in strong terms. There has been a lot of commotion involved with the matter being raised in the British Parliament and widely debated in the media in both countries.

While it’s fine for the ordinary Indian out there to feel outraged, why is the Government dirtying its feet in the entire affair by getting involved unnecessarily? Is the issue so important that it has to issue statements and ask Mr Gordon Brown for an explanation? The British PM-in-waiting, Gordon Brown, in India on a trip, expressed his regrets at the turn of events and stated that such behaviour damages the British image. Our honourable MoS of External Affairs, Anand Sharma, said that “The government will take appropriate measures once it gets to know the full details” while the FM added, for good measure, that the controversy will not affect Anglo-Indian relations. Thank God, we want Arun Sarin and Tesco to invest here, don’t we??

Ms Shilpa, “an award winning Bollywood actress” (as BBC referred to her) is not in “Big Brother” to represent India. She’s being paid about Rs 3.2 crore to be a participant in “Big Brother” – a huge amount for an Indian actress. Like every other Reality TV show, this is another obnoxious show where people live together and fight to vote out each other periodically from the show. Shilpa is very much aware of the rules of the game and should expect such jibes which are more in tune with the kind of programme it is. Getting ragged and then raising the bogey of racism may not look like the smartest thing to do but then, who’s benefited the most??? Shilpa and the programme “Big Brother” of course.

The “Big Brother” acknowledged by a Channel 4 executive as “the most boring BB that we have had in years” was on the verge of being axed and all this publicity has given it a new lease of life. Last heard, Shilpa is being flooded with foreign offers, a move that may revive her career which is currently going nowhere. Now, who can say for sure that his entire conundrum was not the creation of some smart spin doctor who used “racism” as a strategy to boost the TRPs of the programme?

Jade Goody (Wikepedia lists her profession as Reality TV contestant) is of course no do gooder. She has been rightly condemned for her racist behaviour and booted out of the programme. The fact that more than 10,000 complaints were received by Channel 4 expressing the dissatisfaction by the majority against her behaviour probably is a sign of the racist slur actually existing in UK.

Many people have used this controversy to raise their voice against the discrimination they have been facing and the presence of a celebrity like her and the extensive media coverage has only helped them in underscoring their feelings which has been badly shaken, more so in the post-9/11 era.

It is also time for us to look inwards and ask whether our attitudes are any different from the West. Ask the Muslim, who has lost his family and home in the Gujarat riots, how it feels to live under Modi’s rule of law? Ask non-Hindu families how easy it is to get a proper accommodation in “forward looking cosmopolitan” Mumbai? Why do we have villages in Tamil Nadu (and elsewhere) where upper and lower class people are served tea in separate glasses? Did not Khairlanji ridicule our claims of abolishing untouchability? Every now and then, Shiv Sena thugs raise the anti-South Indian bogey, asking “lungi wallahs” to get out of Mumbai (this strategy no longer works, so it has been consigned to the Sena Strategic Archives), while the North-East remains an area which is present merely in the Indian map taught in geography classes in schools.

This brings into picture the nature of the Indian School of Discrimination. Are we merely victims of this racism which is making its appearance everywhere- politics, sports, cinema and you name it. Globalisation has brought about an amalgamation of cultures, at times when people are not ready for it. This conflict surfaces in such situations as exemplified by the “Big Brother” fiasco. So, while the economic status of people may have changed; it has not resulted in much of a social and cultural change.

Fair skin is marketed truly an asset in India, as illustrated by our classified and skin cream ads. Check out the matrimony section of any paper and you will see the demand for fair-skinned, beautiful girls with white, wheatish, “mera wala cream” and god knows what complexions. The Fair and Lovely Ads amplify our obsession with colour with ads promising fair skin and the resulting marriages. All instances of how we worship the “white colour” ourselves though of course, we do not admit it.

And don’t forget the Indian class discrimination. Just for a minute, think that instead of the sultry Shilpa Shetty, it is Rakhi Sawant out there. Would we be so sympathetic about the entire affair? Rakhi has already been branded a “slut”, “item girl” and what not. Her involvement in such an incident would have lead to people brushing aside the case and suggesting that she’s in it only for the money and so no point cribbing. And what is Shilpa there for? Showcasing Indian virtues!!! The poor Indian worker gets railed and abused doing menial work in the Gulf but don’t even expect the Government to bat an eyelid? After all, what are the rights of these nameless people in front of the Shetty babe?

