bureaucracy vs democracy, utopia and dr apj abdul kalaam

M.S. Suresh

2004-03-05 09:04:13 UTC

Sivakumar, Gopi, thanks for your responses. Thanks in particular for Gopi's response. You must know
that the objective of my writing that communication was not to receive responses that i liked. I
wanted to receive responses like Gopi's. This way, we get enlightened ourselves about what is true
patriotizm and what are our priorities as being true Indians.

Sivakumar, as you know, this bureaucracy vs democracy is an utopia - one can only dream about it.
About your point on the judiciary - well, as you know, democracy has the three axes of evil -
executive, judiciary and legislative - which has done enough damage to India since 1947, unlike in
other countries such as the USA. Why and how should democracy work out well in the USA?

For India, hopefully, a dictatorship or a bureaucracy would help curing the diseases toward a
healthy India. What are India's three diseases? Rogue, Criminal and Coalition Politics. India is
presently "sick" and needs "intervention" before it becomes an "emergency case". Of course, as Gopi
and BJP say, a sick person can keep smiling and shining too.

As true and patriotic Indians, do we want to spend our sick days smiling and shining, or do we want
to get ourselves a good treatment - is the question of the hour.

When i say healthy India, i mean "healthy" India; only after curing the diseases in the human body
can anyone go to the gym and flex muscles. Dr APJ Abdul Kalaam (who claims to have read The Gita),
in his book, asks a sick person to flex muscles by 2020. At the present rate, will India survive
till 2020? Utopia again?

Think!

:)

MSS

Sorry for the delayed reply....
If u want me to give my "thought" or "opinion", (thats
how we claim ourselves to be intellectuals),...my line
goes like this..."Everything is a State of Mind".
This mind sound 'Cynical', 'Philosophical',
'Non-Sense', and yet more....
But this would be my response to the various
dimensions that you have tried to understand(again
thats a presumption)....
Life is to be enjoyed not to worry...
I remember a quote one of my friend used to tag at the
bottom as his signature.."Smile it does not hurt your
Wallet"...I hope I have driven the message home!!!!!
--- sivakumar.krishnamurthy wrote: >

