Some harsh truths about rural India

I just returned from a short trip to Banaras. I didn’t go there as a tourist. Nothing about Banaras appeals to the tourist in me. If anything, the religious hoopla about it has only ensured that I will probably never go there as a tourist.

In the original version of this post, I'd wrongly attributed the temple-like structure of Banaras' railway station to the government. Thanks to my half-Banarsi, half-American sister, I now stand corrected. The structure was built during the times of Raj, so the Indian government isn't at fault.

Now, back to the main topic.

The purpose behind the visit was to spend some time in a quiet, rural setting, and to teach kids from underprivileged backgrounds. The school where I stayed and taught is called Baba Devraha Vidyala, named after Baba Devraha, the Indian mahayogi who allegedly lived to be at least 250 years old, vacating his earthly confinement in 1990, at the banks of Yamuna. Please note the use of the word ‘allegedly’.

This privately-run school is situated in district Mirzapur, just at the border of Banaras. The community around the school has a high share of families running slaughter houses. These people are poor, illiterate, and spend their day drinking and gambling. There are no street lights around this area.

Why this obscure choice of school?

I have known the principal of the school, whom I refer to as Guruji, for a few months now. I was introduced to him by my father, who got in touch with him while designing a scheme to aid private schools in and around Banaras. Guruji is a simple, deeply religious man, who has dedicated the past 32 years of his life to running this school.  He comes from a very rich family background with which he has practically nothing to do anymore, leaving behind even his immediate family. Without any source of income, he depends entirely on donations to run this school, and has made upliftment of the nearby community the sole mission of his life.

Now, I harbour particular distaste for those clad in religious clothing, irrespective of its colour. I probably had similar ideas about Guruji till I got my first chance to have a long interaction with him, at my grandmother’s cremation site in Banaras, in the month of September. I liked how he was open to tackling the umpteen challenges raised by me against Hindu religion. We had quality discussions on the topic of Adi Shankaracharya, one of the few religious demigods I greatly revere. Guruji invited me to spend a few days with him at his school, where I could teach students and engage in religion-baiting. I instantly knew I’d take him up on the offer sooner rather than later.

Being at the school

I walked into a tiny room on the roof of the single-storey school building, which was going to be my dwelling for the next few days. There was a wooden cot in the room with a few blankets on it, making up for what could hardly pass for a mattress. I was informed that it was impossible to spend the night without putting on a mosquito net, something which makes me particularly claustrophobic. The floor was ice cold. There was an ajar window which I rushed to shut because that was the only thing that acted as a form of voluntary temperature control. The little wooden door to the room had no mechanism for it to be shut completely. There were narrow gaps in it which ensured nil privacy and incessant blasts of cold air. Thankfully, there was a gas stove in the room. I knew how I would be spending my nights. The picture below will illustrate my description.

Right next to my room was Guruji’s room - not too dissimilar from my own, except for a tonne of idols within it. The two rooms opened into a verandah which was also the dining area. Of course, the floor acted as both the chair and the table. The rest of the roof had no construction. I can’t say the view was nice. It was barren and dusty all around. The bathroom, thankfully with Indian-style commode (how can people not hate sharing their sweaty thighs with others’?), was on the ground floor.  

All told, the only physically comforting aspect about the place was the Indian-style commode. Despite the unfamiliarity and difficulty of the surroundings, the thought that that this was my only chance at simple living during over a quarter century of my existence, comforted me.

I arrived early morning, which meant I was witness to the morning aarti involving at least 10-15 students of the school. Thankfully, I don’t yet belong to the Richard Dawkins school of fuck-you-theism, which means I don’t entirely mind passive participation in religious ceremonies. But what I did mind was aarti at an ostensibly non-religious school, though this wasn’t unexpected given Guruji’s religious inclinations. The morning aarti wasn’t the only religious chant of the day. Despite my disapproval of the religious ceremonies, I was amazed to find Muslims kids participating enthusiastically in all of those. This becomes still more surprising given the slaughter house background most of them come from.

I also witnessed the school assembly, where I was made to address the students at a rather short notice. Bereft of ideas, I blabbered about the importance of English, internet, and female emancipation through education. It felt good to have done that in chaste Hindi. Guruji also nudged me to praise Bhartiya sanskriti in light of my travels abroad, but I desisted from lying since I firmly believe in the superiority of present-day European culture. My belief was reaffirmed when I witnessed sindoor on some girls’ heads. Almost all of them were under 18.

