Greewashed in Baku

 

There were four center-page articles on COP29 conference held in BAKU in a major newspaper, pouring into the looming global warming crisis, the need for developed countries to spend more  on aid to help developing nations adopt climate change mitigation technologies,  and how we could be entering an era of NCQG - New Collective Quantified Goals.  One of them talked about India's major role in spending as much as 15000 crore rupees - about 0.06% of its GDP on renewable energy!! 

 

That we were about to breach 1.5 degrees Celsius rise (we are at 1.49 degrees C now) post commencement of the industrial age was mentioned in passing.  And 3.1 degrees Celsius temperature rise could be breached if we continue along this trajectory.  Barely a few months ago we talked about 1.5C rise as a defendable goal if only we went on a full court press.  It is unfortunate that we have an underpinning premise is that we have the answers, if only we had the will to deploy them; but the premise is simply not true.  One more reason to state the obvious.  We have been green washed.   This time from Baku.

 

Let us consider Renewable Energy, which decarbonizes the energy sector.  More than a decade ago, Photovoltaics (PV) reached a cost point where the installation costs per rated MW was on par with or less than new thermal power plants.  Wind energy was not far behind.  In India, investments in renewable energy outpaced conventional power for more than a decade, with approximately 70GW being added in thermal and 120 GW in renewable energy.  Renewable Energy accounts for 46% of installed capacity.  Yet in terms of energy generated thermal power is still a whopping 75% of the energy mix.  Renewable energy is seasonal (especially wind) and not 24x7 - Solar.  The ratio of delivered to installed capacity for renewable energy is about 30%.  Transmission losses are 2to 5% per hundred KM - so to put all solar in the deserts of Rajasthan is not practical.  To deliver 100% Renewable energy leveraging on energy storage while increasing capacity to compensate for the intermittency of renewable energy, one needs to triple the current renewable energy footprint.  We will struggle to find the land for that.  And battery-based solutions come at a prohibitively high cost (will quadruple the energy costs) and comes with its own carbon footprint which may take years to erase.   Pumped storage is often talked about.  It needs two reservoirs at different heights in reasonable proximity, with enough watershed to store the 1000s of MW of energy that needs to be stored.  Indias current hydro capacity is 10% of its total footprint and only a small fraction is amenable to pumped storage.  Pumped storage comes with massive ecological costs in terms of deforestation, and impact on aquatic life.  

 

In-spite of a decade of concerted action we are stuck with 75% of energy on tap coming from thermal power.  This conundrum is not unique to India, USA, China, much of Asia, and portions of Europe share this problem.  The exception is those blessed with 24x7 wind (Netherlands and Denmark) or those with massive legacy nuclear energy (France and Ukraine), that have breached the 50% ceiling of non-fossil energy-based power.  There is only one water-tight solution - that is nuclear energy, which is 24x7, minimal carbon footprint except during construction, and comes with a safety risk which is manageable.  Stray radiation from mining for coal or lithium exceeds that from standard nuclear plants.  Small nuclear reactors (SMR)are even more manageable when it comes to disposal of waste.  If the world is serious about climate change developed and developing nations should be forging a partnership in installing nuclear power plants, including SMRs which can be deployed quickly.  And this should have been one of the main talking points.

 

Moving to transportation, EVs that are not directly tied to solar panels rely on grid power which is now 75% thermal across much of the world.  The batteries come with its own manufacturing carbon footprint which is much higher than conventional vehicles.  The energy storage materials have a 3% extraction efficiency, some are mined at the expense of rainforests using primitive methods.  The total emissions footprint of battery manufacturing is estimated to grow to One Giga ton of CO2 per year - it is estimated that for a 100 KW powered EV (like a tesla) it would take 70000 KM of driving to neutralize manufacturing footprint.  Yet there is a case to be made for EVs if the energy used to charge is 100% renewable.   Two wheelers and three wheelers which take a few hours to charge and readily done in daylight could be 100% emissions free, and pollution free, if they are backed by dedicated solar energy.  For a 70KWh hour car it requires 10 KW of PV or at least two thousand square feet of space and eight to twelve hours of time to charge and finding that space is not easy in urban settings. The easiest answer for India is that it makes sense to electrify the two-wheeler segment and that is part of the policy prescription.  For the rest it is a struggle to electrify.  Increasing the percentage of biofuel, especially from waste, is the best mitigative answer unless one switches to nuclear energy instead of thermal power, which is clearly decades away. 

 

If the challenges are that stark, and immediately implementable solutions are that difficult, then the question is how societies can strive to mitigate climate change.  

 

Rooftop Energy.  This could include solar panels on rooftop or sunshades in every home, biowaste to energy in rural areas using small gensets, backed by tax breaks or subsidy from the government.   The goal should be that at least 40% of domestic energy needs in rural and urban areas is met by locally generated renewable energy.  This certainly would pose challenges to grid stability and thermal power plant reliability, but this can be managed.

 

Energy Efficiency:  The lowest hanging fruit has been plucked - much of urban lighting comes from LEDs which consume 10% of the energy of incandescent lamps.  Appliances are more efficient today than a decade ago, even in India.  However construction industry is locked into bricks and concrete even for non-load bearing structures - industrial waste to walls is a significant opportunity which needs to be tapped.