So, while is is fine to condemn racism and other -isms let us not forget where we stand in these matters. Being self-critical is no weakness; as we move ahead, let us not forget that growth does not mean only sound economics but also an ability to respect different views, faiths, cultures and live in harmony in an inclusive fashion, without trampling anyone's feelings.

Finally, there is a business opportunity in every story. The Indian tourism department, in a show of Gandhigiri, invited Ms. Goody to India and the latest news is that she's going to be in India shortly. Now that is a smart PR job!!!

On the Rickshaw's Deathbed

My first recollection of the humble rickshaw is the immortal scene from the Bimal Roy classic Do Bigha Zameen. The protagonist Balraj Sahni keeps galloping across the roads as his customer screams “Aur Tez..Aur tez…” until he finally collapses and the cart topples. It’s been so many years now but this poignant scene remains etched in my consciousness even after such a long time. It once again flashed through my thoughts when I recently read reports banning the rickshaw from our roads. Things haven’t changed; we still want to move faster and faster and the sufferer remains the rickshaw puller…

The hand-pulled cart has been, for years, a quintessential Bengali wonder which has never made it big in the rest of the country. I’m not too sure why this has happened but the Communists now have plans to get rid of this “inhuman” profession which seems to be a stark reminder of everything the red card carriers want to bury. This city has long conjured cliches of humanity’s epic struggle for dignity, amidst grinding poverty. None more so than the Rickshaw wallahs – barefoot human beasts of burden fighting for their very existence on the city’s streets, immortalized on the silver screen by Dominique Lappiere’s City of Joy .

Kolkata attempted to ban the practice in 1996 blaming the rickshaws for clogging up the city’s already congested streets. The pullers fought off that challenge; a year later, it offered rickshaw pullers 7,000 rupees to turn in their vehicles but there were no takers. Now that the Government has amended the 1919 Hackney-Carriage Act governing slow-moving vehicles, you can find comrades hatching a battle plan once again, in their dilapidated union office.

The main grouse raised against these rickshaws is that it is inhuman for anyone to carry the burden of other human beings on themselves. It is a retrograde practice and goes against the spirit of human rights and compassion that we cherish so much more nowadays.

Yes, the hand cart is inhuman and the coolie has a glamorous job profile!!!

I am not too sure what is so inhuman about pulling a cart? It would be inhuman if they were forced into this but they are not. How different is it from the many other labour intensive jobs like working in mines or fields where people have to slog it out for a paltry sum of wages? Does banning the cart that feeds thousands of people give them a greater dignity of labour?

The Government has promised to provide a compensation and alternate means of livelihood. It has said that these hand-pulled carts would be replaced by cycle or motor ones. It has, however, not said if it would provide the rickshaw runners with these new vehicles. Even if the compensation were to be given, it would only be given to the licensed rickshaws, which form a paltry 10% of the overall rickshaws (As per the last estimates about a decade back, there are about 35,000 hand-pulled rickshaws and 45,000 cycle rickshaws). The rest of the faceless set of rickshaws would be driven into unemployment just because the Government thinks it’s better to do nothing than doing something which may be “undignified”.

The rapid pace of urbanization has a corroding effect on the environmental and social conditions in cities. With the auto industry accelerating and the Tatas all ready to roll out their 1 lakh car (where else but in Singur in West Bengal), we can expect an avalanche of polluting automobiles sweeping the roads. But when the Government thinks it’s more important to create SEZs for auto majors, why think about handling the road infrastructure or lack of it?

It may not be very glamorous for the State to be a part of the green brigade but the least it can do is not destroying such non-polluting transportation systems, which employ thousands of people, especially the most vulnerable ones. Cars are owned by well to do people and they contribute heavily to the atmospheric pollution. The sufferers are primarily the people who live in the fringes in cities – on the pavements and slums created by poor infrastructural policies.

Another argument put forward is that rickshaws slow down traffic, leading to congestion at all busy roads. Don’t even think about the numerous cars (currently growing at more than 20% rate) that clog India’s poorly managed roadways and the autos; the culprit is the poor man’s rickshaw. Since it’s easier to ban the rick rather than try to improve the urban infrastructure, the State is going ahead. We live in a fast world where being “slow” is a sin. There’s no time for anything in the world and we cannot wait for things to happen at their own time; anything that does not conform to this principle is archaic and needs to be removed.

