The present days when the citizens are getting increasingly engaged in civic issues could very well be the ‘now or never’ time to rescue Indian Democracy. Talking to people from different walks of life has led me to believe that they are now getting serious in this kind of engagement and they understand that it does not begin and end with elections. There is so much earnestness in people from all backgrounds in wanting to engage with the electoral process. People are keen to know how they can participate, what are the exact questions they need to ask the political class when they come to canvass, and what are the essentials to look for in the candidates that they should be voting for.

People also understand that one can no longer complain that money and caste equations decide ‘winnability’. This situation has arisen only because the voter has allowed it to be so. The common man is as much responsible for this state of affairs as the politician and the parties are. We now need to work together to redefine winnability. Performance and accountability need to be the yardsticks on which we decide on who represents us in our Legislature and Parliament.

The first step is to ensure that we are registered as voters. The next step is to study and analyze the list of people contesting for the elections at whatever level they are held. We need to make sure that we make our choice based on parameters other than money, inducements, caste and the party. We need to make our choice based on the competence of the person, the qualification, the skills he (or she) would bring to the office of being an elected representative, his financial and criminal records and his ability to engage with us – the common citizen of his constituency.

We also need to ensure that we do not relax after completing the voting formality. We need to keep track of our legislators and parliamentarians, their performance in the house, their knowledge and opinion on key issues and not reduce them to the role of merely helping us get transfers done or the potholes in our road repaired. We also need to continuously engage with them for their entire term and make sure that they are held accountable for their performance.

If we trace democracy back to its roots, we discover that neither its appearance nor its survival is inevitable. Voting helps safeguard our freedom and fundamental rights. A democratic community can only survive if its citizens see participation in the political process as a duty and a responsibility. Voting connects us to one another as citizens. By agreeing or disagreeing with our leaders through voting we show that the political system can accept differing points of view and can resolve them. By not voting, we break the connections between individual Indians and our community. Finally, voting connects citizens with our political process. It helps choose our leaders, determines the kind of government we will have, and ultimately the kind of country we will live in.

India is going through exciting and paradoxical times. On one side, we have so much and yet so little. We are seeing economic growth of nearly 8% over the last many years but still have 25% of the world’s burden of poverty. Nations who have made enormous social and economic progress have been able to do so only because they have had responsive and responsible governments. While we cannot wish away the role of the elected representatives in Governance today, we need to ensure that we hold them accountable to the performance that the situation demands. We need to engage with them on a continual basis and work with them in ushering in true participatory democracy where each one of us has a say in the development processes that affect us.

All this begins with the kind of people we chose to represent us. Mere complaining on what we get will not change the situation. We need to now involve ourselves constructively in understanding the people we will vote for, assess their capabilities, and give them a chance to explain their vision to us and interact and partner with them in making sure that they deliver on the promise of good governance.

Let each one of us take on our civic responsibility seriously and begin by making informed choices. Let us not forget that we will only get the leaders we deserve. We need to vote not because it is our fundamental right alone; we need to vote because it is the beginning of making India a vibrant and healthy democracy. Merely being the largest democracy is not enough anymore. We need to make Democracy every Indian’s business. For after all, we cannot let our country be led all the time. We should lead it by choosing the right leaders.

- Balu

- Balu

- Balu

At its core is the pretense that giving a unique 12-digit number to each underprivileged citizen will achieve what hundreds of welfare schemes and numerous efforts to control corruption have failed to accomplish: pilferage-free delivery of services to the poor. Aadhaar (meaning support, foundation or sustenance) is being projected as a magic wand, just what the poor need from a benevolent State.

Aadhaar‘s legitimacy is pinned on benefiting the underprivileged. But as with all magic wands, this could prove illusory. This is to be achieved by collecting basic information (name, address, parents’ names, date of birth, etc) and biometric data (photographs, all ten fingerprints, iris scans) for each resident. This will be used to generate a Unique Identification number (UID) that can be used to conduct all manner of transactions – from buying rations on BPL cards, to NREGA enrollment, to opening a bank account. It’s claimed that the UID will ensure non-duplication and hence eliminate leakage. As we see below, this claim is excessive, if not false.

Aadhaar‘s origin and real purpose are rooted in ‘national security’, including surveillance, profiling and tracking of citizens. The UIDs will be fed into a database and shared with Natgrid (National Intelligence Grid), which includes 11 security and intelligence agencies (Intelligence Bureau, Research and Analysis Wing, CBI, Central Boards of Excise and Direct Taxes, etc). Natgrid, to be created by next May, will provide real-time access into 21 databases – including bank account details, credit card transactions, driving licences, and travel records.

