Dear Prime Minister

Please accept my congratulations on your resounding victory. The people of India have risen above caste, religion and all divisive groupings to elect you to lead our Nation. Some follow your ideological views but there are others who voted you in because we believed that you would be able to make us regain our pride which had taken a hit amidst the scams and corrupt ways that seem to have become our hallmark.

You have a huge task ahead of you, a task made onerous because of the immense trust people from across the board have reposed in you. Many believe you will become a conjurer of miracles and have high hope in you, hopes that you will be expected to fulfill. It is not an easy task and I pray God will be with you.

I am a humble senior citizen whose heart beats for India and has always done so. Nationalist parents tend to instil this love in their children, particularly children who are born and who grow up away for the Motherland. My father’s dying words to me were: don’t lose faith in India. That was in 1992 and believe me Prime Minister it has not been easy to hold on to that faith.

You have many challenges ahead of you and I am no expert in matters such as economy, finance or other complex issues. I only see with my heart and react the same way. For the past 15 years I have been working with underprivileged children in slums. Today I want to be their voice and try and reach out to you.

Every time we talk of India we take pride in the fact that we have one of the youngest population. One often hears about higher education and the need to create more IITs and IIMs. Sadly we never hear anything about primary education which is now the Constitutional Right of every child born in this land. This is the reality as one just has to step out of one’s house even in our capital city to come across a child begging or working. Mr Prime Minister no child can aspire to enter the portal of an IIM without getting primary education. In today’s India there are millions of children struggling to get a primary education. You will agree that a young demography holds no meaning if young India does not have education and access to sound vocational skills. A recent UNICEF report states that 80 million children don’t complete the entire cycle of elementary education, close to 8 million are out of school. This is a matter of utter shame. Even when children go to school, and I am not taking of schools in remote areas but the country’s capital, they are packed in classrooms where more than 100 children study in spaces made for 40. How can they learn Mr Prime Minister. Our country has failed in providing the very basic education to its children and children cannot wait as they grow by the day and soon it is too late for them. As I humble citizen who has seen the potential of these children over the past 15 years, I urge you to give primary education the place it has in the economy of any country wanting to compete with the best.

Education should not be privatised. There was a time when almost every child went to a Government school and went on to hold the highest offices. We need that Golden Age to come back. Government cannot abdicate its responsibility in this sector. Privatisation is not the answer. Should you go that way, then education will never reach the poorest of the poor and unless we reach them, our country cannot change.

Look at Delhi. It is replete with State and Municipal schools but not only are they overcrowded but they often run in ramshackle buildings and even tents with sometimes no desks! These are often single storied barracks and should be transformed into multi storied schools imparting quality education. More so it is sad that our capital city cannot provide morning school to all its children and so boys go to school in the afternoon, a time not conducive to learning. I do hope you will look at this as though children have no vote, they have hope in you, Sir.

There is one more reality that makes me hang my head in shame every day and that is the spectre of malnutrition and the fact that even today, as you celebrate your big victory, 5000 between the age of 0 and 5 will die quietly in the India you now lead. I urge you to look at this sad and shameful reality and do something. There are some programmes that could have made a difference had they been properly implemented and not hijacked by wily people. ICDS which should monitor children from age 0 to 6 has failed. Had it worked any Indian under 35 should not have been malnourished. You just need to step into one of the Anganwadis in this city to see what a sham and cruel joke they are: a damp hole, a broken weighing machine and a disinterested caretaker is what what will greet you. As for nutrition, as that is what these creches are meant to give, what the kids get is again a handful of puffed rice and gram and that too not everyday!

Mr Prime Minister we cannot have children dying everyday; we cannot have millions of children out of school.

I hope you will hear the voice of the voiceless.

A citizen of India

A few weeks ago we got a huge shock. One of our most important funders informed us that come September they would be reducing their seizable contribution by half! The reason: India was now considered an unsafe place for tourists and as our monies was dependent on the numbers visiting India, there was no option unless a miracle happened. If no miracle then we would have to make a Sophie’s choice and be compelled to close one of more of our centres.