Every city has its own set of landmarks or heritage structures which gives it that distinct look and it is the rickshaw, that has dotted the cluttered the lanes of Kolkata, that has served this purpose. Moreover, hand carts are generally used not in the city but in these numerous by-lanes which traverse through the length and breadth of the city. No other means of transportation can take their place through such places. But by targetting this vehicle, the only “non-polluting” means of transportation is being eradicated from the Earth.

But come to think of it, the reason for this sudden enlightenment and human compassion is nothing else - the State’s attempt to hitch their cart onto the band wagon of globalisation. And in this pursuit of money, there's no place for such images of backwardness which have to be cast into the past. Buddhadeb and his party are looking at giving it an image make over and so, the humble rickshaw will be booted from Kolkata’s bylanes. So, if you want the see the rickshaw again, the only place available may be the celluloid screen...

However, if you think that Bengal is the only place determined to get rid of its past, you are wrong. Delhi has banned rickshaws in many parts of the city and China, the home to the largest cycle market, is taking steps to ban them in Shanghai and other places. Globalisation is fine but can’t we try to modify it to have a policy of Green Globalisation, where everyone has a scope to live and let live…

Freedom to Reclaim Lost Dreams

A couple of weeks back, I had written about the Andhraite’s obsession with dollars. While some agreed with my observations, a few others suggested that it is a pan-India issue and that one of our main problems is a lack of career understanding in India. We take up jobs merely because we need jobs and that there’s never been too much of an input for us regarding things like career interests and passions in life. We work because we really do not know what else to do in life.

I have not met too many people who are happy about their work life. Of course, this can be explained as a perennial mindset of many of us who do not how to be happy. But I’ll leave the philosophy part aside and try to understand what drives this stagnant feeling in many of us. We all want to be free, have our own set of choices that dictate our lives but are we actually free to decide our own career paths? Or are we even capable of choosing our own career paths? You read everywhere that the economy is opening up and that opportunity is springing up across all sectors but many of us (me included) are stuck in jobs we did not ask for but have stumbled upon.

We work in life not for ourselves but for our parents, peers, the society and every other block that fits into our sphere of influence. We may want to break out of that mould later but by that time, we become risk averse. The family, spouse and kids come into the picture and so a steady income becomes a necessity. Seduced by thoughts of owning a house or a car, we break up our life into a set of EMIs that go on upto infinity.

Life = Summation(EMI) where n= 1 to infinity

And after sometime, if you were to look into the mirror, you will not see yourself – just a pale shadow of that spunky youth, masquerading as you. The alien facing you has a fast receeding hairline, his paunch enters the frame before his face and you see a plethora of bills floating around him, crying for his attention. You then decide that the mirror has grown too old and replace the mirror, dismissing all these images as mirages which are fleeting and try to get back to the conundrums in your life.

The first thing is to ask ourselves what is it that we want to do or achieve in life. Rashmi Bansal, in an interesting article in rediff, talks about our need for mazza (fun), izzat (respect) and matlab (meaning) in our jobs– her spin on our good old Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, we crammed in our MBA classes. She cites call centre jobs as a fresher’s delight to make a fast buck which may lose its sheen later due to lack of izzat associated with it. The wannabe IT job that I am stranded with gives me the izzat but not the matlab and so there’s a requirement to get out of it. Many of these companies hire people but do not know how to utilize them and they end up as unwanted baggage. Both parties carry on this painful responsibility for too long until a point comes when you become immune to the problem or perish.

The matlab factor may be in the form of sectoral change, entrepreneurship or non-profit jobs or something weird. I am sure 90% of us are not very sure what we want to do or what we are good at. We are like bottle caps tossed up in the high seas, scattered here and there due to the gusts of wind and waves and without any destination in mind but waiting for a captain to steer us to safety some day. But this moment never arises and we regret it much later in life.

We all start with a pure paisa based approach but somewhere, some of us begin to rebel against that. This is either due to a better understanding of our needs, a sense of guilt (don’t write this off- it actually happens) or at times, just the idea to do something offbeat or challenging. The stagnation can be very difficult and requires an outlet but finding that can be equally tough. It requires us to get out of that comfort zone and think beyond the obvious.