As already explained by Guruji, certain things were clear to me after my interactions with students on day one: most students had little command on any subject; the girls were far behind the boys in terms of knowledge as well as confidence; most students were totally disinterested in education; they had almost no knowledge of the outside world.

I also found out that being a Hindi medium school, they had learnt all subjects, except English itself, in Hindi. This made things simple: I could teach them only English.

My teaching sessions happened on the roof. Being a first-time teacher, I drew upon Michel Thomas’ methods (from where I’m learning German) of teaching a new language. As expected, the students knew little beyond A B C D...I taught them basic sentence construction by putting together the verb(s), person and tense. The lessons were peppered with my thoughts on the indispensability of gender equality for my female pupils, who were especially shy. Giggles broke into laughter when I told them I cleaned my own house and had started cooking too. I have no idea why there was pin-drop silence when I said it was alright to have girlfriends and boyfriends.

There was a clear uptick in the students’ strength and responses on the subsequent days. That boosted my confidence and satisfaction. It felt good to be a teacher. Besides being able to help the unfortunate bunch of kids, I am sure the feeling of being in complete control also played a part.

On the final day, after what must have been nearly 90 minutes’ worth of English lessons, I turned to maths. As if the condition of girl students wasn’t bad enough, I was told that all of them had opted for home science over maths. That hurt, and I couldn’t keep myself from rambling about how home science was useless shit, and that they must focus on subjects that will ensure their economic welfare.

Turning to the boys, I fumbled for more than 5 minutes to translate the Hindi word for trigonometry, the subject they were being currently taught. Knowing my reach was limited due to the language problem, I started with the most basic question of all: sum of angles in a triangle.

Not one boy of at least the 12 present there knew the answer.

If you thought this was rock bottom, sample this: not one boy knew the sum of angles on a straight line. Not even one.

I used my leverage over Guruji to summon the sole maths teacher of the school. Relatively young guy, he at least knew the answer to  both the above questions, but seemed a little surprised when I drew the sine curve and urged him to use illustrations to put his point across.

To Guruji’s credit, he’s managed a computer with Windows 7 as the OS. There’s no internet connection but he’s even caught hold of a computer teacher. Far removed from any computer-related know-how himself, he asked me to test the credentials of the teacher. I soon found out that she could type with only one hand, and hardly knew anything beyond Paint, Word and (bits of) Excel. Out of all the students, there was just one who had basic knowledge of internet. Dude even had a Twitter account. He had been picking up the nuggets of wisdom from a nearby computer training centre.

Less fortunate experiences

Misogyny and gender discrimination are everyday occurrences in rural India, found in such abundance that they often go unnoticed and unacknowledged.

I got the first taste of this when a bunch of female students enthusiastically volunteered to cook food for Guruji and his guests. As the men ate (I declined to join them and ate privately), the girls happily hopped from cooker to plate, serving them with broad smiles on their faces.  

I’ll let pictures do the talking:

Later on, after being confronted by me over the propriety of his students cooking for him, Guruji dismissed it saying it was entirely voluntary and nothing more than ‘gurudakshina’. No matter how well-intentioned its adherent, religion always leaves its mark.

Of course, urban India can’t be left too far behind. I was pillion-riding a bike through Banaras’ streets when the driver of the bike and I spotted a couple holding hands. That didn’t go down well with the sensibilities of the driver, who quoted at least three different shloks to me to justify how this was a damnable sin. There was no such consternation when he happily swayed past a gentleman pissing almost in the middle of the street.

Future engagement

Despite its obvious shortcomings, which range from demotivated students and bad teachers to gender discrimination and religious teaching, the school is the only ray of hope for hundreds of kids in the impoverished area. I have decided to visit the school from time to time, and donate a modest share of my earnings to it. I will also constantly persuade Guruji to introduce changes in line with modern education. Besides this, there are certain things - getting a broadband connection, installing LED lights, and fixing the loudspeaker - I’ll be directly helping them out with.

Touring Banaras

 

In the very beginning of this post, I mentioned how Banaras has never excited the tourist in me. To the uninitiated, the galis of Banaras will surely offer some charm, but not to me after my trip to Venice. To the religious, the sheer downsides of the city are negated by its religiosity Sadly for me, the latter only aggravated the former.