Suresh, You have left out one important thing, the
most important thing, eradication of the judicial
system in India. According to me the worst ever
system that has existed in the history of mankind.
Can you please inform Muthu about this, that
eradication of the judicial system will make a lot
difference.
-----Original Message-----
Sent: Thursday, March 04, 2004 5:08 AM
To: undisclosed-recipients
Subject: presenting Muthu...
Importance: High
Presenting Muthu...
Let me introduce Muthu. Who is this "Muthu"? Muthu
is one of the many names in India that both males
and females have. Muthu is a layman, an average
Indian, who has a good job, good salary, good
spouse, good children, a working cellphone with
international roaming and WAP facility, a maruti
zen, a Palm, a good house, lot of savings, good bank
balances, a pentium 4 multimedia computer at
home for the globalized children... someone who is
by and large, "a happy Indian".
There are a lot of such Muthus, and the problem is
not with that. The problem is that India, with a
population of over a 100 crore, does not comprize
Muthus alone. The more pathetic, unfortunate and
more sad a problem is that these Muthus are either
not aware of this, or are indifferent to this
painful reality. So long as Muthu and family are
well, India is a great country. When the cellphone
does not work, when the maruti zen yawns when
enroute with family to the Beach in the middle of a
hot sunny overbridge, when negotiating through a
high traffic signal, when Muthu's flat appartment
faces water scarcity, when the roads are not good
for the precious maruti zen to vroom along, then,
Muthu starts cursing India. "What a wretched
country! I am going to US", Muthu sobs and laments.
Sad, but True. (phrase courtesy: the great number by
Metallica.)
Fortunately, one of those Muthus stops being just
1) Where does India want to go today? (allusion
courtesy: Microsoft)
2) What do our Political Parties say to us these
days?
3) What have these Parties been telling us all
along, since 1947?
4) What do these words mean: "stability, economic
growth, GDP, inflation, foreign exchange, poverty
alleviation, literacy... secularism, hindutva,
globalization, communalism, employment, silicon
valley... etc."?
5) What has India "achieved" since 1947?
These questions may all be too big, but their
answers, unfortunately, are too short and single
worded. This particular Muthu who thinks, knows
that.
Imagining that India is one large Multinational
Organization, Muthu starts doing a SWOT Analysis on
India. Before getting any further with this
Analysis, some hard realities about India being a
Democracy strike Muthu.
Coalition Politics is becoming inevitable - so
proclaim the Parties and the Analysts alike,
agreeably. But why? The number of Voters favouring a
single Party and its ideology is reducing.
Parties which were once strong and large have split
up (why, is not the point, that they have split
up, is). Parties which were once diametrically
opposite in ideologies now work together as
Coalition
Partners for just one reason: to win the election.
These Coalition Partners even switch partnership
to win the election. Oh no, this is not a joke,
this is politics, politics in India, Muthu grins.
Another one bothers Muthu: the number of Voters is
reducing - "now who can argue with me on this
point?" Muthu wonders. One can safely assume that
over the last three decades, the voting rate has
come down from over 65% (or more) to even 50% (or
less). While chewing on those numbers, Muthu keeps
a) rigging, duplicating of votes
b) India's total voting strength vis a vis total
population of over a 100 crore (1billion, in
globalized terms)
c) those who really bother to cast their votes
Muthu takes the next step and feels that India has
1. Control Population - not brutally, but something
like China, with a clear 'over the period of
time' strategy
2. Provide Literacy for the remaining 70% of India's
population, likewise, with a clear 'over the
period of time' strategy
3. Draw up a clear "Organic" Growth Strategy for the
next five years
4. Implement that Strategy with a time frame
5. Evaluate the effects
Muthu shares this thought over a chat with some
fellow citizens who shoot back with questions from
their MBA/CA/... books: "Array babaa Muthu, what
about our huge Debts? Fiscal deficits? Foreign
Exchange? The Rupee? The Trade Deficit? The
inflation rate? The GDP? The ... ?"
Muthu smiles, and examines some creative
possiblities: Why not make a systemic and organic
change in
the Indian Administration? Why not remove Democracy
and institute Bureaucracy? No, this is not a
joke, Muthu goes on. Organizations are a
bureaucratic setup, with Leaders, Managers,
Hierarchies,
Reporting Relationships, Responsibility, Authority,
Accountability, Delivery, Quality, Competition,
Systems, Procedures, Methodologies, Impact
Assessment Mechanisms, Tools for corrective action,
Performance Appraisal... etc. all laid down in our
management books. Organizations are run with
profit and growth motives, and a lot of
Organizations are empires like Tata, Reliance,
Birla, Wipro,
Infosys... Muthu sparks with creativity.
Muthu's realistic assessment of the status quo and
the pragmatic outlook for the future do attract
our attention; but Muthu's creativity is a little
too imaginative, though not completely non-viable.
1) carry cyanides on our necks and die for our
politicians
2) abstain from voting like a cynic, pay income
taxes through the nose
3) catalyze a change in the system by working with
people
4) continue to be the typical Muthu, the happy
Indian, curse India and migrate to US when something
does not work
5) remain in our rooms and listen to Heavy Metal.
Please think, it is election time.
:)
MSS

________________________________________________________________________
Yahoo! India Insurance Special: Be informed on the best policies, services, tools and more.
Go to: http://in.insurance.yahoo.com/licspecial/index.html

------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for your HP, Epson, Canon or Lexmark
Printer at MyInks.com. Free s/h on orders $50 or more to the US & Canada.
http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=5511
http://us.click.yahoo.com/mOAaAA/3exGAA/qnsNAA/0EHolB/TM
---------------------------------------------------------------------~->

Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/iluIndia/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
iluIndia-unsubscribe-***@public.gmane.org

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

Varun Venkateswaran

2004-03-05 18:48:06 UTC

Permalink

Hello:

I have been a dormant member, so i dont know whether u guys knew me....but i have a point(or 2) to make...

dictatorship will never work...it has never worked anywhere in the world...India is better off with democracy... if d'ship is panacea to all ills then Pakistan should be way above us!! Very often people look at the mess around them and decide "yea we need a strongman to make things work"...but when they say that (I don't know about you) they dont really consider themselves, they are talking about the rest,
"only they need to be controlled, not me i am ok...."