When it comes to thermal power, India is struggling to unlock itself from technologies which are inherently less efficient.  Existing coal fired Rankine cycle engines have 50% higher emissions as compared to combined cycle natural gas fired power plants.  However, India is a nett importer of natural gas.  Coal gasification, and coal to natural gas technologies need to be tapped and deployed with alacrity to reduce emissions from the energy sector.  Such a move would help India migrate from the less efficient Rankine cycle to the more efficient combined cycle which combines Brayton and Rankine cycles.

 

Optimizing India's farming:  Farming from existing irrigated lands or those areas blessed with abundant rainfall needs to be maximized and made scientific to maximize yields.  India has already closed the gap in wheat and is catching up in paddy.   Fifty percent of India's farmlands are not irrigated by rivers.  Large scale dependence on ground water is not sustainable or energy efficient.  India needs to switch to a combination of drip irrigation with millets, horticulture and agro forestry in such areas to maximize rural income reduce energy footprints in agriculture.  In a prevailing democracy such as India, such rules cannot be imposed from top, but there needs to be incentives from the government and markets. About 20% of horticultural produce is lost because of lack of cold storage.  The use of renewable energy (evaporative cooling) can be a game changer and needs to be developed for small farmers.  Finally agro-waste to ethanol needs to be developed so that Biofuels are sourced not just from water guzzling crops like sugar cane but actual agro-waste.  The farmer apart from being part of the food supply chain can become part of the energy supply chain with the right incentives for rooftop / pump head solar, and waste to energy or fuel plants.  By focusing on yields that reduce the area that needs to be farmed along with agroforestry, rural land banks could be coopted into nature-based climate change solutions with transparent policies that directly reward the farmer.  

 

Responsible Consumption:  India is a developing country - poverty is a lived reality.  When poverty exists in combination with caste and class divide, the loss of human dignity is morally unacceptable.  One needs to recognize that urban and rural consumption generates jobs in all sectors.  But there is a case to be made for responsible consumption.  This includes the shift away from larger fuel guzzling cars, frequent upgrades of electronic gadgets which have large manufacturing and transportation carbon footprints, investment in property which carries its own construction related emissions, and flying to destinations where surface transportation was possible to name a few.  About 10% of India's households now have first world lifestyles, and this is driving emissions.

 

It is said that if all of India lived in urban settlements such as New Delhi, then the entire population could be bottled into a small state such as Telengana.  Of course the country needs its farms and factories.  Therefore, while balancing technologies used for production of engineering goods and apparel, or food grains and horticultural products, one needs to ensure that land usage is kept to a minimum.  If we make substantial changes towards that end we may see more if India becoming a forest and contributing to mitigating climate change through nature-based solutions.

 

Until we do all the above Greenwashing will continue.

 

Those lanes of inclusion

 

Our shop is as organic as it gets - has only grains, fruits, vegetables and dairy products. Short eats are locally made and certified as organic,  So for a shaving cream it needs to be an errand in sin to an inorganic shop, unless one uses an App for delivery.  But a part of me still would want to get out, past the leafy road to periurban Bangalore, all a hop away.  Cows on the road, strays near garbage, two wheelers and four wheelers in Brownian motion from gated apartments - I get to my inorganic shop - well stocked with detergents and soaps, along with food grains and junk food from assorted sources,  I would typically find smaller shops that sell peanuts and the like, a medical shop run by a disabled person - it breaks my heart to ask him for anything outside his reach, but he has a smile and he says he needs to make business.  Today the assorted shacks selling fruits and vegetables were closed, and I was determined to give the small timers a shot,  And so I head towards the main road and try and find push carts that had fruits.  They were gone,  I take a left  hit the main road and turn left to Anchepalya - another street in random motion with a mosque, temple, medical shops and shacks selling wares jostlling for space,

Guavas slightly bigger than a baseball caught my eye.  So I pulled over and stopped.  This guy had apples, oranges, guavas and bananas.  While oranges looked far from fresh the rest were good.  Got a Kg of each - I knew this guy would know hindi, spoke to him in Hindi, paid in cash for old times sake, and then my eyes wandered to the temple to his right.  He gave me an extra banana, peeling it saying this would be good.  It was.  The temple like the many small ones in Bangalore had a majestic tree.  It was 2 in the afternoon and it was closed.  On it steps there were kids playing.  Their mom in a burkha kept a watchful eye.  I had my bagful of fruits and a smile - these lanes can give social media a lesson.

In a couple of hundred yards, the road would turn to the right - and become less crowded, with a new temple to my right, a government urdu medium primary school which also hosts elections every time it is held, a Benedectine monastery to my left, it hosted a zen meditation retreat earlier this year.  Another left turn and I would be back to my leafy oasis.  Our new additional household help, a muslim lady went early on October 31st to buy firecrackers for her kids.   

Is it just my neck of the woods?  In Nilgiris where we are running an NGO the labourers, tribals from Masinagudi wanted a week off for Diwali.   The program was kicked off as per their custom with a puja for the implements that give them livelihood, while the staffers irrespective of whether they went to a church or a temple wanted to by firecrackers for the kids at home,

And so unfolds the mosaic of India, seen from a community called Mosaic.  The community is called Malhar Mosaic.  A song may be in order, but rendered by me would be surely unmusical.