Wherever I went, I spotted a bunch of bhaiya trolls spending their day next to a tea stall and paan shop, filling their dicks and mouths with fluids to paint the town yellow and red. If America is a melting pot for all cultures, Banaras’ streets are a melting pot for the shit of all species - human, dog, or bovine. The famed ghats are nothing but a massive public toilet, with Ganga as the only flushing mechanism. The most famous cremation ghat, Manikarnika, has veritable armies of dogs scavenging half-burnt human flesh floating in the river. There might be a silver lining to all this: the people of Banaras have managed to dirty the Ganga river so much, that they can now derive the benefits of drinking human and cow urine - a monumental task for the mere mortal - from drinking the river’s water. That probably sounds less odious, and ensures an all-expenses-paid vacation to heaven. Just one little caveat: they should make sure that heaven doesn’t shut its gates to those who unwittingly consume dog urine.

I can script a similar tale of Banaras’ traffic, where honking seems to be an act of honour. But I’ll leave this picture to do the explaining:

If you’re still interested in touring Banaras, I would recommend contacting Ayush and Anchal (http://www.theroobarooproject.com/roobaroowalks/), a non-Banarasi couple who offer pay-as-you-please guided tours of the city. They’re super nice and informed. Anchal took me on a boat tour, from where we also experienced the world-famous Ganga aarti. I wonder why it’s world famous because…..Alright, I’ll hold my tongue on this.

So who won the War On Terror?

Osama Bin Laden is dead. So are most of his brethren and compatriots who fought shoulder-to-shoulder with him against the might of the American military. His organization, the once feared Al-Qaeda, is splintered. The country which he ruled with such impunity was under US occupation for nearly a decade, and there’s a (pseudo) democratic government in place now. Surely, all that must add up to provide an easy answer – the US - to the provocative question posed in the title of this piece. Right?

Wrong.

Any serious student of war must realise that war is not a game of numbers, and its success is almost never measured in terms of number of casualties inflicted. There is always a strategic objective to be achieved. This is something Indians need to be reminded of everytime they boast proudly of India’s thrashing of Pakistan during the Kargil War in 1999, basing their arguments solely on the greater number of casualties suffered by the Pakistani side, and the fact that India, after much huffing and puffing, was able to wrest back its own territory. They forget that the war was waged by General Musharraf, purely with the purpose of scuttling the imminent Kashmir accord between the civilian governments of the two countries, which would have robbed the Pakistan military of its raison d’etre. That purpose was achieved beyond Gen. Musharraf’s wildest imagination.

Likewise, did Osama Bin Laden really expect to pummel the US military into submission when he brought down the Twin Towers? No. He merely did something outrageous to draw the US out of its comfort zone, into a battleground of his own choosing. Osama wasn’t really fighting the American military. No one would dream of doing that armed with just a few hundred Kalashnikovs.

Osama waged a war against the American - or more generally the Western - way of life. He waged a war against democracy, freedom of expression and multiculturalism, ideals which were on a roll in the West, till September 11, 2001. Osama fought to once and for all destroy the growing bonhomie between Muslims and the West. He envisioned a world where these two communities would form polar ends of the world.

Once the bastion of individual freedom, US has turned into a pseudo-police state post 9/11. Snowden's revelations are not really an anomaly, they’re just the tip of the iceberg. Most worryingly, draconian laws such as Patriot Act were largely welcomed and citizens in the West have now succumbed to a trade-off between security and privacy, and the inclination is generally towards security, at the great cost of privacy. Even though corrections are being made now, the scales are clearly tilted in favour of security. US airports have turned into the Abu Ghraib of innocent citizens, and every pat down that will be, and has been, carried out post-9/11 must fleetingly remind both the parties involved of one bearded man who changed the course of history from inside a dark cave.

Now, people who happen to lay their eyes on a man with a skull cap on his head or a woman with a black cloth around her body wish for x-ray vision, so that they could see the perceived bomb hidden inside. The Muslims have responded in equal measure. It is hard to think of even one American who loves his country as much as almost every new-born in the Middle East hates America.

In addition, Osama might have, albeit unknowingly, triggered America’s economic downfall by making the country spend trillions of dollars on its costliest and longest war yet.

As also evidenced by statistics on terrorism, Osama has comprehensively trounced the War on Terror. The number of terrorist attacks globally has gone up annually by over 10 times since 9/11. Al-Qaeda has only passed on its legacy to the likes of Jabhat al-Nusra, Boko Haram, Al-Shabaab and ISIS, whose beheading and burning videos must have got more hits than all anti-terrorism videos calling for peace put together. These organisations have spread to countries hitherto untouched by terrorism. Yemen experienced 1,000 terror attacks between 2006-09, compared to 21 between 2002-05. Currently, the country is a cesspool of global terrorism. Algeria, Egypt, Somalia and Nigeria have their own struggles. The very existence of the last two is under threat from terrorists.