The fact that Radio Jockeys, wedding planners and non-profit jobs are gaining some modicum of respect is a good sign but then how many of us find ourselves in such “off-beat” professions. We all need greater career counselling services to select our areas of interest and work in them, without any sense of inhibition. We live in such capsule existences that we are not aware of the various opportunities around us and so we take the off-beaten tracks of engineering and medicine. Why? Because we need to tell the society that we are gainfully employed, as per its perceptions.

As an inspiration, just check out this organization - Room to Read, started by John Wood, Microsoft’s erstwhile Director of Business Development for the Greater China Region. In 1998, John Wood was a rising executive at Microsoft when he took a vacation that changed his life. What started as a trekking holiday in Nepal became a spiritual journey, and then a mission: to change the world one book and one child at a time by setting up libraries in the developing world. He was soon driven to leave his career with only a loose vision of the change he wanted to bring to the world. Room to Read is now an award-winning non-profit organization that has established more than 3000 libraries and donated more than 2 million books and started about 200 schools. Make sure to grab a copy of the “Leaving Microsoft to Change the World”, written by him, where he discusses his decisions, his quest to change the world and his current work.

I love the Tata Dicor ad which targets us, the segment of bored well-to-do class of customers and says so much more with its punch line “Reclaim your Life”. I am looking forward to live those lines…

I always wanted to quit on a Monday morning..
I always wanted to swim with the whales…
I always wanted to take a one-year trip… around the world
I always wanted…I always wanted…

Looking forward to any suggestions to live life fully and escape from the cubicles of Dilbert in which many of us find ourselves trapped in. Let’s not grow old, regretting our inability to enjoy our existence and work and lead dull dreary monotonous lives….Life’s worth so much more than that…I’d like to stop working for money but hey, who will take care of my EMIs???

Don't ignore Irom Sharmila

Identify this photo. You will not be able to do so; even if I were to give her name, you will not be able to recognize her. She has also not made it to the front cover of tabloids like the Times of India and would continue to remain this way as an example of our lack of concern for “the fringes”. Mamta Banerjee went on a hunger strike recently but called it off after 25 days after high level intervention while this frail lady has been fasting for the past six years and the only thing that has happened so far is that she has been arrested repeatedly for attempted suicide but no attempts have been made to address the main issue.

Irom Sharmila, 35, has been on a hunger strike since November 2000 protesting against the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act 1958 (AFSPA) in Manipur which gives the Armed Forces draconian powers, worse than even in TADA or POTA . AFSPA is a law that can come into force in any part of India, declared as “disturbed”. The act allows anyone of any rank in the army or a paramilitary force under its operational command to shoot, arrest or search without warrant; and to kill on suspicion alone. Furthermore, there is little scope for judicial remedy. The legislation defines 'disturbed' as an area which requires the aid of the armed forces, without spelling out criteria. This has led to states being declared 'disturbed' for years — Nagaland for 46 years and Manipur (Sharmila’s state) for 24.

Her epic fast started six years back when the Army, in retaliation to an insurgent attack, went berserk and shot dead 10 civilians. From then till now, Sharmila has been observing a fast against the repeal of this act but to no avail. Instead she’s been arrested on charges of attempted suicide and put into custody repeatedly without granting bail. She has also been nose-fed forcibly to prevent her fast. Her frail 35 year old body has grown extremely weak but she continues to stand firm in the true spirit of Gandhigiri.

The Central Government had constituted a high level official panel under Justice BP Jeevan Reddy Committee to review the provisions of AFSPA. The Commission, in its 147 page report, in June 2005,stated that the protection of soldiers from legal proceedings already existed under Section 49 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 (ULP Act) and unambiguously recommended repealing the law. However, the Central Government has been sitting on the report since then and the Defence Minister A K Antony recently stated that the law will not be repealed but will be made more “humane”.

This law has been in force for almost 50 years now but this has not led to any insurgency reduction in the North-East. If after all these years, the Government refuses to look at this matter as a social and political problem and tries to flex military power to address the problem, it reflects poorly on the State. This lack of progress should have spurned the Government to abandon it rather than stand by it but it stubbornly refuses to engage with the political leadership of the insurgent groups and continues with its one-dimensional thinking.

