The Recursive Meta-Incompetence of the Indian State

Now that I have grabbed your attention with a couple of big and high sounding words let me justify their use in the title of this post.



In any discussion of the Indian State, the first image that pops into our mind is that of the parade with which our armed forces salute the State -- through the person of the President -- on Republic Day. The spectacular nature of this parade, the precision with which the contingents -- both military and civilian ones -- walk, move, act and enact various scenarios is of course something to be proud of but the tragedy of the parade lies in the fact that it has no relation to the way the State actually works outside the parade route. Were we to move away from Rajpath and step into the dungeons of any sarkari daftar, the reality that will confront us is terrifying. Decrepit and stained with betel juice and with piles of dusty files covering innumerable empty desks, government offices -- whether central, state, municipal, panchayat or public sector corporates -- present a uniform image of lethargic indifference to the process of administration, governance or management. A few locations -- perhaps the offices of the uber-senior officers in government, or those of some PSUs -- may try to be different but that is only as far as looks go. If you look any deeper -- behind the feeble spit and polish -- the picture is an equally grim image of archaic and anarchic incompetence masquerading as indifferent authority.

Incompetence is the authoritative word here. It does not need a rocket scientist ( and I have always wondered why rocket scientists are brought into such discussions ! a molecular biologist would have done just as fine ) to figure out that the State is incompetent. Just in case you thought otherwise there are umpteen examples of simple projects taking just too long to finish or not being finished at all. While China has built the railway through Tibet we are still planning one in Sikkim and Arunachal whereas we had the expertise to build the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway in the last century ! Forget about railways in the Himalayas, we cannot even build a 200 feet culvert on Bakrahat Road ( 5 kms from Calcutta ) in the last two years. Or forget about roads .. we cannot even make sure that a letter from Prime Ministers office reaches that of the Chief Minister in time for him to attend a meeting in New Delhi. Pervasive incompetence : you see it in the eons that it takes for a municipal tax bill to be corrected for errors, for tax refund to be paid in time, for .... and the list go on and on ab nauseam.

In an earlier post I had argued that even if a government employee were to be not incompetent, the framework of authority, responsibility and trust within which government operates would ensure that nothing happens on schedule, within budget and meets quality standards. This was a view from the outside, but now that I am a part of the system and have a worms eye view of things, I would veer around to the view that competence is sorely in short supply over here !

Are people in the government sector less competent than their counterparts in the corporate world ? Trying to answer the question is like opening a can of worms because it causes egos to be bruised rather badly but to be diplomatic -- and perhaps correct -- about it would be to state that the fraction of competent people in the public sector is less than the fraction of competent people in the private sector.

Is this corporate arrogance ? Not really. We can look at umpteen examples but a good place to start as any would be the usage of computer technology -- or even something as simple as email -- in an office environment. This comes most naturally to even the most smallest of the private organisations but is a great rarity in the rarefied atmosphere of a government office. Most people in government would consider it beneath their dignity to read and respond to email but in reality it is more often than not beyond their ability to be online and proactive in responding to missives. Inability to use email or other technology is just one of the many instances of inefficiency or incompetence -- there are hundreds of "best practices" available in the world of that can lead to significant performance improvement but they find no place in the world of government office.

Why ? One quick answer could be corruption -- because efficient, elegant and transparent practices can root out corruption and that would not be in the interest of the various vested interests that inhabit these offices. But corruption is a part of the larger Indian story and not the subject of this article.

So if we ignore corruption why is it that government continue to perform at this abysmal low level of efficiency ? We go back to the original hypothesis that says that a statistically larger percentage of government employees are inefficient and incompetent. But how can that be ? We all come from the same demographic or genetic pool ! In the same family one brother works competently in the private sector and the other is a lethargic sarkari babu ?

The answer could lie in the fact that competent people are reluctant to join the government or if they do join, they would like to leave as soon as possible. It is like the process of diffusion in a gas-centrifuge that is used for Uranium enrichment where the heavier atoms get separated from the lighter atoms and we have different concentrations of U238 and U235 in different parts of the spinning container. So is the case here -- the surge and swell of society ensures that more of the smarter people stay outside the government than inside and so competence and efficiency is found in greater abundance outside the government than inside.

This is where the recursion kicks in. As more of the competent people choose stay out, the less competent and effective do government departments become ... and this drives out ( or keeps out ) even more competent people. This is a vicious cycle, a downward spiral that becomes worse and worse -- so there is really no hope for it to recover and so no incentive for any competent person to try and fix things. A normal incompetent person can sincerely try to improve his competence -- by seeking assistance with new tools and techniques -- but in this case the incompetence of the organisation is such that it cannot overcome its own incompetence. So it tend to take refuge in denial, bluster and false bravado -- who says government is incompetent ! I will pull his tongue out ! and take him to the equivalent of a privileges committee !!! This is meta-incompetence -- he who knows not and knows not he knows not is a fool, avoid him -- that is what smart people will do.

Is there a way out of this recursive meta-incompetence ? Is it possible for visionary, a crusader who can come in and fix the problem by the force of his personal leadership ? Can we not say that "as is the prince, so are the people" ? Sam Pitroda tried and got us going on the telecom but he could not do anything about the DoT/BSNL/MTNL and the sarkari telecom organisation. Perhaps there are other examples but none that has been anything close to successful and in the end we would have no option but to agree that "as are the people, so will be the prince" -- the system will finally get you.