This time we say TATA to a great one..

 

Tata old friend

The first time I admired an engineered product from India was in 1977.  Most of Haryana and western UP was submerged in waist deep water.  As students from Stephens we volunteered to distribute food packets to those marooned along with tablets to purify water.  We were bused to points where Tata trucks stood.  We climbed at the back like laborers, perched on the side as it went past flooded roads, pushing a large wave of water ahead.  The drivers were experts , they had points where they would stop where we would get off, wade on water and get into boats that got to marooned villages.  We had the same roti and aloo subji.  But I looked at the truck, built like a rock  and said wow..

The place where I did my undergraduate engineering course was called Tata Institute, founded by Jamshedji Tata - a place where excellence and thought leadership was carried forth as though it was all but natural.    Like Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Indian Institute of Science, Tata Steel and Tata Motors, building national icons seemed just par for the course for the house of Tatas.  My education in engineering was in the early 80s.  A revolution in how educated India would work was quietly underway.  The best from BE Electronics and Electrical were getting absorbed in Tata Burroughs Limited, a company that pioneered a career in software and coding - with engineers stationed in India or overseas coding and making the world run.  Ah it is Cobol some would remark,  But it was a new way to live, thrown into challenges at work, exposed to new cultures and new norms.  Educated Indians took naturally to such challenges.  Many others followed.  I started hearing of new towns like Culpeper and Charlottesville.

It was still the 1980s right?  A third world nation eagerly trying to fit in.  While we applauded ourselves in cutting it, there were others among us dreaming bigger,.  Cut to 2000, and Tata looked as big as one of the  businesses of GE - a $12 billion business.  Wow we said.  While GE was priding itself in having one of the largest R&D centers in the world, A JV with Tata gave great design engineers.  While new MNCs occupied an entire floor TCS was having much larger office spaces.  Advanced computers were sold by Tata Elxsi, our guests stayed in the Taj Westend or Vivanta - hotels that remained peerless in levels of service class and comfort.  

Engineering companies like GE were taking pride in building world class teams in India.  While we  were marveling at what was getting accomplished, Tata gave graduate courses in Audacity.  Tata tea, the benevolent owners of large tea estates bought Teltley.  Tata Steel, which was one of the largest steel mills in the world bought Corus.  While Tata Motors had Land Rover  and Jaguar under its belt.  Its 2000 launch of Indica sounded like a math problem - more car per car.  The ambassadors got replaced by Indica and Indigo.  While they were not a Honda by any stretch, the logged in the miles - the tax driver who took me to the airport after India beat Sri Lanka in the world cup had already clocked 400,000 on his Indigo.  While we had our symposium on how the best technologies could be harnessed for India, we had a Tata Nano test drive - meant to get Indians to get off their unsafe scooters and take their families in a Nano.  Two decades into my career, our daughter makes it to UK.  The Paddington express from Heathrow had TCS written all over it. 

My first and only visit to the house of Tata was to meet a friend and mentor Gopi Katragadda.  A small non descript building in a busy street replete with hawkers, with an Indie accompanying in the lift told me a story of inclusiveness and humility. Yes we know about the trusts and charity that have stemmed from this house.  Of audacity and scale and span coming from the house of Tatas.  Their son made much of this happen has moved on.  

I write this blogged more moved by his passing than any public figure I have known.  

Tata - to our icon. 

Oh Can't we See??

 

Oh Can’t We See?

 

 

Back in the 1970s, still wading through Watergate, Vietnam War, and  past  the civil rights protests, rock and roll came into its own.  With searing music, exploring strands from across the world, and asking searching questions.  Can’t you see was a one hit wonder from a relatively obscure band.  While it seems only a break-up rock song, its guitar work, flutes, and vocals were indeed haunting.  That “Cant you see” being a metaphor for “Cant we see?”  directed at those of us dreaming of a better India,

 

In terms of financial bandwidth, we have moved on.  When P Chidambaram presented his dream budget in 1996-97 for Rs 100,000 crores with the 20% each already allocated to servicing the debt, funding the states, funding defense, and paying salaries for government staff, he had only Rs 20,000 crores to develop the country - about Rs 200 per capita.  With such meagre resources, even a single flyover over one intersection was a luxury.  We seemed forever consigned to third world existence, While poverty was an un-mutable fact, what could be challenged was the swing to the right.  The horrors of the violence that we were witness to in the early 1990s kept us transfixed on what should or should not be the agenda for the country.  Like deer caught in those headlights we have not moved on.

 

India’s economy has certainly grown leaps and bounds,  The interim budgeted this February has a government spend which is 47 times higher than that at 1996  ..  at 47 00,000 crores.   While in 1996, we the consuming middle class were barely 10% of the population. Our influence on national politics was limited.  Who gets voted to power depended on the poor.  But much has changed since then .  With 15 million two wheelers and 4 million cars sold every year, the aspiring classes are at least 500 million strong – less than 40% of the country, but our voice carries, through the influence we wield on social media demanding amenities from the government, and the loyal discourses that we sustain through whatsapp university.  It is to this segment that I ask and  to those in the liberal left and the pro-establishment right – Cant’t we see?