We are quite proud of our democratic setup and do not hesitate to emphasise this when we compare ourselves to China but isn't it shocking that we have such archaic laws which infringe upon our human rights. The Government is least bothered and is not willing to invest time and energy on such minor issues because it believes that there are several other pressing issues to be taken care of. The indifference is quite appalling and Amnesty International and the United Nations Human Right Committee have expressed their concern over India on its continuation of denial of democracy.

The Indian Army is too much of a holy cow to be criticized, so any excesses done are painted as “counter insurgency operations” and the people who condemn such incidents are “leftists” or “pseudo-intellectuals” who do not understand ground realities. This allegation may be true in many cases but we need to be self-critical and not always gung-ho about our systems – this is an important activity on our growth as a democracy that cares for people.

But then has the North-East ever been on the radar of either the media or the administration? It stands alienated at some corner of the country, abandoned by the State and the elite and let down by the liberals. The North-East has never meant to us anything more than maybe a Bhupen Hazarika, a Danny or a Baichung Bhutia .There have been thousands of deaths (reported and unreported) but our concern or rather lack of concern for the “fringe people” – that was what we have reduced them to- is rather shameful.

There’s a media blind spot towards issues affecting the North-East and therefore anything to the north of Bengal has become of no concern to the rest of the country. We look at it in the form of a nuisance value being created by a set of rag tag guerillas, supported by an “invisible foreign hand”, merely out to foment trouble in the country. After all, when the country is making giant strides, why would you care for people going over insignificant fasts in alien parts of the country?

Thomas Friedman refers to the world as a flat entity but as Noble Prize winner Joseph Steiglitz says in his interview to The Hindu recently, “...not only is the world not flat but in many ways it's getting less flat”. The difference between the haves and the have-nots increases, so while the Government focuses on greater economic policies, it forgets that social and economic factors must never be looked at in isolation and a lot of social problems crop up due to economic disparities. Let us not look at human rights as a dispensable commodity which can be negotiated when the time arrives; that would be a failure of the idea of a "Welfare State".

We have just welcomed the New Year with a great deal of pomp and joy but as we sit in our AC cubicles and drawing rooms, let us spare a minute for the likes of Irom Shamila and others who are waging their own lone battles against the State. The fight for basic human survival is universal and we must support it wholeheartedly.

Dollar Dreams from Andhra

It’s almost New Year now and a time when friends have their regular get together discussing the hits and misses of their lives over a dinner or a couple of drinks. This year also marks 10 years when I left my school to enter a new world .While contemplating a meeting to celebrate this, I realized that I am among the rare species of my batch who’s decided to not to pack my bags and flee India. There are just so many guys out there in the US that a get together there makes so much more sense than here.

What is that makes the average Andhraite so obsessed with the idea of going abroad or more precisely the US of A? He may not have any great visions on what to do when he goes there but he sure wants to land there, irrespective of the kind of work he does there. I have had friends working in petrol pumps and in bars in US which they would have never thought of doing in India. I attribute this to the mindset and the upbringing that has led them to believe that a Green Card ensures that the grass on the other side is always green.

I remember when I had given my job interview in ICICI Bank, I was asked how come I had done engineering and then moved over to MBA. I had answered that as a proper South Indian, I had become an engineer. May not be the best answer to give in an interview but that was the truth. South India generally suffers from a certain genetic disorder which forces them to become either engineers or doctors and I guess the problem is more accentuated in Andhra Pradesh.

The peer pressure of becoming an engineer and going to US is pretty high for the Andhraite. Right from childhood, he is constantly fed the mantra of “IIT” into his ears and by the time he is through with his primary school, he is ready to enter the haloed corridors of the IITs. In Andhra, students join coaching classes who tutor them to join Ramaiah or Krishnamurthy IIT coaching factories. These institutes then coach this select group of students for the IIT entrance exam. So, the crème-le-crème of the state is selected to train them into becoming IITians. For all those who do not enter IIT, we have a host of other engineering colleges which cater to this huge demand for engineers.

Post-engineering, most of the students take their GRE exam to do their M.S. abroad. Now this is of course a laudable attempt at higher education but you realize that the idea in many cases is not inspired by the concept of higher education but by the mere idea of going abroad and fulfilling the dreams that have been sown in their minds, for all these years, by their friends and family. They could be forgiven for assuming that it was for quality higher education. This argument must have made sense sometime back but now?