In my wisdom I put everything on hold praying for a miracle or if not that, at least for an epiphany to save my children. It is sad that when anything goes wrong in the country it is always the voiceless children who pay for it. I remember that when India imploded its bomb in 1998, when I had just decided to start project why, many of my friends who run organisations helping the deprived saw their funding cut overnight. Now how does cutting the funds that help an autistic child or a slum kid help make a statement against the policy of a country?  Beats me.

I agree that when a foreign tourist is raped the people in her country would become ballistic and I also understand the negative reaction that will ensue. I also understand the anger we saw when the young woman was brutally raped and assaulted in December 2012 in Delhi. I can also understand the demand to see the perpetrators hang! But sadly hanging a perpetrator, making stringent laws, and all other such solutions cannot and will not stop rape or abuse as statistics have showed. Rapes have not stopped. Rape and sexual abuse is a hydra headed monster whose multiple heads will keep growing again and again unless we are able to find a way to cut its 8 mortal heads and bury his 9th immortal one. But first one has to identify all these heads and work out the right strategy.

Last week a group of journalists from the country of the women who has raped recently came on what is known as a ‘fam’ ( familiarisation)  tour. These are organised by the Government or by the tourism and hospitality sector  to showcase a country/place. The group also wished to visit one of our centres. I met with one of the members and a friend for lunch a few hours prior to their meeting with a honcho at the Tourism Ministry. She suggested I accompany them but I refused knowing I would not be able to keep my mouth shot at the lame excuses and statistics I knew would be thrown at them. I was not wrong. That is exactly what happened. The pompous official took great pride in telling them that India ranked 19th in women’s safety in the G20 list. I guess he must have also spouted out figures to prove his point. I guess there has to be an official view that defends the indefensible!

That was his job and I presume he must have given himself a pat on the back.

The next day the group was visiting us and would want to know my take on the situation. Actually it is this visit that compelled me to put a bit of order in my head and come up with something that I hoped would sound coherent. Before I go on, I wish to say that these views are mine alone and are based on what I have seen and experienced in the past decade and a half and on common sense if such thing exists.

What today manifests itself in rape, sexual assault and targeting of women in varied ways is indeed a hydra headed monster that has several different heads. It all begins with gender inequality and the sad truth that girls are not wanted from the moment they are conceived. This is unfortunately not a feeling solely perpetrated by the male gender, but more by the female one starting with the mother-in-law and so on to the point when the mother itself resents the arrival of a girl child. The seasons are many but I think the main reason is the financial burden of the marriage and if by any twist of fate the roles got reversed, I wonder if it would be boys who would find themselves at the receiving end. Whatever the reason a girl in India is considered to be in the custody of her natural family as her real home is that of her husband’s. This notion is present in the folklore of the land and is the subject of many songs and even film scripts.

In homes today, including middle class ones, one can witness the fact that girls and boys are treated differently in the choice of schools and education opportunities and in poorer homes even in the food given. At a very young age boys realise that they ate ‘superior’ to their girl siblings and often a 12 year old may be found admonishing his older sister on what he thinks is inappropriate behaviour: talking or laughing loud, looking out of the window etc. The mother, instead of scolding the son will simply laugh it off. This is happening even today. I myself was shocked to hear that whereas the number of boys in a class in Government schools was around 40, the number of girls in equivalent classes was often above 100. The reason is simple. Boys are sent to public schools which are considered better than state run ones. These schools charge fees that the parents happily pay for their sons. The daughters are sent to the State school which is free. That is one aspect of the problem that needs to be addressed.

You will think that this has no relevance to crime rates but please bear with me.