 

If one were to Pareto out the problems that Indians face, it is lack of access to dignified housing for the urban poor – about 100 million Indians live in slums – in small shacks with poor sanitation, schooling and health care.  It is amazing that while Mumbai glitters like Manhattan, with more than Rs 100,000 crores spent on sea links and metros, the poor continue to live in such poor conditions.  The same applies across metros and tier 1 and 2 cities in India.    The problem is also one of a poverty trap that over 50% of those in rural India face, There is a paucity of jobs in India, Support prices of crops have not kept up with inflation for more than a decade.  Infrastructure for storage of agro-produce is non-existent.  Opportunities to augment incomes through distributed renewable energy (solar panels on roof tops and irrigation pumps), solar farms in fallow lands, biofuel and energy from crop waste have been frittered away in favour of Renewable Energy projects favouring a few large industrialists.  And those in rural India have poor access to schools, colleges and education.  In many small villages education is available only to primary and middle school.  Overcoming such barriers is something that the poor cant afford.  If one throws in caste structure into the mix the problem is even worse,  While climate change is an elite problem ripe for discussions, it is a lived crisis for the rural poor,  Climate change and  the normal vagaries of monsoon seem to have colluded to throw up either a cycle of relentless drought or destructive floods,  Large scale government and private intervention is needed to address this issue, to augment Renewable Energy for non-industrial use, and increased reliance on agro based biofuels for transportation.  If technologies for the same are invested such that the value add is at the farmers door step the near permanent poverty in rural areas can be redressed, It is the absence of ideas, policies and investment in this space that results in migration of millions to cities for a better livelihood.

 

While the agenda required for the country is clear, we have an almost Dystopian fight between the right wing and liberals over religion.   If one were to focus on day to life for the millions of the majority and minority, the rights to worship, attire, identity is fairly unfettered.  The banks in India shut down for Good Friday, while in US they do not.  Our stock markets close for Eid and Guru Nanak Jayanthi.  Each religion has its own civil code and rightly so, to be challenged only when individual rights are breached.  What we fight over and take cudgels with and rightly so, is on incidents of violence.  That said the elephant in the room is that at least 30 to 40% of the population is trapped into poverty with limited recourse for a better life.  And another 20% are just one crisis away from a slide back to destitution.   

 

Yet in the kaleidoscope of issues that I see being debated in the press, on TV and social media, it is – mostly focused on religious divide, whose single biggest benefit is to help us voice opinions which are in tune with our identity markers.  I feel like again screaming – “Oh Can’t we see?”  Because real issues are lost in irrelevant echo-chambers.  While the poor really struggle to live in dignity across India.

 

A Travelogue - and Systemic versus Incidents of Exclusion

 

Systemic versus Incidents of Exclusion

 

Went through 25 days of charming and exhausting days of travel spanning three countries.   At 1:00 AM the roads in Bangalore were smooth.  The Toyota Etios cab seemed as spacious most in US.  The AC worked well.  Our previous Uber in NY was a Tesla with a translucent sunroof.  The car was driven by a Nepali Sherpa – his last name as a sherpa.  An hour of commute was peppered with conversations about US and India and Nepal and treks   The Uber drivers in US and France seemed to come from many countries – and many religions.  It is said that the US is a melting pot – and so it is.  Different cultures drawn from across the world seemed to melt into this pot, and come out homogenized, mostly accepted, and mostly conform to an American identity.  Any person who intends to live in the US – student, visiting professionals, immigrants implicitly subscribes to such a model.  While personal freedoms and privacy reign supreme, the question is, are there unsaid  limits to expression of identity of the sub-cultures they come from.  But the collective American identity in its intent is inclusive – so how much is lost.

 

India had started with a different legacy.  Being a tropical country with abundant resources – of spices, textiles, crafts, India was one of hubs of global trade for centuries.  Buddhism emanated from its shores and spread to many locations – especially the far east.  Hinduism found its branches in Cambodia and Bali.  Christian, Zoroastrian, Islamic and Jewish traders immigrated and thrived along India’s coast.  While there were chapters of invasion and colonization.  The prevailing culture in India, at the time of independence in India was a mosaic – of cultures, languages and religions.   The founding fathers of India protected this legacy fiercely.  Many liberals including me carry the torch farther, taking the enormity of space and freedoms given for religious and cultural expressions granted, barely acknowledging  what has been preserved since 1947, and what has been carved out as an Indian version of diversity and unity for centuries prior.

 

France was our first port of call.  The city taxi cab counter at the Charles De Gaulle airport had its string of drivers who accosted us saying there is heavy traffic and it is going to take 90 minutes and therefore a fare of 140 Euros.  The Uber app mentioned 66 Euros.  After plenty of back and forth with cancelling drivers we found one who asked us to come to the departure gate.  We got dropped an hour later at the hotel.  The hotel was managed by an immigrant of of a French colonial origin.  With long locks, excellent English, and helpful to the bone – he got us the room, offered a pizza – and gave tons of help to explore the city on our own.  The cobble-stoned streets of MontMartre, with its ancient churches and cemeteries and restaurants and shops had us hooked,  a  small dinner and a glass of dinner made it a text-book Paris evening.  And thus went the remaining two days in Paris – the Rodin Museum, the Versailles Palace, Bastille monument and the jewish quarters and the Louvre – Paris seemed welcoming, accessible, charming, replete with history all rolled in one.  About 10% of its citizens practise Islam.  What is seen on the roads is quintessentially French culture – a blend of modern and the old – of churches and the gothic.  The Louvre and Versailles are emphatic examples of the same.   But there was no evidence of religious diversity.