When one of my classmates had come down recently from Canada, he gave me gyan saying that the problem here is that people do not recognize you for your efforts unlike in the West and that there’s no strong incentive to work in such an environment. Nonsense, I say, what the hell am I doing here then? With a thought process like that and an outlook which fails to understand the progress we have made, I am really not surprised at such a remark.

The dowry amount is a strong incentive that drives parents to dream of their kids ensconced safely in California and elsewhere, while they spend days waiting for them to come back one day. So a B.Tech guy who commands a dowry price of say, Rs 10 lakh, would probably move into the 25 lakh+ category once he carries the “American abbayi” tag. I have seen palatial houses here constructed on the basis of the dollars sent back home but just a lonely couple waiting for their loved ones to come back one day and share their moments with them.

Friends tell me that this kind of exodus of people from one’s state is not a solitary case and they cite the classic example of Kerala where at least one member of every family works in the Gulf (more than 2 million of them in the Gulf). Numerically and statistically, the argument works but honestly, there’s no comparison between the 2 states when you look at the reasons for this. Majority of the Keralites employed in the Gulf work at lower strata in the Gulf society and do not represent the well-to do crowd there. This emigration is more to do with Kerala’s vehement anti-employment policy, which encourages people to look for other avenues for jobs.

But it is not my point that this flight of intellectual capital is wrong and that people should not leave our shores. After all, merely working in India does not make us any more patriotic. I am not even deriding the claims of subsidised technical education at the IITs though that can also be avalid point.Working outside India is a natural consequence of globalization where we export our most abundant natural resource-labour. This has also lead to a great deal of knowledge transfer that has been of immense utility to the country. The NRI remittances from there also contribute to a great deal in sustaining their families, though I also believe that this inflow (along with the IT pay packages) has fuelled to quite an extent Hyderabad’s inflationary real estate prices.

There’s something less tangible that we probably lose as we stay away from our roots; something I feel at a micro level when I am staying about 1500 odd km from my hometown. My point rests at a more emotional level about a sense of loss and erosion of identity that happens over a period of time.This becomes more pronounced as each generation goes by; somewhere akin to the loss of a certain genetic material found in us. Maybe it’s a purely emotional thought but as we go further away from our roots, there exists a certain loss of identity which is hard to regain as time passes.

The Tata Singur Impasse

The Singur controversy has attracted a strange set of bedfellows-the Tatas and the Left Government on one side representing the so-called “capitalists” and Mamta, BJP, Medha Patkar on the other representing “people’s interests”. Politically, the Rajas and Yechurys are conveniently silent and the entire issue has become Buddha’s lone fight. It's best to ignore Mamta madam’s theatrical outbursts and so I am keeping aside the politics involved here, though the clincher in the deal may be politics.

Singur is a village about 50 km northwest of Kolkata and is predominantly an agricultural area. The Tatas want to set up their small car unit here and have estimated about 997 acres of land for this. 950 acres has already been agreed and the remaining 47 acres is still being negotiated, but we know what the result would be. The compensation agreement entails owners of single-crop land to receive Rs 8.4 lakh per acre and Rs 12 lakh an acre if the land was used for double-cropping.

The issues involved, broadly, as I understand are:

1.Agricultural land for industrialization:

Most of the land acquired for the purpose of setting up the land is agricultural and fertile land. A pro-Left article claims that this is because of paucity of non-agricultural land at West Bengal. But Bengal accounts for only 3.8% of the total agricultural land in India, so that argument does not cut ice. Even if it is so, why are the Tatas insisting on acquiring this land? For a company known for its CSR, this seems like an aberration unless they take pains to explain their decision. Is the locational advantage so tremendous that the company has to set up base there or is it because of the sops being offered by the West Bengal Government?

2.Total Land Area Required:

If a Maruti Udyog with an installed capacity of 3.5 lakh cars a year requires a total land area of 300 acres, do the Tatas require three times that much land for producing only one lakh cars? Maybe they do but then shouldn’t they be transparent about it and tell the farmers and the public what they wish to do with this land? Surely, their PRO can do a better job about this rather than maintaining a dogged stance on this aspect and insisting on going ahead with the same plans.