We now need to move to another reality altogether. I am talking of a new class of metropolis dwellers that has grown by quantum leaps in the past 20 to 30 years. This is the migrant population either brought by contractors to meet construction labour needs – this has also happened in western countries – or families of have left their villages in search of a better future for their children. These are mostly illiterate families with strict traditions that they adhere to. Today children of these families have grown up with their own dreams and aspirations which clash with their parent’s traditional views. These young people have urban aspirations that are fed by what they see on TV as a television is a must in the humblest of homes and with the advent of credit facilities, people living in slums are able to acquire most of what their kids want.

The TV serials and Bollywood films of today are very different from the films of yore years that extolled values like family and traditions. Today’s movies are highly westernised and seed impossible dreams in the young minds that watch them. A new social group has emerged in cities and with poor quality education, few skills and little employment these youngsters are rudderless. They fall easy prey to drug mafias, gambling dens and political and religious groups always on the prowl for easy fodder.

Early marriage was and still is the preferred solution for raging hormones but the young people fed on TV viewing and urban realities resist these. Even the law has raised the minimum marriage age. Sex education is practically non existent in State run schools. The chapter on human reproduction barely addressed the biological process but does not touch on gender issues. Sex is never spoken of at home and these children have no mentors to go to. They are left on their own and the heady cocktail of partial knowledge, drugs and alcohol, misplaced conception of the position of a male vis-à-vis a female is a recipe for disaster. Another head to our monster!

Another reality that we do not take in consideration is also the change in the social profile of the western woman. Over the past years the colonial attitude that people of my age had to bear when a hippy with dreadlocks was attended to before you in a shop or restaurant has gone. With the emergence of a new super rich class in India who is always on the prowl for new ways of spending their money, one is witnessing the emergence of a new market for young girls from western countries.   Today it is fashionable to have a western lady shower flowers on your guests at the wedding of your son or daughter or even serve at a cocktail. Event planners do offer this service. And we all know about the IPL cheerleaders.

This has brought about a change in perception in the Indian mind one that can have unfortunate ramifications more so because unlike Europe, Indian men are not used to being refused. Blame it on their mothers!

I am sure there are many more reasons but these can at least put us in the right direction. So where is the solution if there is one.

The only thing that comes too my mind that can address the hydra headed monster is EDUCATION! I know it is not magical pill or panacea. I also know that it not a quick fix but will take time and patience but the only way to address all the issues at hand is education that begins at an early age at home and then in schools.

I cannot begin to imagine how many little girls and boys could be spared child sexual abuse if they were taught the notion of good touch/bad touch at home and taught to say no. How many women who not have to suffer the indignity of being told that they are incapable of producing sons, if the X Y chromosome story was told. How many youngsters would learn age appropriate sexual behaviour and   thus handle their teenage responsibly. The list is endless.

The question is how does one make this happen in a patriarchal society, with religious fanatics and politicians who are on the prowl to annihilate any reasonable programme.

Maybe what we need to ask for to counter rape is not the death penalty but healthy sexual education in schools and perhaps tourist guidebooks should include some information about the social realities of India and advised their clients on appropriate dressing and above all dealing with the opposite gender.

This could be a beginning.

I have borrowed the title of this post from an article that appeared recently in the New York Times: What’s So Scary about Smart Girls and chose to illustrate it with a picture of the 1936-1937 batch of girls from Benares Hindu University. One of them is my mother who fought every odd possible to accede to education at a time when girls rarely went to school. She managed not only to finish school but to go to BHU as a resident and then go on to get a PHD. She was able to do that because she had to formidable allies: her paternal grandmother and her mother and browbeat her father. That was 80 years ago.

Things have not changed as girl’s education is still not fully accepted. So it makes you wonder what is it that makes people – parents, religious authorities, political entities – scared of educated women. Let me quote some parts of the article I mentioned above which are quote pertinent. The author says: Why are fanatics so terrified of girls’ education? Because there’s no force more powerful to transform a society. The greatest threat to extremism isn’t drones firing missiles, but girls reading books. The article suggests that educating girls can change demography and quotes a study that found that for each additional year of primary school, a girl has 0.26 fewer children. So if we want to reduce the youth bulge a decade from now, educate girls today. The article has interesting findings and goes on to say educating girls doubles the formal labor force. It boosts the economy, raising living standards and promoting a virtuous cycle of development. Asia’s economic boom was built by educating girls and moving them from the villages to far more productive work in the cities.