 

Amsterdam is European to the E, a country whose terrain is as flat as a very successful flat stomach, blessed with answers for sustainability that blow in the wind, with wind turbines, and windmills, bi-cycling tracks that have  primacy over cars, and where public transportation rules.  It was interesting that we did not use an uber or a car during our stay in Amsterdam and around.  It was easy to blend in at Amsterdam.  By now much of western Europe is multi-cultural.  But Amsterdam has done a brilliant job holding on to its way of life – of superposing an efficient modern mobility system, with sustainability being a mantra (27% of commutes by bicycles!), in a landscape replete with historical heritage.  The Rijswijk museum, like Rodin in Paris and the Met in NY and historic Boston,  had school excursions of boisterous school kids shepherded by enthusiastic school teachers.  The school group in Boston had only Asians (Indian and East Asian origin).  In Netherlands there were a couple of girls wearing the headscarf – the only 4 or 5 spotted after 3,50,000 steps in 25 days in France, US and Netherlands, and saw one structure with Minarets in Netherlands and two synagogues – one in Manhattan and the other in Jewish quarters in Paris.

 

Which brings us back to inclusion or exclusion, systemic or incidents thereof in the different countries and continents I am exposed to. 

 

Coming to India, which I am at home in, which I criticize squarely like a quarrelling family member, I need to acknowledge that there is an in-your face vibrant diversity that is part of the landscape, flowing in our veins, and everywhere one looks.  While money flowed out in buckets from my wallets, I was on top of bank and credit card balances – accessing it through portals from across.  And watched the stock market too.  It was closed on Eid, the facebook and whatsapp pages had Eid Mubarak from many within the country. A day that seemed altogether ignored in mainstream media in US.   Our schools and offices were closed on Good Friday – march 29^th, which we landed up in the US on the Easter weekend – with hotel prices heading north for a festive weekend.  We quarrel with India as it works now, based on exclusion events – some violent – which grabs headline and eyeballs.  It could be a past case of lynching, it could be remission of convicts, it could be on CAA (is it a systemic tamper at an inclusive society?).  But the system makes space for every religion which seems as natural and part of the landscapes as cherry blossoms in spring or tulips in Netherlands.  So are we conditioned to challenge sporadic events while we gloss over the freedom of expression that is inherent to India?  It is importtant that we acknowledge that because then our voices become more credible. Is there a nucleus for a change for the better?  For getting past violent events that pop us so regularly in India? This is a question to India.  Of exclusion and violence as part of a systemic history, the New York Met museum seems to have an interesting take – of showing to the choir (after all who goes to Met?) a mirror of what is great from across the world – Ganesha over the ages, Islamic art. The renaissance from Europe, American realism, and spaces for misses too - that show case the Native Indian art from across tribes, and the Harlem Renaissance movement – showcasing the world of arts from African Americans.   But outside the New York Met the question that really needs to be asked is are freedoms of expression of subcultures truly ingrained in day to day life?  Or is dissolving oneself in the larger whole, the current terms of endearment.  These are of course gentle puzzles and questions, that need to be ponder over in our different corners of the world.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is only elephant in our room - poverty.

 

 

Middling through poverty – 1970s India.  I still remember myself as a kid, holding my fathers hand , sometimes my mothers, getting past the dread of exams and marks, but looking forward to that train journey that would cart us from Delhi to Madras, on that venerable GT express.  We were firmly middle class, my father a government officer, with the Railways, with the sole treasured perk being that first class pass, 6 times a year to any corner of India. So from that treasured perch, a compartment with doors to our little room with four bunk beds that would shut us from the rest of the world, unless we chose to see it from the window.  That I did, with almost 100% diligence, peering at the gravel below, the telegraph poles by the track, the flying stations, and the people in the platforms, squatting on the floors, on trunks, certainly looking a lot poorer than the dozens in the first class, who were mostly traveling free thanks to some perk that they enjoyed.   India is a poor country our civics books said with honesty, as almost an eternal fact.  Our  first TV, a black and white was more than 3 months of pay.  A refrigerator was two months of salary, a kitchen blender was a week’s pay-check.  We lived with limited possibilities.  Our focus almost completely on furthering ourselves and ensuring that ends meet.  Yet, pride for the country would surface – sometimes we would draw inspiration from the past, Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Tagore, they were towering figures, sometimes from the distant past – ah in those Vedic times, we were a wealthy nation.  Someone like Akbar, or a Rana Pratap Singh would get us to beam too.  The present day sources of pride were few and far between – our defence forces and the brilliant war – well they attacked us first – but we liberated a country – our heroes were Sam Maneckshaw, Gen Aurora, and Jacobs .  Our little gnats could take down the Sabre jets.  But tight through the 1970s, the 600 million odd Indians were toiling away with the single minded aim of survival – pride was an icing, a luxury.

