Ordinary Indian, extraordinary Indian

Deepu has been driving our car for the last two months. A young man of around 30 years, he is reasonably punctual, hardworking, and never says no if he is needed to go to the railway station or airport at odd hours. At the end of the day, he gives me an account of how much has been spent on parking and toll tax, and unfailingly returns the surplus of what was given to him in the morning. In short, he carries himself with dignity.

Yesterday, Deepu had to report for work at 12 noon. He was late by ten minutes and was given a sermon by yours truly. On reaching our destination, I offered him the customary lunch allowance. It was not part of my original deal with Deepu, but it is only fair that I reimburse the expenses if he has to eat out while on duty.

Yesterday, Deepu politely declined the money saying he had had his lunch before coming to our house. ‘That’s the reason I was late’, he added with a shy smile.

Deepu doesn't read newspapers. If he did, he would possibly take the money, keep it quietly, and invest it on his son’s education.

Hasn’t Ms Kiran Bedi, one of the conscience keepers of the nation, done the same thing? She lectures people on value and ethics (I guess in every city that’s connected by air) and her hosts pay for her travel and stay.

The Indian Express has recently reported that she has been travelling Air India paying one fourth of the normal fare as she was a gallantry award winner as an IPS officer, but has been claiming full fare, at times, executive class fare. In some cases, after travelling economy class on private airlines, she claimed business class fare. In one instance, she travelled from Delhi to Hyderabad to deliver a speech and then went on to Chennai to speak at a meeting held by another group. Ms Bedi claimed full fares from Delhi to Hyderabad and Delhi to Chennai from her two hosts! So in effect, she claimed reimbursement for ghost journeys.

Her defence? (A) She did whatever she did with the full knowledge of her hosts and (B) She hasn’t put the amounts into her pocket, but into the pocket of “her” NGO, which uses the money to educate children.

Both arguments are disingenuous, to put it mildly. Firstly, the claim that her hosts know everything is subject to verification. Secondly, and most importantly, the 75% discount that the government of India forces Air India to sacrifice is meant to help a gallant individual. It cannot be used to make a profit for anyone, even if it be an NGO with noble missions. Also, politicians caught taking money can say that they took it for their party! Could that be an excuse?

Thirdly, the tax payers’ money keeps the loss-making Air India alive, and very few of them, beside Ms Bedi, would like their money to go into an unverifiable NGO through fudged accounting.

So who is a better role model and conscience keeper? Deepu Paik or Kiran Bedi?

PS. On 21 October, a former IAS officer and Team Anna member, Arun Bhatia appeared on CNN IBN. He told Rajdeep Sardesai and the rest of the world that many government officers travel economy class and claim business class fare. Nothing happens to them, it is quite normal. I couldn’t believe my ears. Can you, Gentle Reader?

Sunday, 23 October 2011

Soumyajit Basu

Soumyajit is a common Bengali first name, but Soumyajit Basu’s wife’s name is rather unusual: Swachhotoya.  A bit of a tongue-twister for people unfamiliar with the Bengali language, the word means a river of transparent waters. His son’s name is even more remarkable, Aranyak, which means of the forests. At home, the boy is called Roddur, Sunlight. Aranyak is also the name of a beautiful autobiographical novel by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay. A forest is the main character in the novel. Soumyajit was fond of Bibhutibhushan and Jibanananda Das, the finest writers on Nature in Bengali, respectively in prose and verse.

Soumyajit grew up in the teagardens of Assam. Since childhood, he was fond of plants, animals, birds, and butterflies. As a child, he had a pet deer. His love for Mother Nature didn’t end after he grew up. Once, when he saw an owl with a broken wing, tears came to his eyes. Owls were his favourite birds. He would nurse birds and squirrels with broken limbs back to health. Even now, there is a tailor bird’s nest in the front veranda of his house, and an old beehive. These were some of the collections from his numerous trips to remote places.

Fond of travelling and trekking, he earned his living by teaching geography in a school, an apt profession for someone who lived with a river and a forest at home. Last October, he went to the Ayodhya Hills of Purulia to watch full moon from the top of the hill. He never came back.