However what really caught my attention was when he states that to fight militancy, we invest overwhelmingly in the military toolbox but not so much in the education toolbox that has a far better record at defeating militancy. This is something I have been repeating for the past decade and a half over and over again. Education and education alone can transform society.

I have been on the receiving end many times. I must confess that the first time I was thrown out of a park by a posse of little politicos simply because I was teaching a bunch of slum kids under a tree, I was dumbfounded. How could teaching children be a danger to anyone. But as time went on I realised how dangerous it could be to those who wanted society to remain static as it suited everyone’s dubious agendas. As time went I understood why the pass percentage was kept at an abysmal 33% as it would ensure that the child was unable to accede to higher education, why State run schools are poorly run and cannot meet the growing demands, why the Right To Education has absurd flaws. Education can rock their boat forever.

I was recently informed that one of our funding partners would be curtailing the size of their donation. The reason was that India was no longer Incredible and thus westerners were shunning it. I guess we are talking of rapes and women safety. I felt terribly sad as it should have been the other way round as helping those who are trying to educate underprivileged children would ensure a safer India. But this is no quick fix solution. It is a long haul but the openly way we can see the change we want provided our patriarchal society, our wily politicians, our corrupt officials allow this to happen.

This afternoon I caught bits and pieces of one of the last election pitches of the star candidate of the ruling political party. This party has been in power for almost 6 decades. However to me the substance of the speech was 6 decades to late. Actually I was reading an interesting book while the TV was own in the background. Most of the time it was the annoying drone one has been forced to get used to. Thank heavens the election saga was under 60 days or as science has proven this jarring and ear splitting campaign could have become a habit we may have found ourselves missing one the show was over. Anyway let us get back to the point in question. As a real member of the second sex, to borrow Simone de Beauvoir’s expression, I am good at multi-tasking, a skill honed to almost perfection during my booth simultaneous interpretation days when I often found myself listening to and then translating some technical speech while writing my postcards! So while I was engrossed in a fascinating book on the Defence of Food, my ears perked up to the content of the speech where the candidate was speaking about heart surgeries a subject dear to my heart – excuse the pun! I snapped my book shut and was all ears. The candidate in question was I guess enumerating the ‘perks’ people would get were his party voted to power again. He was talking about having met ‘mothers’ who came to him as their children had been diagnosed and needed open heart surgery which he estimated at costing 4 to 500 000 Rupees. I have been looking for a transcript of the speech but did not find it. He went on to say that if they came into power the Government would pay for these costly surgeries. I could not but help smile as one does not have to be a rocket scientist to know that the funds will never reach true beneficiaries but get lost in transit and the child in question, who to quote his words has 2 years to live, would certainly die.

I could not help but go back to 2006 when a man hobbling on a stick entered my office with a sheaf of papers in his hand and utter despair in his eyes. He had knocked at every door possible to help him get the money required for his son’s heart surgery. Every door had been banged at his face though in a country where reservation is made a panacea for all ills he came under more than one category: OBC and handicapped. I could not remain a mute spectator. His son was operated upon and is today a smart young lad in class XII. Since we have repaired more than 20 broken hearts and the cost is nowhere near 500 000 but 100 000 max! I felt sad for the thousands of simple souls listening to the words being thrown at them and trusting what was being said as I knew that they were just words and nothing else.