The terrorist organisations feed off the scantiness of resources – education, employment, food and water security - in an increasing number of countries. The resources are on a sharply dwindling path. The heydays of terrorism are dawning only now. Even President Obama, armed with his mesmerising oratory and a military force unmatched in the history of humankind, should realise that his rhetoric to “degrade and destroy” terrorism remains just that, rhetoric.

Looking at the current state of affairs, which looks set to get worse for a long time to come, the emotions for Osama ought to be an oxymoronic mix of deep-seated disgust and absolute admiration. On one hand, he reminds us of what a single human being - armed with intellect, loyalists and an indomitable will - is capable of achieving. On the other, he reminds us that despite all the technological shenanigans, a strong moral compass is still the most desirable trait in a human being.

The Spectre of Online Shaming: Don't forgive the criminal, and don't let him forget

Brock Allen Turner, a 20-year old Stanford student, has been convicted of rape in the United States. As I write this, hundreds of tweets are hurtling down by the minute, telling him to “fuck off and die”, “burn in hell”, “be locked up for eternity”. Some feature his photo, saying “this is what a rapist looks like”. Still others target his father, labelling his letter pleading lenience for his son a manual on “how to raise a rapist.” Even his mother hasn't been spared. She's being hounded for being "the bitch that keeps quiet".

Welcome to the world of online shaming.

***

“Power corrupts. And absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

For most of us, the above quote conjures up images of the high and mighty - the business magnates, the politicians, the power brokers. After all, they control all resources and call the shots, as opposed to the voiceless, powerless common man who goes about his daily life with ignominy.

But, replace the very distinguishable face of the common man with the collective mask of social media, and he turns into a judge, a lawmaker, a law-keeper, an activist, a vigilante, all at the same time. Social media finally provided the hitherto power-starved common man a stick to beat the privileged with. By indulging in mass online shaming, the common man could punish the politician who went astray, the banker who violated norms, the business man who paid bribes, and the film star who made a racist comment.

As put by the British journalist Jon Ronson – he has published a book on the issue of online shaming - in one of his TED talks, shaming via social media has enabled “democratization of justice”. In other words, online shaming is like universal adult franchise, only this time the vote goes to not electing, but to dethroning the privileged.

We – the common people – finally had power. We were going to set the record straight and destroy the culture of privilege. But as is the wont of power, it corrupted us.

On December 21, 2013, Justine Sacco, a little known NY-based PR executive with 170 Twitter followers tweeted: “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just Kidding. I am white!” Soon after, she got on to a long flight from London to Cape Town, unaware that this one tweet was going to destroy her life. While on the flight, one of her followers tweeted this to a journalist with 15,000 followers. Soon, she became the worldwide number one trending topic on Twitter. During the TED talk, Jon Ronson gives a hair-raising account of how the Twitter responses went from shock to outrage, and eventually to outright profanity and humiliation, without anyone bothering to know the real intention behind the tweet. Excluding the unprintable, she was termed a racist, a white supremacist, and a rich American bitch. Soon came the shower of disturbing tweets, one of them reading “Somebody HIV-positive should rape this bitch and then we’ll find out if her skin colour protects her from AIDS.” This gentleman got a free pass, but not the few tweets which tried to speak up for Justine. As if providing cover fire to an advancing army, a dedicated bunch of Tweeters chased away the sane voices, all while Justine was blissfully unaware.

Champions of equality took it upon themselves to get the racist Justine fired, and soon #Gettingfired was trending worldwide. Jon tells us how “anger turned to excitement” as her employers declared she was in trouble.

There were innocent bystanders, who never directly attacked Justine but only derived pleasure from the sadistic orgy. One tweet said “Fascinated by the @JustineSacco train wreck. It’s global and she’s apparently *still on the plane*.”

Corporations jumped in to make profits off her ruin. An airline urged people to take their flight the next time they planned to “tweet something stupid before take-off.” @JustineSacco was duly tagged. A lot of other corporations made big money from Justine’s misfortune. Jon Ronson tells us that between this day and the last day of December, Justine was googled 1.22 million times, and Google might have made up to $468,000 from it. While Google became rich, the ones actually doing the shaming got nothing. In Jon’s acerbic words that bring out the irony, he terms these people as Google’s “unpaid shaming interns”.

As if the privilege of being white and American wasn’t punishable enough, she was soon dubbed as the daughter of Desmond Sacco, a South African billionaire. Of course, this helped dehumanise the victim, and shielded the attackers from guilt. No one really bothered to find out that Justine’s father was actually a carpet seller.