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) starts with the premise that ‘in many areas NREGA wages continue to be paid in cash’ and there is massive duplication of job cards. This is factually wrong. Three ways of siphoning off money remain – extortion, collusion and fraud. Extortion means that when ‘inflated’ wages are withdrawn by labourers from their account, the middleman turns extortionist and takes a share. Collusion occurs when the labourer and the middleman agree to share the inflated wages. Fraud means that middlemen open and operate accounts on behalf of labourers. UID can at best help prevent fraud, not collusion or extortion, which are far more common. A great deal of corruption is not wage-related, but materials-related. Aadhaar cannot tackle this. Only transparent accounting and supervision and verification can.

Similarly, the UIDAI attributes PDS leakages only to duplicate ration cards. But duplication has dropped significantly after computerization of records and hologrammed cards. Unike Karnataka, it is only two percent in Tamil Nadu and eight percent in Chhattisgarh. There are two major sources of leakage within the PDS. One, diversion of grain en route to the village ration shop. Dealers then appear helpless saying that they have been issued less. Two, dealers undersell (for example, only 25 kg out of the 35 kg entitlement) and yet make people testify on official records that they got their full quota.

Neither leakage can be tackled by Aadhaar. In fact, by making Aadhaar a condition for delivering services, the Government will exclude those who don’t have it. This is perverse and contradictory. On one hand, UIDAI officials claim Aadhaar will accurately target the poor and break the barriers that prevent them from accessing services. On the other, UIDAI openly says that it is in the identity business. The responsibility of tracking beneficiaries and service delivery will continue to remain with the respective agencies. The UID number will only guarantee identity, not rights, benefits or entitlements.

This project also has grave civil liberty implications. It will enable the Government to profile citizens and track their movements and transactions. There is no guarantee that intimately personal details won’t be shared with other agencies.

Excessive reliance on technology, especially to tackle special problems like corruption, can be disastrous. Technologies can fail. Biometric readings can go wrong if power supply fails – as happens virtually daily in most of India. People with low-quality fingerprints (construction workers) and with cataract/corneal problems can pose problems for fingerprints and iris scans. Between 10 and 60 million people could be excluded from UID due to such errors. Aadhaar poses serious data security problems. ID card schemes, says a London School of Economics study, are too complex, technically unproven and unsafe. All kinds of supposedly secure databases/websites, including those of India’s defense ministry and the Pentagon, have been hacked. Data theft and transfer to intelligence agencies or corporations have potentially horrendous consequences. This and the high cost are the reasons why many countries including the UK, US and Australia have abandoned National ID cards.

According to reports, UID’s per person cost is estimated to have jumped from Rs 31 to between Rs 450 and 500. Aadhaar will therefore probably cost something like Rs 150,000 crore. Yet, the project is being pushed through without a legal basis, and without public or parliamentary debate. Only recently, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance has raised strong objections to continuing Aadhaar in its present form. What people like Akkamma need is not some expensive and questionable system but a more responsive public service delivery system which is efficient and corruption free to make her life as an Indian citizen fulfilling and meaningful.

- Balu

- Balu

Swamiji lived for only 39 years (1863 – 1902) but left behind a Nation deeply inspired by him and his teachings. Apart from the Ramakrishna Mission that he established, there are hundreds of other organizations that have found inspiration from his nationalistic and service ideals and have been quietly carrying on the work of national reconstruction.

Swamiji was a multifaceted personality. His talks and writings covered a vast array of subjects. This led to a wide variety of people being inspired by him and each one saw him in a perspective that was suited to their own temperament. If a few saw him as a monk, others saw him as a philosopher, orator, writer, nationalist, friend of the poor, and a fiercely independent thinker. A few of us saw in him the ideals of service and sacrifice, that he so fondly called our ‘national ideals’.

As a young impressionable 17-year-old, when I first read his works, what struck me deeply was his love and concern for the poor and the less fortunate. For Swamiji, the amelioration of the masses was of a greater concern than his own moksha. Over the years, as I started to internalize and understand his works better, I began to learn and interpret his teachings as that coming from the mind of a ‘development thinker’. My own understanding of development is built around Swamiji’s call for the constant evolution of man. From this understanding was built my view of development being the constant expansion of human capabilities. This whole concept was based on the indomitable and ‘never say die’ spirit of man, whom Swamiji considered as a representation of God himself. Swamiji’s concept of service was very simple – learn to serve the God in man and you achieve not only the betterment of society but also the spiritual evolution one’s own self.