There were many promises made in this speech, promised that as I said were 6 decades too late. Education was also promised. Education that is now a Fundamental Right for every child born in this country. Then my question is: what happened to the children who beg at red lights or work in tea stalls. The promises were lofty and years too late. The Act that came after almost 60 years or 3 generations and is totally flawed. Maybe what politicians needed to promise in Election 2014 was a simple engagement to ensure that all past social policies and programmes would be implemented in their true spirit. We do not need new ones; it is they who need new ones to garner their pockets. Have you ever asked yourself where the 2%  on education levied each time we eat out and pay our taxes. One would have thought that our taxes went to education and social programmes. An interesting article debates the issue. It says: What could be more important for our country than spending on basic education, public health and basic infrastructure? Whatever the government spends on these heads must be fully financed from its primary revenues. In other words, these subjects should have the first claim on the government’s resources. Whatever might be our politics or ideology, no one can deny that these should be our priorities, and after we have adequately provided for these, we should spend on other things. Why then does the government charge a cess for education and another cess on higher education? This seems to suggest that the fundamental priorities of the government are not concerned with improving the lot of the poor, the needy and the citizenry as a whole, but something else. So the question is what is that something else?

To this I would like to add that its time we asked where does the money go! More so because the Right to Education Bill is so drafted that it will never reach the poorest of the poor. Instead of using all the money levied in taxes and ceases to upgrade existing schools to a level which would even attract the middle class to them, as was the case many years ago when the plethora of public schools we have now did not exist, the State chose to come up with its absurd notions. The Bill has been criticised by many as it chose to ignore quality altogether. Today in Delhi, there are in certain schools more than 100 children in a class. Forget all else. 100 kids cannot learn anything in 35 minute periods. To address the notion of quality the State rushed to its favourite cure-all: reservation. Hence 25% of seats in all private schools would be reserved for ‘poor’ children. All private schools means school as diverse as a local school and the uber rich school. The State simply abdicated its constitutional obligation towards providing education. And of course there is more: the right to education covers children from age 6 to 14. Ha Ha! What happens after that is any body’s guess. And not to forget that the pass percentage remains a paltry 33% when colleges require 90%+ for securing admission. So if the child had no dropped out along the way, his chances at gaining higher education at a reasonable rate is limited to open universities, even colleges or correspondence courses.

Back to the speech. The candidate stated that a farmer’s son could dream big and become a pilot and that his Government would ensure this. My humble question is that to become anything  s/he needs basic education and you have not been able to provide that even with ceases and more ceases. So how does he become a pilot. Stop bartering false dreams. Clean up your act first!

And talking of deja vu it has been more than a decade that we have been cleaning your act, albeit with a handful of kids, and though we still do not have a pilot, we have amongst our alumni an international ramp model who was born on a roadside! Talk of dreams. Not to forget the now thousands of kids who have completed their studies honourably and hold good jobs and have broken the cycle of poverty and acceded to the middle class. This was also what was promised to millions in the speech.

The said speech was 60 years too late and so were your promises. The only I got out of it was that I was on the right path. I just hope that I can continue to do so. There are too many dreams to be salvaged and fulfilled.

RG and my team

An article in a leading weekly bought back memories long forgotten and if that was not enough to jog the memory hard another article did the needful: making me decide to share one part if my life I had chosen to keep to myself for my own reasons. But it seems to be open season as books are being published with gay abandon about the very years of India’s history that I am about to write about. Some of you may know about what I could call my brush with the political world. Being an interpreter and conference administrator I was called to service conferences of all kind and thus came into contact with the establishment and for personalities. This is not meant to be my life story but let me simply say that a series of occurrences led me to via many conferences and even the Asian Games to be called upon one evening after the Congress had lost the 1989 elections by Rajiv Gandhi who requested I come to see him at Race Course Road asap. I think I was with him in less than an hour that included a drive from South Delhi and the lengthy security procedure. I had only met him briefly after the elections results and did not quite know what to say but he put me at ease, and with his charming smile told me he needed my help. I need to tell you that prior to this day, I had been engaged in making a data base of Congress workers with my team and hence I guess my administrative capabilities were known to him. Anyway he asked me to follow him and took me to a huge room that was filled from floor to veiling with unopened letters. The simply asked me if I would handle this. It was a challenge I could not refuse. The pile contained letters form Heads of State as well as from humble workers, Xmas and New year greetings as we were in December and much more.