In the treacherous terrain of the Ayodhya Hills, steep peaks hide tiny hamlets peopled by the wretched of the earth. For outsiders, the unmarked alleys, narrow passes and small streams are quite a maze.  The Indian government is irrelevant in the area; it is ruled by Maoists.

Partha Sarathi and Soumyajit

Soumyajit and his friend Partha Sarathi Biswas – both in their thirties – went to trek in this dangerous valley. Partha Sarathi was a police-officer. In the night of 22/23 October 2010, after crossing the unseen border into Maoist land, they were abducted by Maoists.

According to newspaper reports, the reason for their abduction was not clear. Police said Partha and Soumyajit were both involved with a non-governmental organisation (NGO) working on wildlife conservation and tribal issues. They had not informed the local police and administration about their visit.

Five months later, two decomposed bodies were found from a jungle near Ayodhya hills in Purulia. The bodies were identified to be that of Partha and Soumyajit through DNA tests.

Why did the Maoists kill them? Partha Sarathi’s police identity would certainly have gone against him. Maybe, the Maoists presumed he was spying. Even if he was, he committed no offense. He was doing his duty. It doesn't justify his murder. If it did, the government forces too would be "justified" to kill suspected Maoists.

While condemning state violence, how do we deal with Maoist counter-violence? How could they kill someone like Soumyajit Basu? Perhaps a group of people can kill, in cold blood, an unarmed man who hasn’t committed any offence only when they cease to be humans. Shorn of their rhetoric, the Maoist movement is exactly that, an exercise in inhumanity. That doesn’t mean the social and economic inequities that breed such violent rebellions are any less inhuman. But let’s keep it aside for another day.

Police often torture and kill politically inconvenient people. State violence against rebels, whether in Kashmir or Chhattisgarh, must stop. In a civilised society, the government must follow its own laws. This is more or less a settled principle. No one, not even the staunchest advocate of the state would say otherwise, at least in public.

But there is a lot of vagueness when it comes to reflecting on Maoist violence. There are sections of intelligentsia that tacitly or openly support the Maoists, which means their violence too, because you cannot think of Maoists without their wanton violence.

No one can fight a war unless they believe they are fighting for a just cause. And the support that Maoists get from well-meaning Left intellectuals certainly helps them to keep their faith alive. Sooner this moral support ends, the better it is.

Bengaluru, 08 October, 2011

Two poems

Kinship

Octavio Paz

I am a human, my transient life is
Cocooned in an endless, everexpanding night.
Yet I look up to see
Stars writing on the wall of sky.
I don’t follow their language, but I know
My story too is being written there,
And at this precise moment,
Throughout the sky
Someone is reciting
The letters of my name.



A song of wonder

Rabindranath Tagore

I’ve found my space
In a sky filled with suns and stars,
In a cosmos brimming with life.
From a spring of wonder
Flow out my songs.

In a surge of endless time,
The universe rolls on a tidal wave
And the torrent is felt
In bloodstreams deep in my veins.

Walking on a jungle trail,
I’ve stepped out on grass
My mind leaps out in joy
As a waft of flowers drifts by.
Bliss is scattered all around!

I’ve tried to hear and see
I’ve poured my life out on this world
Looked out for the unknown in the common.
From the spring of wonder
Flow out my songs..

[The Octavio Paz poem has been translated from a Bengali translation of the original by my friend Soumya Shankar Mitra]

Buy shoes and mess up the world

Have you seen this TV advertisement?

A pretty young woman is in a store to buy shoes, along with her husband or boyfriend. She tries out a pair, doesn’t quite like it and decides to go elsewhere. The man drives her to another shop, she isn’t satisfied. Another drive. On the way, the pretty woman takes fancy in a store and asks her partner to stop. Not good enough … another drive. They apparently visit different corners of the town in a smart new car while the sunny day turns into a diffused evening. At the nth store, she decides to go back to the first one.

The ad isn’t trying to sell no shoes. It’s for a new small car that runs on diesel. The punch line is: Drive India, khulke!