Someone traced Justine’s flight and set an online tracker for landing. #HasJustineLandedYet emerged as the countdown to the physical manifestation of Goliath, to be finally slain by David. 

Upon being enquired by Jon about how it felt destroying Justine, the journalist who sparked the wildfire said, “It felt delicious”, and quickly added, “I am sure she’s fine”. Except that she wasn’t. Getting fired was the least of Justine’s woes. She complains of anxiety, depression, and living under a constant fear of being ‘recognised’.

In a chat Jon had with her later, Justine told him that her tweet was in the tradition of black humour, mocking the ignorance of Americans to a disease such as AIDS, but since she wasn’t a popular character from South Park, she was ripped to shreds.

Justine is not alone, of course. Monica Lewinsky, Matt Taylor, Lindsey Stone and Jonah Lehrer are some other names that come to mind. If they were not already privileged, the same was quickly ascribed to them by the anti-privilege army, and they were ruined for allegedly misusing it.

Nearly two decades later, Lewinsky still faces the disturbingly named practice of ‘slut-shaming’. Matt Taylor, the man who helped put earthly instruments on far-off heavenly bodies, was ravaged for wearing a shirt with bikini-clad girls printed on it. Stone had a Facebook page created with several thousand likes, successfully demanding her sacking because she was photographed making inappropriate, though innocuous, gestures at a cemetery in US. Jonah Lehrer, the now-sacked staff writer at the New Yorker, committed the heresy of apologizing before a live Twitter feed, after he was caught plagiarising. His gaze was swarmed with comments like “Jonah Lehrer’s speech should be titled ‘Recognising self-deluded assholes and how to avoid them in the future’” and “Rantings of a Delusional, Unrepentant Narcissist.”

Jon says online shaming and cyberbullying leaves its victims “mangled”. They suffer extreme depression, insomnia and suicidal thoughts, and many even go through with them. Others stay home for months, even years.

Closer home, two additions to the long list of shame victims are Sarvjeet Singh and Jasleen Kaur. In August 2015, after Sarvjeet was accused by Jasleen of harassment and obscenity at a traffic signal in Delhi, the online vigilante army went after his privilege of being male, and made sure he ended up in jail. In a sagacious counterattack, Sarvjeet pointed to Jasmeet’s misuse of her privilege as an AAP activist. Soon, the tables were turned, and now Jasmeet is at the receiving end of the online bloodlust. It won’t be surprising to one day see corporations exploit the duo’s humiliation. Maybe something on the lines of “before you say something stupid at a traffic signal...” would do the trick. At the least, online companies are already milking the duo for profits. In the shaming industry, Dollars come by the click.

The problem lies not just in the immediate damage inflicted. Online shaming follows the principle: ‘once shamed, always shamed’. Google Lindsey Stone, and the first result displays the inappropriate photo. To add to Justine’s woes, she rues not being able to date because Google has a permanent account of her infamous past. Unlike the cardinal principle of criminal justice, online justice doesn’t allow reform and redemption, every criminal's right and the society's duty, no matter what the crime. This is true for Justine, Matt, Lewinsky, and now Turner. Now, businesses such as Reputation.com, that allow people to choose what information they want about themselves online have sprung up. In terms of allowing second chances, the European Court of Justice’s landmark ruling on the ‘Right to be Forgotten’ might go a long way.

By Dick Costola’s own admission, Twitter’s handling of online rage has been shameful during his tenure as its CEO. The portal conforms to the American free speech ideal, where democracy lords over civility.

However, even though empowering the common man sounds like the cornerstone of democracy, online discussions, and especially online shaming, is, in Jon’s words, nothing but a “mutual approval machine”, where similar opinions are regurgitated and differing ones are either ignored or bullied into silence. There is scientific research to show that social media curtails diversity of information and opinion. Moreover, in case of online shaming, it is a case of one versus way too many, and sometimes even that one is asleep on a plane. This is anti-democratic as it gets.

Jon adds that the phrase “misuse of privilege” is becoming a free pass for anyone on social media to dismantle the life of anyone else, whether or not actually privileged. The temptation and power to deliver justice without accountability is turning us into “hanging judges”. Such a free pass has killed our ability to empathise with fellow beings and to give them a second chance.

A worthy complement to the quote at the beginning of the article is: “with great power comes great responsibility.” Social media is a great power, we must learn to use it responsibly, or risk being irredeemably corrupted.