I told him I would get back to him with a plan. Though I knew I would give my time pro bono, I also realised that I would need a team, computers and much more and thus would have to come up with a monthly budget. The next day I had some clear ideas and was all set to share them with RG, but was surprised to find a posse of politicians, some who today are big shots, waiting for me. They said they would be giving me instructions about how to manage the Congress President’s (CP as everyone seem to love acronyms) correspondence. A red light started flashing in my mind. This is was bad news but anyway I would give them a patient hearing. It took me a minute to know that I would not do what they wanted as the first sentence they came up with was: you have to answer all letters written by senior Congressmen and then the coup de grace you will only answer letters written on good quality paper and never to answer nasty letters. I nodded as expected and was just waiting for a chance to leave these men and their ideas and storm into the CP’s office and lay some ground rules.

RG must have known that there was something wrong as I entered his room. Being who I am I told him to find someone else for the task as the conditions his people had set were not acceptable. He asked me to calm down and tell him what happened. I explained that for me his correspondence was a unique occasion to build a PR exercise that would help him regain the trust of many and hence letters by Congressmen on beautiful paper was the lowest priority while the nasty letters were top priority! He smiled and said he agreed 100% and that it would be my way. I felt smug but also knew I had made a whole set of new enemies! I also knew that every letter would be answered no matter what.

We worked out a great system  were not only did we answer all letters but also initiated our own on festivals, birthdays etc. So imagine my surprise when I read an article entitled pre-paid connection that begins with these words: Namaskar! This is your MP speaking. I wish you a very happy birthday and apologise for not being able to attend your celebrations. But I will try to meet you the next time I visit the locality,” says a voice message by Election Awaaz, a Gurgaon-based political consultancy firm… “If you are the voter who gets a personalised call like this, how would you feel? Wouldn’t you vote for the MP?” asks J.P. Singh, founder of Election Awaaz. 

I guess this is how the hundreds of thousands of people from across the land felt when they got an unexpected letter from RG, more so those who had sent vitriolic letters and probably never expected then to be answered. I remember one person who wrote back saying something like: I still do not agree with your views but was consider you a true gentleman!

I guess my team and I were an avant garde political consultancy firm. Makes one feel quite good. Our task was herculean as we had to open thousands of letters each day, categorise them, read them and answer them. Our rudimentary computer and its floppy disk was a help but nothing compared to the software one has today. And then the letters had to be folded, put in an envelope, the envelope glued and then stamped and posted. No SEND button! It was a great learning experience particularly as one understood how political parties worked and how it was not for the likes of me.

In 1991 elections were called and I suggested that we write a nice and positive letter to everyone on our data base. I made a draft and submitted it for approval. Imagine my horror when my letter was rejected and a new draft sent to me which was arrogant and supercilious, the exact opposite of the image we had built over the months. I was up in arms again and sent a rather hard note to CP telling me that I would not be party to the draft he had sent and would resign if forced to do so as I could not do anything that I know would harm him. He sent me a short note stating: your draft OK! Sadly things did not turn out as we would have hoped.

So imagine my surprise again when I read these words in the article mentioned at the beginning of this post: In a new book out this week, My Years with Rajiv and Sonia, Rajiv Gandhi’s aide, former Union home secretary R.D. Pradhan, quotes the late prime minister saying in 1991 that he did not want a negative campaign. His advisers Rajiv Desai, Sam Pitroda, Suman Dubey and Prannoy Roy wanted Rajiv Gandhi to be confrontational. Roy, writes Pradhan, wanted a campaign that would “shock and wake up” voters. Rajiv was adamant, and said no.

Hey that is my story! And I still stand by it.

Seeing what goes in the name of electioneering today makes me gag and run a mile. Where have all the gentlemen gone!