Swamiji’s development philosophy was practical and has socialist leanings. His writings clearly indicate how he differentiated charity from development. He knew that people below the safety net needed charity, while at the same time he felt that it should not be disempowering and make them dependants on others. He wanted any act of service to be filled with respect and dignity for both the participants – the so called ‘provider’ and the ‘recipient’. His statements like “I do not believe in a religion or God that cannot wipe away the widow’s tears or bring a piece of bread to the orphan’s mouth” show not only his concern for the marginalized but also brings in the religious basis for both service and development programs. His remark that “half a loaf of bread is better than no bread at all” reflects the socialist leaning in him. At the same time, he realized that any economic growth had to be inclusive without hurting either the rich or the poor. He writes, “It is not by bringing down the rich but by pushing up the poor can we hope to bring in equity”. Apart from being intensely practical, it provides the space for all to participate in a growing economy like India of today. No wonder his brother Mahendranath, a known communist of his days called Vivekananda one of the greatest socialists that he knew of. He said about Swamiji that spirituality’s gain was socialism’s loss. Swamiji also realized that equity could not and should not be something that is forced on people either through the State or by violence.

Swamiji always maintained that it was only by ‘evolution’ and not by ‘revolution’ that India should grow and progress. And all this he wanted to happen on the platform of science and technology. He always felt that what India needed was a scientific temperament in everything that it did, and this would go a long way in ushering in the much-needed change in the lives of the masses. His constant concern for the masses and what needed to be done is reflected in the many letters he wrote to his disciples and the Maharajas of different princely states in India.

Celebrating his birthday should go beyond mere sloganism and iconization. We need to integrate his message into our daily lives. Swami Vivekananda is more relevant to India and her progress today than a century ago. We now need to ensure that his life and message becomes integral to the development interventions that both the Government and NGOs undertake in the pursuit of national reconstruction.

- Balu

As I was watching them discuss and debate Kalamma’s problem, my mind was drawn to what was happening in Andhra Pradesh over the last many years. A large number of profit seeking micro-finance institutions had extended more than 6,000 crore rupees in loans to millions of women. Many of them were forced to take loans and make repayments and this led them deeper into poverty. Hundreds of women unable to bear the pressure of making repayments have committed suicide. It has become such a large problem that the Government had to step in and begin regulating this industry. All that had happened was, suave executives using technology and huge capital to leverage profit out of these unsuspecting poor, had replaced the local money-lender.

Unfortunately, in our haste to capitalize on the enormous power and potential of self-help, Government and NGOs around the world have reduced it to a mere micro-finance movement. People have forgotten the underlying principle of self-help that is so empowering and filled with dignity and have reduced it to a vehicle providing loans and affecting recoveries.

We need to understand that poverty is an experience that only the poor can relate to. It is the poor who understand the needs of the poor best. They understood their own difficulties, got together to save their money, and with their saved money they would extend credit to the poorest of the poor. The interest they determined was correlated to the paying capacity of the individuals themselves. It was a wonderful mechanism where the poor not only understood their needs, but also understood their paying capacities. They also went beyond mere savings and credit. The finance part was only the excuse and many groups evolved into true self-help groups and provided the members with the psychological, social and political strength that only groups can give individual members. There was very little outside influence or intervention. When Self Help Groups (SHGs) started more than 3 decades ago, they were reasonably community driven and community centric. The loan amounts given out were determined by the absorption capability of the group members. They were not determined by the amount of money the group had. When the Government came into this business a few years ago, they offered a seed capital without considering the group dynamics or the strengths and weaknesses of the participating members. There was no evolutionary process or any training; there was no understanding of what credit was; there was no understanding of what savings could do or not do. All that they thought was seed capital would kick-start an economic process and bring the women and their families out of poverty.

Organized and large-scale micro-finance institutions (MFIs) further damaged this concept of self-help. These people were driven not just by social concerns. They might have started for social concerns, but once they started the process I think they were driven mostly by economic concerns of their own profitability. Recovery became more organized. Interest rates were not determined by the ability of people to pay but by how much the bank needed to get back. While many NGOs were passionately committed to the social benefits, the present breed of MFIs is trained to run these institutions on business principles.

Self Help Groups operated not on the ability of its members to repay but on the ability of poor to use the credit for generating more wealth to get out of the poverty trap, and kept the interest rate such that it did not become a burden. They did not lend money to make profits from the interests. They lent money to get someone out of poverty. Whereas the MFIs give out loans with the focus being on recoveries rather than on what the poor can do with their loans. These agencies have interest rates of 40-50%, which to the poor looks smaller than the 100-120% they would otherwise pay to the local money-lender.

Today we have International MFIs who are actually going to public to raise funds exactly like a private company raising funds. Raising public funds means paying out dividends and this forces one to charge large interest to not only cover their own operating costs but also give them sufficient room to make large profits and pay it out as dividends to the investors. The poor in this entire operation is a mere statistic rather than an inclusive participant seeking to get out of the poverty trap.

