Understanding India and Independence - Are we there yet?

Picture 019, originally uploaded by Pranay Rao.

It's 14:00 on a Saturday afternoon. I'm relaxing on my featherlite ergo chair, while blogging on my sleek little dell latitude with my blackberry on silent alternating between Rang De Basanti and Swades. I'd rather be playing medal of honor on my PSP but it ran out of battery. BTW today is Independence day.

62 years back when the country awoke while the world was sleeping,(not entirely true since most of America was awake) our forefathers had great dreams of us regaining our lost glory of the land of plenty, the bird of gold, etc.

There is this movie where a kid sitting behind his father keeps asking 'Are we there yet?' till they reach the destination. It's humorous and irritating. It's also the power of follow up. As a manager, I follow up on my team on a daily basis trying to figure out whether they are doing what I've asked them to, whether we are on track, whether we will meet our targets. There are systems to measure performance, to track progress.

Let's come back to India. Every 2nd day I hear about some poverty program through huge ads in newspapers. But yet I can see no definite tracking system. Yes India's progressing. Progressing in patches. But this progress is not because of some well organized, well executed plan. It is largely due to the initiative of great business leaders like the Tatas or the Narayan Murthys. It is because of individuals who saw potential and tapped it. Who saw India's largely untapped intellectual capital and leveraged it. India is definitely shining. It's just that it shines in patches like the lights on a ganesh chaturti mandal. Blinking on and off.

Every third day I travel through patches of rural India. The rural India that I see is not the Caste - ridden desert of a Swades. The villages have their facilities. There's the SBI ATM, there is the occassional samsung dealership. But for every Santro that I see in rural India, I also see countless homes where they have no water, no electricity. Every fourth shop I visit have these huge inverter batteries and/or there is the stench and sound of diesel powered gensets. For all the subsidised diesel that is used and the electricity that is being stored, good planning could have ensured continous supply. In fact the power situation is not just a problem in the villages. It's a problem in Bangalore too.

In ITC, we managers are eligible for a geyser, a water purifier and an inverter. We are quite the Indian company, in fact there would be few managers who would be so much in tune with the real India. The Inverter is in use even in a city like Bangalore. 62 years after independence and the tap opens to muddy water, quite unfit to bathe in, let alone drink. The water purifier is a must, a bare necessity. We may be the country of the future, yet we cannot guarantee power and potable water. BTW the color of the water is something I can't come to terms with. I exist on mineral water.

Food, water, clothing and electricity are the bare requirements of today's India. If one were to judge the effectiveness of 62 years of this country, we should just calculate how much percentage of the country has any of these forget all of these. I can safely say we are nowhere as prosperous as we claim to be. There's miles to go, the problem is we have no idea whether we are heading in the right direction. We are yet to understand India, we know not where we need to go.

RDB is on the final scene, the scene where the army people attack the radio station. There's loads of melodrama. These are the jeans clad youth of today trying to make a statement. I love the movie because it at least attempts to bring some accountabilty to the system. The ends don't justify the means but the movie did help bring about some kind of revolution in India. It brought to task the accused in the Jessica lal case.

Hey it's not all bad, especially for urban India. I studied in a school where the government paid for my schooling. They picked up most of my tab for my engineering and MBA. I got to study in a world class institution of Indian pedigree. I have seen India in it's towns and villages, in it's temples and churches.

A few years back,, I had this talk with a friend from a retail giant. He was convinced that the big bad retail giants would overrun the landscape. He had a study from some big consultancy to prove it. Years later even the big retailers with all their money are re-thinking plans. He with his army of MBAs and super duper margins, logistics just can't compete with the mom and pop stores. You see the average Indian may not be the world's best planner, but he has one big heart.

You know the best example of India is this large retailer in rural India who never stocked our products and who became one of our biggest supporters just because a manager gave his kid a chocolate. What margins and schemes couldn't do, a bit of heart did.

India in my limited understanding has a lot to achieve and all this can happen only if we realise the power of the individual Indian. Plans for development and progress must be bottom up and not top down. We need to empower every Indian. We need something on the lines of the Grameen bank in every little village. Every Indian in every village has to be empowered. Every village has to be empowered.

You know if I were to choose between RDB and Swades as a movie I would choose RDB because I am an Indian and I think with my heart. It deals with the big issue, the more visible one.. The one which means instant justice but what we actually need is the swades philosophy. Every village learning to be self sufficient in terms of water, food, clothing and electricity. It's only then that we reduce their dependence on the mainstream. Villages serve as the foundation of the country. We must strengthen it.

As a nation we have to take a stand to not be slaves to visibilty. Let's stop doing the big things and hope the small things come right. It's time for micro management. Instead of having to spend millions in improving the cities and towns, let's spend it on the villages, tackling one village at a time. It may not give the same impact of a Bandra Sea Link project or some amazing new airport complex. If anything the government should handle all urban development to private companies. They will do better than the government companies there. The government should for the next 10 years work only on the villages. Make them into self sufficient units.

BTW It's that scene in Swades where SRK, who takes this one whole lot of effort to light a bulb. It's really not exciting to watch. But by lighting that bulb he has brought self sufficiency to the village in terms of electricity. Self sufficiency - Isn't that Independence. It's time we realize that Independence isn't about raising flags in the cities, it's about making each individual unit independent.

We as a country today are independent, but there are miles to go before each one of us attains independence. Independence in terms of our basic requirements. Independence of speech, of religion, of thoughts. That will be the day when we truly celebrate our independence day.

BTW the picture above is one of a tractor which is used to turn a dynamo which provides the electicity for an entire wedding function. Truly Indi(a)genius. True Indian Indpendence is a long way off. It's now our job to play the role of the annoying kid and keep asking the people who lead the question 'Are we there yet?'

Jai Hind

- Pranay