3.Compensation payment:

There seems to be a fairly good consensus that the compensation package paid by the Government is more than adequate and more than 94% of the land owners have agreed to sell of the land because of this. But then, it’s not just the land owners who are involved here. After the land reforms instituted here under Operation Barga, most of the land rests in the hands of land owners while the revenue/produce is shared between the land owners and the share croppers (who get the land cultivated). There are also the farmers who do the actual tilling on the land and work as daily wage earners – all this makes it a more elaborate sub-contracting set-up among owners, croppers and workers. It needs to be ensured that all the three concerned parties are compensated for this sale adequately and not just the land owners.

4.Employment opportunities for the displaced:

As mentioned earlier, there are several daily wage workers who would lose out when this land goes to corporates. This loss of livelihood may have to be compensated by the company in terms of employing them in the company or elsewhere and would again require them to train the workers in other skills. The Tatas reportedly plan to train workers for this but past records of most land acquisitions do not give us much of a comfort. We do not have a system to evaluate the effectiveness of the compensation provided and the aftermath of such acquisitions. There have been cases where the displaced receive monetary compensation but their future remains uncertain due to lack of investment knowledge and absence of any other skill sets.

Currently, agricultural land in India cannot be sold for non-agricultural purposes, so such sales happen only when the government comes into the picture by a back door approach of acquiring land from rural areas and selling it to corporates. But should they involve themselves in such transactions only for public utilities like roads, flyovers etc. or should they do this even for sale to private individuals? There may be people who do not wish to sell the space but are forced to do so because the Government thinks it is for the “greater good”.

Do we give farmers the right to sell their land to anyone they wish to? Since right to Property is not a Fundamental right (it was removed under the 44th amendment Act in 1978 by the Janata Party), it becomes an arbitrary call by the government. This naturally depresses the land prices due to lack of buyers and becomes a liability for farmers who want to move out of agriculture. The very idea of this law was to prevent reduction of agricultural land and acquisition of land by loan-sharks and corporates.

However, freeing land sales may also lead to the land going back to the hands of money lenders and zamindars – again a reversal of the process of democratization of land. Moreover, we cannot reduce the worker’s dependence on agriculture suddenly without adequately training him otherwise. And if you train him, will he be gainfully employed?

At a more macro-level, there’s a school of thought which believes that since agricultural productivity is low, the land should be utilized where it gives the best revenue. An argument for effective utilization of resources but I’m not too sure about this approach. A blogger has accused the middle class of romanticizing the notion of rural agriculture when it is totally a loss making concept.

Is agriculture a viable option, especially, considering the dependence of farmers on so many extraneous factors in agriculture like monsoon, price fluctuations, seed quality etc? With stagnant agricultural growth and lack of governmental interest (except in WTO forums and election manifestos), we may require providing farmers with this freedom to sell so that farmlands are easily disposable. This ease of disposal also brings in more buyers and increases the land rates.

However, any such decision must also take into account the social and environmental fallout of rapid and massive industrialization. Somewhere, we need to take a middle path between environmental and economic considerations. We cannot look at either of them in isolation and the challenge is to marry the two interests such that any “collateral damage” is limited. Future wars may be fought on energy and food security, as the Iraqi wars and African conflicts show and we need to be ready for that.

The Great Indian Retail Mela

Ending months of speculation, Bharti has, finally, decided to hitch in with the largest company in the world, Wal-Mart, for its maiden foray into retailing. The American giant beat the British retailing numero uno, Tesco, in this venture- its first ever on Indian shores. The Tesco deal did not come through due to difference in roll-out plans between the two parties. Moreover, Wal-Mart's expertise in running a sophisticated $1.6bn (£830m) sourcing operation in India also helped it to clinch the deal.

All of a sudden, the papers are all about The Great Indian Retail Boom and everyone is vying for a share of the Indian retail pie. This sector is the 2nd largest employer, after the agriculture sector, employing 21 million people, roughly 6% of the country’s total workforce and contributing 13% of the GDP. After being stagnant for years with Lifestyle, Shopper’s Stop, and Pantaloons etc., we are witnessing big players entering the market. The Tatas have recently floated their retail chain, Infiniti Retail, and are collaborating with Australian retailer Woolworth to start their multi-brand durables store, Croma.

The Aditya Birla Group, like Reliance, is going alone and I believe that they have bought space in Punjab for their retail venture. Reliance has, in its characteristic fashion, come up with huge plans – one store in the radius of every 2 km. Its new venture, Reliance Fresh, is currently stocking only vegetables, fruits and diary products but is expected to increase its base slowly, just as Food World had done.