One understands the need for a large influx of capital into the rural areas to kick-start the economy. But then they need to be socially conscious MFIs with the ability to look at the larger picture and go beyond mere finance. We need to have a hybrid solution wherein the small and local self-help group operates with the benefit of easy access and availability of credit that tie ups with larger MFIs can provide. They need to build on the strength of sitting together in small groups, discussing their problems and find contextually relevant solutions. Not just for their financial problems, but also for their everyday local issues. The way micro-finance is designed, it is limited to only look at economic empowerment and its spinoffs. The empowerment process that happens in SHGs is much more complex, much more multi-dimensional, and follows an ecosystem approach.

What the micro-credit movement needs is to go beyond being unidimensionally focused on just money. It needs to look at the power of communities – of community engagement, community ownership and community centricity. What we need is the members determining the rates of interest, determining whether the loans are for consumption or production, determining the amount of wealth they can absorb or need. We also need to empower people with the training and the tools. One needs to ensure that the technology that is brought in does not exclude the poor and is something that the women can handle. True self-help is when the women are made the drivers of change, the owners of the groups that they run, and take responsibility for the development that determines how they live and cope with the challenges of poverty. This can happen only when it is a community-driven process and not external agency driven. The micro-finance industry is just the body, they need to get a soul and transform into a true self-help movement.

- Balu

- Balu

His life was full of very noteworthy achievements. Coming from a very simple background, Dr Rao specialized in the field of Archaeology when very few ventured into the same. Joining the Department of Archaeology of the Government of Karnataka, he rose to become its Director. Later on he was appointed as the Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India. During his tenure, he was responsible for preparing a detailed project report for the restoration of Angkor Wat in Cambodia.

I first met him nearly twenty years ago, when he drove all the way down to Kenchanahalli to invite me to deliver a lecture to international students on development issues that rural India faced. That was the first of my many interactions with him and I was deeply impressed with his scholastic achievements and his passion & commitment to the cause of Indian Studies. Our friendship over the years flowered and in 2007 he requested that we set up a dedicated Institute for Indian Studies within SVYM. That was how the Vivekananda Institute of Indian Studies was born on January 12, 2008 on the auspicious day of Vivekananda Jayanthi. He took charge as the Director of the Institute and committed himself to building it into what it is today.

Dr Rao had friends and well wishers all over the world and there was hardly anyone that he did not know in Mysore. He was a very devoted Rotarian and there have been numerous projects that he associated himself with during his life. Dr Rao brought such energy into everything that he did. There was nothing that was difficult or impossible for him to do. I still fondly recollect how despite his diabetes and dialysis, he sat through the day with all of us in front of the Gandhi statue in Mysore, protesting against corruption in public life. He constantly egged me on to go to Harvard and but for his support and encouragement, I would have found it difficult to do so. Despite his age and failing health, he was always seen perpetually busy with activities related to VIIS.

He would always tell me that he would never really retire and death was the only way of separating him from his work. Dr Rao finally had his wish and all of us at SVYM will miss him terribly. His support, mentoring, obstinacy and ‘never say die’ attitude will be sorely missed and we know that no one can really step into his shoes. The only way that Dr Rao would have liked to be remembered is by taking VIIS to the lofty heights that he always wanted it to reach.

Dr Rao, with your death has ended an era; an era about which we can all only reminisce. We are sure you will always watch over us and inspire us to forge ahead in taking India to the world. May God rest your soul in peace.

- Balu

It is against this backdrop that the recent one-day campaign on Dec 17^th titled ‘Save the Lokayukta’ organized by the India Against Corruption – Karnataka Chapter acquires significance. Anna Hazare, Kiran Bedi, Manish Sisodia and Dinesh Vagels had come down to Bangalore to lend their support and put this event on the national center stage. Freedom fighter Sri Doreswami, Justice Hegde and I were also present and expressed our views with specific reference to the local issues on hand. The public event was preceded by a closed-door meeting with Team Anna and selected activists from around the State, wherein resolutions were passed demanding strengthening of the Lokayukta Institution.

Anna Hazare, Justice Hegde & others on the stage

The Public event was very well organized and the volunteers did an excellent job of ensuring that the event went on as per plans. More than 10,000 people attended it and contributed Rs 4.7 lakh towards organizing it. It is indeed encouraging to see such large number of young people keen on engaging with the system and demanding changes that impact their everyday lives. Let us hope that the Government of Karnataka gets the message and gets down to the important task of not only cleaning up the system but also ensuring good governance to its citizens.

- Balu