Pattern of violence in North East

We still don’t know how ‘landmark’ the landmark Naga peace accord will turn out to be, as NE watchers like Bibhu Routray have pointed out. However, what we do know is that the Indian government has done a good job at reducing violence in the region in the past decade. Looking at stats from the authoritative SATP, it becomes clear that after a peak of more than 1000 insurgency*-related deaths in each of the years 2007 and 2008, the numbers have less than halved.

Most NE watchers, as well as the MHA, still like to classify violence in the seven sisters as ‘insurgency’, though a more granular look at the data shows this is only partially true, depending on the respective states. As per a noted journalist who’s reported from NE for nearly 3 decades, the percentage of civilian deaths in Assam show that at least some insurgent groups there have “morphed” into terrorist groups. The journalist and another researcher from IDSA drove home the point that Naga insurgents had largely stayed true to their oath, avoiding targeting of civilians. The journalist also stressed that post the 1997 ceasefire, most deaths in Nagaland had come from inter-group rivalries. Deaths of insurgents accounted for nearly 75% (430 out of 551) of total insurgency-related deaths in Nagaland. The journalist’s claim about inter-gang rivalries seems true, since the unusually high ratio of deaths of insurgents to that of security personnel (nearly 40:1) for Nagaland suggests that killing insurgents might not have been the handiwork of security forces alone.

*A researcher from IDSA informed me that terrorism and insurgency were distinguished on the basis of the motive and expanse of their targets. While the former indulges in mass-killings with only a vague motive, the latter avoids mindless killings of civilians, with the attacks having a clear-cut motive.

This is for your birthday

I’ve heard people saying that “life is an exercise in acquisition of memories.” Not with you around.

With you around, life is an exercise in anticipation of a smile. Or should I say, was. Of course, the smile came bundled with sometimes near depression-inducing stress, umpteenth sleepless nights and the possibility of a fist-fight with the ‘atheists.’

I don’t know why my usual lust for rationality couldn’t make me question my turning into a worshipper the first time I saw you. It had to be either my gullible 7 year self or the usual perils that come with turning into a worshipper. It must have been the latter, for those questions never arose, even at much advanced stages of my life. Damn, the only time I hated my lust for rationality was when I was inclined to disbelieve a stray piece proclaiming Obama got to know of you because your presence in the Green Temple caused a 5% decrease in US workers’ productivity. Nonetheless, I never dared to crosscheck it. It must have been true.

It’s so hard to write this piece because everytime I think of something, I drift off into the swarm of recollections in my mind. How the only time I prayed to the heavens from the depths of my being was for you; how the first time I abused was when I interrogated my barber and his acolytes over their raison d’etre upon their criticism of you; how I wouldn’t let my mother so much as move an inch from her position, notwithstanding her back ache, while you were still there; how I turned into a serial liar to skip school for you, and how I secretly thanked my parents for pretending to believe that I had the propensity to suffer from stomach aches only on the days your devotees had a chance to see you; how an atheist chum (yeah, that’s an oxymoron for me) wrote to me about you on Feb 24, 2010, saying, “Vo bhagwaan hai” and how I replied saying “Atheists turn believers, that’s who you call God”; how, while passing by SCG last year in broad daylight, I slipped into a dream where I watched you thump the fastest bowler in the world straight past him to the boundary; how I wondered the only fallacy you ever committed was looking up to the sky while raising the bat, instead of just getting a mirror.

As is the wont of blind lovers, I could never bring myself to the realization that there would come a day when the seemingly eternal tap of elixir would dry up. Perhaps the fear of your dreams turning to your memories held me back. Perhaps I was too selfish to let go of my greatest source of happiness. I thought I’d grow old with you, but you proved better than a mere mortal even in that department. After you departed, I tried not talking of you, tried avoiding your all pervading legacy, or even thinking about you. It just helped me keep away from reality, because reality can hurt.

But here I am, recounting precisely those moments which have indeed turned into memories, never to be buried under an avalanche of new ones. It doesn’t matter anymore if you were the greatest. It doesn’t matter if you deserved the Bharat Ratna or the way round. I was, and still am, too stooped in belief to think of the trivialities. All that matters is your memories. At first I was too scared to acquire them, now I just can’t let go of them.

Happy Birthday, You.

Is 42 the answer?

This post is being written on sheer popular demand (as many as, like, two people had urged me to write this).

It's a much more detailed version of my article for Mint, where I tried to decode the mystery surrounding Union-State transfers, but could not include several critical points due to space constraint. 