If u see the countries that attained independence after world war II (like us)....in africa, indonesia etc etc...only india is doing well despite its huge(monstrous?) population, a society divided in every possible way-language, religion, status, caste and what not....those smaller nations were not so much at a disadvantage as us...today they are in shambles, why? becos the very leaders who got them freedom (or someone else who came later) turned into corrupt despots...suharto, mobutu and the ilk- the first few years everything will be good, no crime(becos he will be the only one left!!) peace etc, but slowly it begins to unravel...u can see it today!
In contrast, India has done remarkably well - we have built atleast a foundation, a launch pad, future progress is in the hands of her people...it is a vibrant society where u and me have the freedom(u might ask "really?". "Yes!!") to debate (unlike China, where they run down dissent with tanks) about what is wrong with the country, we can question the leaders, we can throw them out of power (although i doubt whether we use it)

What is wrong with India?...rome was not built in a day, america took ages to develop, development is a continuous and painfully slow process and Indians are whiners(Sorry to say that, that included me too), we will complain about politicians being rogues, law breakers- but we ourselves do that everyday in our life, in a smaller scale-- like going down a one-way("what everybody does, why not me!!")...and if the cop catches u, u curse him for being dutiful only when it comes to you ...and try to bribe him, thereby emboldening the cop to keep demanding bribes..., like littering the streets(ditto), like getting a license thro a tout becos u think that is the only way to do that, u never care to find out the procedure,u go straight to the tout to finish the job quickly as if he is the RTO...and justify it again .."uff, so many procedures(as if u know), who has the time??"....but u will sit g
lued to the television for 8 hours seeing the India-Pak match.

Politicians have not descended from heaven, they are people like u and me and Muthu, so they continue doing it even after coming to power !! It sets in a vicious circle...people corrupt, so politicians corrupt, so people corrupt/indifferent.....

This is where USA (yes, the country Indians consider to be immoral) is different, people may be ignorant about other nations or their history, but when it comes to their law they know like the back of their hand. And abide rules. Their private lives maybe all screwed up, but their public life is still impeccable. That is why even though there are some corrupt politicians, inept bureaucracy(govt. offices are slow here too!!), it does not permeate thru the society, the base of the pyramid is still solid!

So, the solution lies in correcting the base of the pyramid, the people.
How do you do that? Not actually by d'ship or bureaucracy or even literacy (even educated people break laws!!..more than illiterates i would say)...it needs a collective change in the attitude of the people, it is not gonna come in one day or one decade, it is a continuous. painfully slow process...It has been happening for the last 55 years, it may have faltered in between or slowed down, but the spark is still there...in this data age, people are getting more and more knowledgeable and questioning..so it will happen a bit faster than the prev. generation. The utopia will not happen in 2020, it is happening and the changes will be tangible, years down the line. Something like, u know -- we never realise that we are getting old every day but 20 years down the line we will know that for sure !!
India has been shining always, like the sun behind the clouds, the BJP has been shrewd to realise it and is tapping it, claiming credit for inventing (or discovering?) the sun, when it has been there all the time. Congress and co., sadly, continue to delude themselves that there is no sun !

And the population is already showing signs off stabilising...it will... huge population may not be a bad thing, after all the world is made up of humans, and people means power, today the Indian diaspora is spread all over the world, they already considerable forces to reckon with in many nations - so there may be a day when the nation with the largest number of people gets a better bargain, gets to control the world.

Regards
Varun.
"M.S. Suresh" <imperial_blade-***@public.gmane.org> wrote:
Sivakumar, Gopi, thanks for your responses. Thanks in particular for Gopi's response. You must know
that the objective of my writing that communication was not to receive responses that i liked. I
wanted to receive responses like Gopi's. This way, we get enlightened ourselves about what is true
patriotizm and what are our priorities as being true Indians.

Sivakumar, as you know, this bureaucracy vs democracy is an utopia - one can only dream about it.
About your point on the judiciary - well, as you know, democracy has the three axes of evil -
executive, judiciary and legislative - which has done enough damage to India since 1947, unlike in
other countries such as the USA. Why and how should democracy work out well in the USA?

For India, hopefully, a dictatorship or a bureaucracy would help curing the diseases toward a
healthy India. What are India's three diseases? Rogue, Criminal and Coalition Politics. India is
presently "sick" and needs "intervention" before it becomes an "emergency case". Of course, as Gopi
and BJP say, a sick person can keep smiling and shining too.

As true and patriotic Indians, do we want to spend our sick days smiling and shining, or do we want
to get ourselves a good treatment - is the question of the hour.

When i say healthy India, i mean "healthy" India; only after curing the diseases in the human body
can anyone go to the gym and flex muscles. Dr APJ Abdul Kalaam (who claims to have read The Gita),
in his book, asks a sick person to flex muscles by 2020. At the present rate, will India survive
till 2020? Utopia again?

Think!

:)

MSS

e

---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Search - Find what youre looking for faster.