 

Ah we have computers too, cant be that poor? By the time I was past my teens I had a ringside view of India’s scientific capabilities – In IISc we were beaming with pride because we had the first scanning electron microscope, in a dark room, powerfully airconditioned, with LEDs and a scrolling screen, with a camera to take the picture of that metal at 10,000X – we could whisper that we were second to none.  Or go at night, hack away on a typing machine to get the Fortran cards punched, and submit a deck to the computer room, and go back and look at the outputs the next day – damn – that typo on the 43^rd card – we would correct it and resubmit it the next day and await the output.  About 2000 KM north Delhi was preening itself for the Asian Games, Indira Gandhi allowed colour TVs, we started watching Wimbledon live on the black and white TVs, praying that the match would get over before the 9PM news, or they would defer the news and have us watch Borg and McEnroe play till they dropped dead.  With a publication under my belt from my thesis and overseas admissions and aid I was on a flight to the US, with a slight spring in my steps – we have our microscopes and computers too, we can’t be that poor or backward as a country, and New Delhi looked quite spiffy.   My first stint in the US was in Raleigh. NC, a town which was idyllic in its beauty – the streets spic and span; everything was lush green.  The supermarkets wonderfully airconditioned – the cars seemed a couple of notches better than what any of us ever had in India.  1984 was a year when India sprang into headlines for all the wrong reasons – the Operation Bluestar which the western media could never place in perspective – could someone imagine a state like Connecticut separating from the US, instigated from a neighbor like Canada?   - Punjab was that, developed, prosperous, its people loved and celebrated – and then Mrs Gandhi’s assassination and the Bhopal’s Union Carbide disaster.  The country looked chaotic, unorganized, poor and third world.  But we had our soft corners, for those of us in the US, the first trip back home was a journey to heaven – something that we would start counting down for months in advance.  My trip back – to be back with the family, to see the streets of Madras, and Delhi, to be on a road trip to Ooty, to be on the train ride from Madras to Delhi or wherever. Nostalgia was at its best.  Yet when I rode on a cab from the Bombay Airport to Chembur, through Kalina, and Dharavi, the starkness of India’s poverty remained etched in my memory.  Will we ever get past this?  Like Buddha who questioned suffering and the GINI of his times we did too.  We did not have a formula or a solution to set any of this right.  I was back in US, if there was pride in the country it was that we were a democracy ,found  a unique way to win independence, and were backed by an ancient civilization wisdom. 

 

The elusive promise of liberalization? Years whizzed by in the US.  The experiences I gained laid a fabulous platform for professional growth,  But something magical happened in India in 1991.  A new leader Narasimha Rao grabbed the moment, and converted India’s economic crisis into a spring-board for reform along with Dr.Manmohan Singh an Oxford educated economist – this while others were whipping up passions around caste and religion, here was a group that had their sights set forward.  We saw what Japan, Korea, and Taiwan had accomplished by embracing market economics – was this our magic bullet.  I subscribed to India Today, and read the business section of Times of India while in the US, looking for signs of India galloping ahead.  Yes, there were new car manufacturers, Contessa? Nissan 118NE – a rust prone Lada with a 1975 Japanese engine, and a Standard 2000 that looked like an elongated Ford Pinto, and of course the Maruti.    We had many motorbikes and scooters flooding the market.  There were restaurants galore in major cities serving every cuisines, while resorts mushroomed around all major cities if we wanted a weekend get away.  And there I was back in India for good, with tons of optimism working for a national lab, and traveling across India for work and family and soaking it all in.  My friends and cousins said it was only the rich getting richer- the poor were staying poor.  During one of those train rides, past Dadar, with slums choc-o-block, I wondered whether anything had changed, and what would it take.  My road trips across south would tell me that abject poverty was no longer seen.  The fact remained that while we  saw progress it was not enough.  Not even after PC’s dream budget of 1996/97.  By 1998, we BJP clawing its into power, mustering enough supporters to survive in 1999.  But the leader Vajpayee seemed a good man, and his cabinet were full of stalwarts.  While Gujarat lurched to the violent right, Vajpayee launched the Golden Quadrilateral, ensuring that the major metros were linked by 4 laned highways – leap-frogging the elite into modernity while generating thousands of jobs in rural India.  His finance minister, Yashwanth Sinha, had fiscal discipline in his veins, interest rates plummeted and the country seem to be on a roll..  So what were we proud of?  I think there was a sense of dignity and strength with which we dealt with Kargil, it was amazing that a government with a badge of Hindu Nationalism would pave the way for APJ Abdul Kalam as the President, Hitting those three figure speeds on a four lane highway felt good, . Vajpayee campaigned with the India Shining tag line.  We had only one breakthrough year of economic growth – of 8% in those 5 years   India’s car market had barely crossed a million vehicles.  More than a decade into liberalization, India was struggling to make serious dents in poverty,  The poor were voting for their wallets, and UPA got elected in 2004.