Under “bibliography” (pardon the dogged misalignment in paras). I have also pinpointed the sources from within the budget documents which will help readers have a look at the numbers for themselves and do further research. I am quite sure that such clarity on budget documents, especially in relation to fund transfers, exists nowhere in public domain. I’d like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Ms. Indira Rajaraman (Member, 13^th Finance Commission) and Dr. Abhijit Sen (Member, 14^th Finance Commission), who spent hours on the phone with me, helping me zero in on the required information.

I wrote the Mint article in response to 14th FC's recommendation to transfer 42% of funds to states as tax devolution. Following questions in my mind were the trigger:

1.     42% of WHAT?

2.     Why is this being hailed as a (heroin) shot in the arm for federalism?

3.     What have been the past trends regarding fund transfers?

Finding answers to the above questions requires one to know that the nature of transfers that happen from Union to states is either tied or untied. As the name suggests, tied transfers indicate that the central government exercises tight control over how these funds are used by the states, whereas untied funds can be used by the state government at its whim. It is because the 14th Finance Commission has recommended a sharp increase in the share of untied funds, that its decision has been welcomed.

Tied or untied, the transfers take place under three broad categories-

1.     Statutory transfers (recommended by Finance Commission),

2.     Plan transfers

3.     Non-plan grants (not recommended by Finance Commission).

However, a fourth kind of transfer, called direct transfer, was in vogue between 2006-07 and 2013-14. In a welcome move that helps reduce corruption, it was entirely scrapped by the first budget of Modi government in 2014-15, and made part of plan transfers, which means they’re now routed through the state government. More on this later.

Delving further, each of the above three categories has subdivisions. The statutory transfers are further categorised under two heads- tax devolution and grants. Plan transfers have several subcategories, and explanation pertinent to the issue at hand will be made later. The share of the non-plan grants (not recommended by Finance Commission) in total transfers is tiny - generally between 1% and 2% - and involves compensation to states, such as the kind promised for introduction of GST. The direct transfers used to go to state and district-level implementing agencies, to aid Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS), but have now been made part of plan transfers.

Besides the several categories under which it happens, what makes funds transfers far more complex is that certain funds lie between being entirely tied and entirely untied. An example of this is Backward Region Grants Fund (BRGF), which is a part of plan transfers. However, for the sake of this analysis, the funds under different heads have been considered as either wholly tied or wholly untied. This is not an entirely unfair assumption.

The statutory transfers have been considered untied. Plan grants, except for two components – Normal Central Assistance (NCA) and Special Central Assistance (SCA) – have been considered tied. The tiny share of non-plan grants has been considered untied. The erstwhile direct transfers have been considered tied. The table below summarises the above discussion.

Kind of transfer	Nature (tied/untied)	Further categorization
Statutory transfers	Untied	Tax devolution, grants
Plan transfers	Tied, except NCA and SCA	Several categories
Non-plan grants	Untied	Different kinds of compensation
Direct transfers (now discontinued)	Tied	Money under different CSS

Answering the above three questions

The famous figure of 42% forms the tax devolution, a part of statutory transfers. It denotes the money received by the states as proportion of the ‘divisible pool’ of central taxes. The divisible pool is the part of central taxes that has to be shared with the states. The divisible pool has hovered around 87% of total central taxes in the past 5 years, and excludes certain kinds of surcharges levied by the centre. In absolute terms, in 2015-16, the states will get a total of Rs. 5.24 trillion, or 42% of the divisible pool, which amounts to Rs. 12.47 trillion.

Besides this untied transfer worth Rs. 5.24 lakh crore, other untied transfers take the total quantum of untied transfers to Rs. 6.32 lakh crore. The total tied transfers amount to Rs. 2.21 lakh crore, which means the net amount transferred to states for 2015-16 is Rs. 8.53 lakh crore. This represents a paltry jump of 8% from the previous year’s funds.

However, what matters is that 74% of the funds are untied. This represents a leap of 12 percentage points from the previous year. This number – highlighting the jump in share of untied transfers – is the key to increased fiscal autonomy of states.

However, as seen in the graph above, despite the big jump in share of untied transfers this year, this move is only an attempt to restore things to how they were before 2006-07, the year in which direct transfers started. In 2005-06, a much bigger 78% of total transfers to states were untied. This number collapsed to 65% the following year, on account of introduction of tied direct transfers. There was yet another collapse in share of untied transfers to 57%, when UPA-II, emboldened by its electoral victory, announced its first budget in 2009-10. This budget saw near-doubling of funds under direct transfers, to Rs. 96000 crore, to aid some of its flagship schemes such as MGNREGS.