A recent newspaper report  said that of the 25 lakh cars sold in India in 2010, 30% were with diesel engines. Industry experts predict that by 2017, when the yearly car sales are expected to cross 56,00,000, 50% will be diesel cars. The share of diesel cars has been increasing over the years because the subsidised diesel is becoming progressively cheaper compared to petrol. (A litre of it costs ₹44 against ₹71 for petrol in my city.) So people prefer to buy diesel vehicles although a mid-size diesel sedan costs Rs.1,00,000 more than its petrol variant.

The government subsidises diesel to keep the cost of rail and road transportation low; and of agricultural products, as farmers need diesel to run irrigation pumps. But the unintended beneficiaries, owners of diesel cars and fuel-guzzling SUVs, are cornering more and more of the subsidy that goes into diesel. According to the report, cars have already become the second biggest user of diesel. Cars use 15% of diesel in the country, as against 12% by buses and agriculture each, 10% by industries, and 6% by the railways. In absolute terms too, the subsidy is astronomically large. The government charges excise duty of ₹14.35 on a litre of petrol, but only ₹4.60 on diesel. This means it pays every Indian, including Mr Mukesh Ambani, ₹9.75 for every litre of diesel purchased. (Whether there should be any subsidy on petrol either is another question.)

Notionally, the poor, many of whom wouldn’t see the inside of a car in their lifetime, are paying the price of the subsidy as otherwise the amount could go to some poverty alleviation programme. Should this go on?

There are two other reasons why this should stop immediately. Diesel is a dirtier fuel than petrol. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), diesel engines emit toxic air contaminants and human carcinogens. So, the environment too is paying the price for some people buying fancy shoes.

Secondly, global warming is a fact we are living through. Summers are distinctly hotter than what they were in my childhood, that is, fifty years ago. The monsoon rains are erratic, and many more cyclones hit us than earlier.

As automobile emission is a major contributor to global warming, governments (including local governments) are expected to introduce disincentives to reduce the use of personal cars. In an article in New York Times (26 June 2011), Elisabeth Rosenthal writes, “many European cities are … creating environments openly hostile to cars.” Cities like Vienna, Munich, and Copenhagen have closed vast stretches of roads to automobiles. Barcelona and Paris have widened bike lanes to reduce space for cars. If you drive a vehicle in London or Stockholm, you pay huge charges just to enter the heart of the city. And over the past two years, dozens of German cities have joined a national network of “environmental zones” where only cars with low carbon emission may enter. “The methods vary, but the mission is clear – to make car use expensive and just plain miserable enough to tilt drivers toward more environmentally friendly modes of transportation”, writes Rosenthal.

One wonders if Indians live on the same planet. Although queer people like our former environment minister Mr Jairam Ramesh make contrary noise from time to time against fuel-hungry big cars and Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs), the Indian ruling elite seems deaf and blind to the need to discourage personal vehicles and encourage zero-emission traffic. There are no bike lanes in Indian cities. Forget bike lanes, you don’t even have footpaths in many cities, particularly in the newly developed areas. You are forced to take an auto even for a short distance which you would otherwise walk.

On the contrary, governments offer cheap – if not free – land and tax breaks to car manufacturers so that they may flood our roads with low-priced cars. As small diesel cars become popular – they certainly will – there will be a lot more auto emission. Both central and state governments must make a beginning to turn the tide.

There is a simple way to do so. According to the Centre for Science and Environment, an NGO that has been fighting for the environment, in Denmark diesel cars are taxed higher to offset the lower cost of fuel. And so it is in Sri Lanka. If the Indian government follows suit, it can recover the subsidy paid on the lifespan of a diesel car / SUV upfront. This will also work as a disincentive against environment-unfriendly vehicles.

There was some noise on this issue a few months ago. The government reportedly considered differential pricing for diesel to be sold to cars. Our finance minister declared it was not practicable. He hasn’t told us why diesel cars and SUVs cannot be taxed higher.

[Photograph courtesy Wikipedia]

20 September 2011