Amid the din did it come together?  In 2004, the elections brought in a regime change – Dr, Manmohan Singh was anointed as the Prime Minister, and he brought in a capable finance minister.  But he was a humble listener.  Left leaning economists and leaders, people like Aruna Roy and Jean Dreaze had his ears too.  While continued reforms took care of urban organized economy, the surpluses from the same were getting ploughed back into a right to work program – called MNREGA.  The farmers were making better incomes through continued growth in Minimum Support Price, while better PDS ensured that affordable food grains reached most.  While many questioned what MNREGA would accomplish, it reset the market rates for manual labour.  A poor labourer could earn Rs 500 for six hours of work loading a cement truck.  Manual labour began to pay.  And it had a cascading effect.  Plumbers and electricians  made enough money to have smart phones, two wheeler sales soared in the villages; Fast moving consumer goods found volumes in rural India.  India’s 2 wheeler sales grew 300% in a decade after 2002,   car sales zoomed 250% by 2013 from 2004.  .  Creating policy instruments that gave money directly in the hands of the poor and aspiring classes had a cascading effect on the economy.  Until the financial shock world wide in 2008, India managed to do much of this without a surging deficit.  In fact deficit was at its lowest in 2007.  The surplus that India produced was also ploughed into modernizing its airports (Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, and Mumbai) and starting metro construction in several cities.  Commentators started talking about eradicating poverty within a decade, Tata wanted to mass produce a car that could be sold at a two wheeler price to the masses.  If we wanted to puff our chests in pride, the self effacing Prime Minister was the very opposite, he went about his business like a shy school boy,  If there were corrupt ministers Manmohan seemed to be quite content looking the other way.  After all India always operated like that?  But the din of corruption and scams was built up by the opposition.  A 300% growth in GDP or 250% increase vehicle sales or 140 million Indians escaping poverty  in a little over a decade barely won respect, while we got worked up over corruption.  Real or otherwise.  In the mean-while after more than 25 years the reins of power in the Congress party was formally back in the hands of the Gandhi family.   For a society increasingly used to meritocracy at work , in sports and more, having a less effective family scion was at odds.  Thanks to the din of corruption. and seeing the Gandhi family back in the saddle and Hindutva first, many voted for BJP again.  While those of us looking for pride in India failed to grasp the substantial  progress in economy during the Manmohan days, we just got lost in the din. 

 

Data and the roar of the lion? If Manmohan Singh had the voice of a lamb, Modi roared like a lion. Modi had a multipronged agenda – of making India proud of its Hindu roots, drive a majoritarian rule, reverse Article 370, and demonstrate economic development through top down, visible projects – a 10 lane expressway, Vande Bharat trains, decked up stations, renewable energy, digitization (nothing escapes the tax man) – while being free from the tyranny of small change) and more.  Each of these initiatives were done under the branding of Prime Minster. Almost a decade into the Namo regime, his branding and name are driven very effectively in social media by hundreds of peers.  The question is have we cracked the development piece?  Of launching India into the orbit of developed nations?  I go back and look at emerging economies of the 1980s.  – like Korea or Taiwan, which were growing at 8 to 9% annum, producing almost all the goods that the world wanted, or China between 2003 and 2018, that emerged as the worlds largest car market, largest producer of steel, of computers, cell phones, solar panels, of eliminating poverty and slums all together.  A trip last year from Mumbai airport to Navi Mumbai took me past Kalina towards Sion and New Bombay.  The disparity between the glittering high rises and those on the streets seems as stark as ever.  A full 50 years after childhood, I find many more affluent traveling in fast day time trains like Vandi Bharat; but across the platform one may chance on a train that does improbable destinations such as Alleppey to Darbhanga, or Kanyakumari to Dirburgarh, or just Mumbai to Kolkatta.  The unreserved coaches are called Deen Dayalu, chances are the coaches are packed to the brim.  They are prepared to crouch, stand or squat for 30 hours or more to go home, in UP, Bihar, West Bengal.  One would have expected a cleaner government with a bias for action to drive higher GDP growth.  But that is not to be.  India’s two wheeler sales reached their peak of 20 million in 2018 and slide down to 14 million, the same as that in 2014.  Indias car sales volume is barely 35% more than the peak seen between 2004 and 2014; the market size is one ffth of China.  Consumption of FMCG has continued to see anaemic growth.  The elephant in the room is how do we address underdevelopment and poverty.  The government’s answer seems to be to drive policies that provide more amenities to the poor – in the form of piped water, subsidized food grains or very modest cash transfers.  But what has not happened is to creation of policy instruments that increase disposable income for the poor.  The per capita income gap between states like UP, Bihar have only widened in comparison to TN, Karnataka or Telengana, or Maharashtra  Unlike left leaning liberal newspapers, Times of India peddles hope, most of the time.  Its centre page had someone from UP state – that all this Mandir is good, but was this all distraction? 

 

We have a living heritage:  India’s cultural heritage is deep, its temples and forts and palaces remain magnificent; and amenities around them are improving rapidly.  India’s music – folk and classical, poems and prose – classical or Kabir, are living traditions.  India;s mind boggling nature capital - from snow clad peaks and glaciers to rain forests to montane sholas and grasslands to coastal mangroves.  It is everywhere.  India’s philosophy, springing from Vedanta, or Buddha, or Guru Nanak are alive and kicking.  Abrahamic religions have a sound footing in many parts of the country and they contribute to the nation in a myriad ways.  Just look at the cricket team – veritable mosaic of languages, religions, economic strata and see how they gel together.  