The Indian organized retail market accounts for only 2% of the total retail market as compared to 20% in China. The industry is quite regulated and foreign players cannot directly enter the market. Current norms allow foreign retailers to set up shop in India via the franchisee route, as has been done by the likes of Marks & Spencer and Mango. Foreign retailers are allowed outlets if they manufacture products in India (Benetton) or source their goods domestically. FDI is also permitted in cash-and-carry outlets, where goods are sold only to those who intend using them for commercial purposes (Metro, Shoprite) (Source: The Hindu Business Line).

Retail outlets are, in terms of size, primarily of three types, – you have supermarkets, hypermarkets and the kirana general stores. A hypermarket, pioneered by France’s Carrefour chain, is a supermarket departmental store which carries a huge range of products under its roof, like Giant and Big Bazaar. They occupy huge space and are few in number. Supermarkets, like Reliance Fresh and Food World, are generally smaller and sell primarily household items. They are generally based in residential centres with a decent purchasing power. Kirana stores are the small unbranded departmental stores which are spread everywhere and require less investment.

Returning to the Wal-Mart story, its overseas strategy has been a mixed bag and its struggles in Germany, Japan and Korea have been a cause of concern. A sluggish retail US market has forced it to look overseas, especially the giant Indian and Chinese markets. It has done pretty well in China and is bullish about India too. The market regulations have forced it to enter India as a faceless partner, something it would never have done a few years back.

Wal-Mart’s JV with Bharti entry gives it an opportunity to explore the Indian retail market without too much investment. Bharti has no retail expertise to run this business and therefore, would serve as the front end to the back end logistics support provided by Wal-Mart. This will help Wal-Mart set up shop in future, whenever it chooses to venture out alone and also help in understanding the local culture, which has been its Achilles heel in other markets.

The fear of foreign retailers threatening the local stores is probably unfounded because of the difference in their value propositions and customer segments they cater to. Their entry threatens the bigger Indian players and not the kirana stores. So, the loss of labour point does not stand good; local stores face greater competition from Indian retailers than foreign ones.

For the Indian retailers to succeed, they need to invest in more efficient supply chains, cold chains and increased farmer relationships which call for greater investment which can come through FDI. Increasing real estate prices also calls for heavy investment and the inflows are slow. Footfalls need not translate into revenues and margins are low because of the competition involved and the high fixed costs.

The Food Worlds and Big Bazaars still count on the small base of higher middle classes and upper classes as their customers. While brand loyalty is not a strong factor in the grocery industry, local stores are able to retain their customers because of their personal relationship and rapport with customers. They provide goods on credit to customers and also do free home deliveries. This customer relationship differentiates them from branded retail outlets which are generally frequented by customers, who are willing to pay for the convenience of one-stop shop, the brand value, high end products and the scope for window shopping.

The consumer would eventually benefit because of the choices available to him. There are, of course, fears of predatory pricing (another Wal-Mart’s legacy) and labour problems caused by the entry of foreign players. Wal-Mart’s strategy of “Everyday Low Pricing” has caused a lot of heart-burn not only among local retailers which try to attract customers with promotional strategies and differential pricing but also its suppliers by squeezing them relentlessly. A lot of criticism has also been levelled against the labour and market practices of these big retailers, including low wages, poor work conditions and unhealthy monopolistic practices.

The problems that Indian retailers face would be in finding the right kind of format for the Indian consumer. The Indian consumer is himself not a one-dimensional entity; he has varied tastes dictated by substantial geographical and cultural differences. A Food World in Mumbai may not stock the same products as a Food world in Hyderabad and this may filter down to differences even within its outlets in Hyderabad, say Banjara Hills and Habshiguda. There are also infrastructural problems in terms of parking space, poor logistics and a low focus on CRM which have to be addressed by them.

E-retailing has not caught the fancy of retailers here and the expertise of foreign retailers will help in bridging this technology and supply chain gap. There are also very few players in the semi-urban and rural markets despite all the talk about the fortune at the bottom of the pyramid which clearly suggests a huge untapped market.

So, is there a successful Indian retail model which can be used as the benchmark for all further retailing activities? There may never be so and this, probably, presents the biggest challenge for the Indian retail industry.