  

As mentioned above, the scrapping of direct transfers in 2014-15 provides a massive boost to the cause of transparency. These funds, to the tune of Rs. 1.4 trillion in 2013-14, were subject to poor regulatory oversight and lax standards of accounting. In several reports tabled in Parliament, CAG had raised red flags about this issue, even as the share of direct transfers kept growing rapidly. The infamous NRHM scam in UP, during Mayawati’s tenure as CM, stands as an exemplar of the peril of direct transfers.

In its bid to provide more untied funds, the central government has had to inevitably reduce allocations under other categories. As already highlighted by Abhijit Sen, the sole dissenting member of 14th Finance Commission, giving the states such a free hand all of a sudden might not have the desired impact. He points to scrapping of critical schemes such as BRGF and RKVY, which had allegedly been catalysts in rural development and agricultural growth, respectively. Till 2014-15, BRGF was meant to go exclusively to backward regions in different states, which were free to spend it on their development. Now, the state governments receiving this money are under no such obligation. Mr. Sen has also claimed that the net amount transferred to Panchayats across the country will be lesser than what it was during 2014-15. Thus, even as the second tier of governance - state governments - stands to benefit, the third tier - local bodies - stands to lose out, or be reliant on the benevolence of respective state governments. Frankly, I think this is a blessing in disguise for the nation. Massive unbridled funds for Panchayats,post 73rd amendment, have only given rise to political rivalry and added another thick layer to corruption. Blind advocacy of devolution of power and funds is mostly right-wing ballyhoo. I have had a good, albeit vicarious, experience of this while assisting my dad, who happens to be a district magistrate.

Besides BRGF, the other untied parts of plan transfer – NCA and SCA – have also been scrapped and made part of tax devolution. Earlier, most of these grants went to special-category states, at least some of which now stand to lose out. Also, allocations to major human development schemes such as ICDS have been less than halved. Education suffers as well (that might be a blessing in disguise, considering who’s is in control of those funds). Looking at the quality of most state governments in the country, I am personally in favour of Mr. Sen’s recommendation of transferring only 38% of divisible pool of taxes, instead of 42%. But that doesn’t matter anymore.

Shashi Tharoor raised similar concerns in a recent piece, though he erroneously pointed out that the states were getting only Rs. 64000 crore extra in tax devolution. The real number is Rs. 1.41 lakh crore higher than last year’s. Also, what everyone seems to be forgetting is that the states are set to get a windfall from the coal auctions as well.

The huge devolution of taxes also means that the total expenditure in union budget of 2015-16 is, in a long time, lesser than the amount outlined by its predecessor. Clearly, with such mega funds at their disposal, states are expected to be prudent, equal partners in growth.

Douglas Adams, in his much acclaimed novel ‘The hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy’, stated that 42 is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything. Will it be the answer to India’s woes of federalism as well, or will it turn out quixotic?

Bibliography

All data is present within budget documents (http://indiabudget.nic.in/). There are two major problems: there's no annotation/lucidity, there are sometimes huge contradictions in the data.

Data on statutory transfers:

1. Tax devolution, refer to: http://indiabudget.nic.in/ub2015-16/bag/bag2.pdf

2.  Finance Commission grants, refer to: http://indiabudget.nic.in/ub2015-16/eb/stat10.pdf

In the above, statement 4.03 (Grants under Article 275(1) of the Constitution) gives the desired number. In reality, not all of these funds are totally untied, but I have nonetheless made this assumption, since getting the precise breakup seemed impossible.

Data on Plan transfers: The total funds under plan transfers are calculated by adding the two figures mentioned below

1.     Central assistance to state plans: refer to http://indiabudget.nic.in/ub2015-16/eb/stat16.pdf

In the above, the row titled “Total Central Assistance to State Plans (A to D)” gives the desired figure.

2.     Assistance for CSS: refer to http://indiabudget.nic.in/ub2015-16/eb/stat17.pdf

In the above, the row titled “Assistance to states under central plan” gives the desired figure.

 Data on non-plan grants (not recommended by FC): refer to http://indiabudget.nic.in/ub2015-16/eb/stat10.pdf

In the above, subtract the funds under statement 4.03 from Grand Total to get the desired number.

Data on direct transfers (discontinued since 2014-15): refer to http://indiabudget.nic.in/ub2015-16/eb/stat18.pdf

PS: All data concerns budgetary estimates.