So that elephant in the room?

So there is only one elephant in the room

 I would like to ask, are we on a trajectory to erase poverty and ensure that 700 million or more in rural India and the 100 million or more living in crowded urban dwellings, live a life of dignity, just like a government bureaucrat in RK Puram. Anything else is a distraction.  If we stoke the religious divide, or obsess over Hindi, or say Tamil for that matter, we will invite other elephants into the room.

 

From a heart that is beating with a pinch of pride, a bit of hope, a bit of humility, and some angst.. And may be some nostalgia, because amidst the din the doctor sahab seemed to have gotten this right.

 

Peripherally yours, Chennai

 

Centrifugal forces have been acting on me at large,  and over the decades, getting me to explore new facets of Madras – now Chennai – in its different facets.  We would  as kids travel from Delhi to Madras, spend a few days in Mylapore and quickly take the meter gauge train from Egmore to Thanjavur and descend further into quaintness. 

Yes, there was less traffic in Madras, and yes the pace was unhurried, but the poverty was stark, and the differences between haves and have-nots was a really deep chasm.  By early 1980s things began to change – we moved to Adyar while grandparents lived in Mylapore, a few airconditioned joints showed up in Mt. Road, a hole in the wall in Adyar had a name called Hungry Tiger doling what was called Pizza, and if we needed Chinese food, we could catch a 5B, or drive a herald or a vespa and eat at Waldorfs just before the IIT gate,.  A decade and more later, with Ford at Maraimalai nagar, and TCS at the TIDEL park in madras, the city actually had a consuming middle class – along with an array of restaurants – Eden, Wangs Kitchen, Dasa Dosa, Cascade and the like that kept those looking to unwind a place to do so, in airconditioned comfort and friendly service.  And with movie theatres and a mall (Spencers) and the sabhas in December for the cultural affirmation.  If people wanted an outing and a swig,  Mahabs was an hour away and two hours more there was Pondy.     And for an evening stroll on the beach there was Bessie,.  Madras or Chennai seemed to still retain that cosy feel, while growing in comforts.  Those who were in were in.  Lets leave it at that.

Perhaps our future has little in common with the black hole, with its mammoth inward pull..  As it often happen in these modern times, people find other places and pursuit to disperse into.   While life had taken me to US for a decade and more I have found a nest in the cooler Bengaluru, assignments and family still calls me to Chennai – but this time around it is as far away as Kalyan is from Churchgate.   To places like Maraimalai Nagar and more.  Even a city with a reputation for efficiency as Chennai will throw a traffic jam or two if the commute is 50 KM.  I found that the magic lies in multimodal transport – a fast airconditioned metro to Meenambakkam and an Uber from there.  Sometimes meetings would yank me around like a yo-yo from south Chennai to places like Padi.  So I get Uber to take me around.  My first question to the Uber driver is, is the AC good.  Some of them will say – sir – come to the front.  And  in the next 40 minutes I would strike a conversation or sometimes listen in to their world.  His daughter asking when is he going to come home – his wife asking him to buy sweets as guests are coming.  I would ask them where are they from – Bodi, Ramanthapuram, Chengam, Nellore.   The drivers are a polite lot, each having a different taste – the radio-stations whose film songs play to the lowest common denominator in any language were often ignored by the drivers – “yaaru sir, atheu paatu kaettindu, thalai than valikum – who can listen to these songs again and again – it is just a headache”.  Some of them play a downloaded movie on their cell phone – Jai Bhim – that’s discerning..  he turned down the volume and turned to me and said – sir – my target is 3000 rupees a day, 25 days a month.  If I do that I run my home, take my family to the movies, send my kid to an English medium school and send money to my village,  Another driver drove clients from Truichy and was trying to Uber his way back, at least till Mahindra world city to cover his fuel and toll.  He said Truichy is not an Uber city – he has his network of tourist hotels and thrives on temple tourism.   Most recently a Wagon R  had a large central console – the driver logged me in, touched the touch screen, scrolled to a You tube channel in Tamilnadu – the topic was polluting thermal power and nuclear plants and their safety.. what happened in Fukushima was lucidly explained.  So I asked the driver is he an engineer – yes – I drive Uber sometimes – and he talked about solar panels in every-rooftop with batteries to reduce load on thermal power and much more -  yes – we prosper here because there is peace and there are no divisions based on religion and there should not be any class / caste differences –no one higher and no one lower,  if that really happens it would be even better.   Mylapore is of course 50 KM away from these conversations.  The evening took us to the fabled Old Mahabalipruram Road – from GST road, and Vandalur, bisecting the gloriously wooded  zoo the  left and some land cornered by forest department – equally wooded to the right.  More patches of lakes and woods followed – giving way to VIT,  and then residential towers and IT parks and on to Old Mahabalipuram Road – Madhya Kailash (at Adyar) – 30 KMs it said – while IT complexes and swank apartments sprung out of land in or abutting water bodies – with restaurants and malls on the main road.  A new Chennai – hopefully a bit more peripheral to the hardened divisions of class and more, knitted together by Ubers in case one wants to mingle a bit more by design or circumstance, instead of our own cocoons of commute to office and home.