But Sam left us with one great lesson : if you cannot redesign the sarkari organisation make it irrelevant so that we do not have to suffer at its hands. We do not mourn the death of BSNL, we celebrate the success of Bharti and Reliance !

That could be our only hope of escaping from the clutches of the recursive meta-incompetence that plagues the Indian state. Let us get the state out our lives. It is on its way out in industry and it would be wonderful if it could be shown the door in education, medical services, municipal services and -- some day -- out of judicial, [ see also this], taxation and security services.

We shall overcome our state, some day. Not like the Maoists with guns and murder but with bold ideas that can change the future.

From V-Schools to B-Schools : A Research Agenda

With an obsession with placements, Business schools in India -- IIMs not excluded -- have degenerated into thinly disguised placement agencies or at best glorified vocational schools. The compartmentalisation of B-school curriculum into the four principal management functions, namely Finance, Marketing, Human Resources and Systems and Operations reflects this mindset. These are the four principal kinds of tasks that a manager is expected to perform and B-schools pat themselves on the back if they can teach these four skills to the satisfaction of the recruiting companies. [ Though in reality, companies that hire from B-Schools do not seem to care for even this skill ...] Unfortunately, this puts B-schools in the category of vocational schools or V-schools

If we draw an analogy with engineering schools, this approach would mean that students are taught workshop practice -- chipping, fitting, foundry, welding -- assembling circuit boards or laying out wires for electrical circuits ! But an engineering school teaches much more ! From mechanics, through thermodynamics, control systems, logic gates all the way up to engineering mathematics and algorithms. This is the kind of knowledge that separates an engineer from a technician and by extension the kind of approach that separates an IIT from an ITI !!

So if we wish to move from an ITI to an IIT, a V-School to a B-School, what is it that that should be on the curriculum ? One approach would be replace the current four areas with four other more fundamental ones : Leadership, Mathematics, Psychology and Technology.



But before we adopt this approach we need to understand how these four things map into and support the more traditional areas. To do so, let us dig deeper into what is meant by these four areas.

Leadership in the context of B-schools consists of Entrepreneurship -- which could be traditional entrepreneurship as in setting up new businesses but should also extend to entrepreneurship within a firm, or intrapreneurship, where each business unit operates on its own risk-reward model. However this entrepreneurship should be tempered with Ethical behaviour and a strong focus on Equity -- that ensures that the rights of all stakeholders are adequately protected. So Leadership can be defined in terms of Ethics, Equity and Entrepreneurship.

Managing a business calls for both analytical -- or left brain, and emotional -- or right brain, skills. That is why managers are expected to have both IQ as well as EQ. Mathematics in general, represents the core analytical ability and in a B-school context can be translated into modelling techniques that apply to financial models, optimisation models that lead to operational efficiency and models that apply to marketing and sales. On the right brain side, where one has to deal with human beings, the core skill is Psychology that can be used to understand Consumer Behaviour, Organisational ( and employee ) Behaviour and of helps us to understand the laws that lead to the resolution of disputes.

But in today's business environment, the biggest driver is the development and deployment of new technology. What are the key technologies that a B-school should focus on ? Ever since the discovery of fire, Energy is recognised as the key to growth. Food security and health issues force us to focus on the Life Sciences in general and Bio science and bio engineering in particular and Habitat requirements lead us to seek breakthroughs in Materials and Manufacturing. The last, but not the least, that ties all this together is Communication and Collaboration technology that has traditionally been referred to as Information Systems.



This sixteen areas (a) Leadership, Ethics, Equity, Entrepreneurship (b) Mathematical Modelling, Financial Models, Operational and Optimisation Models, Marketing Models (c) Psychology, Consumer Behaviour, Organisational Behaviour, Dispute Resolution and (d) Communication and Collaboration, Life Sciences, Materials & Manufacturing and Energy could represent the core set of knowledge that any Manager ( as opposed to a supervisor ) should possess or build upon. With this model, it is not at all difficult to accommodate all the four traditional disciplines, namely Finance, Marketing, HR and Operations, quite easily within one or more of these sixteen areas.

Interestingly enough, these 16 areas can be grouped into a traditional Magic Quadrant where the left half represents left brain activities and right half represents right brain activities and as we move from bottom to top we move from specific topics to more general ones.



A typical B-School curriculum consists of 32 courses spread across 4 semesters. 16 of these courses could come from these areas while the other 16 could be distributed across specific electives that delve deeper into one or more of these areas.

In an era when a B-school is judged on the basis of its Industry interface and in its ability to turn our "industry ready" managers, this model may be questioned and criticised on being too theoretical and divorced from what the industry needs. However let us understand that just as industry needs both engineers and technicians for engineering functions, it also need supervisors and managers for business functions. IITs provide engineers, ITIs provide technicians. Similarly high end B-schools should build Managers who can provide leadership in thought and action -- not supervisors who know how to calculate loan EMIs.

B-Schools and the Placement Syndrome

Why do students queue up to get into B-Schools, especially the more well known ones ? And why are some B-Schools more well known than the others ? Both questions are in fact two sides of a more fundamental question - what value does a B-School bring to the table ? and the answer to both questions can be found in the placement history of B-Schools in general and specific schools in particular.

Students join B-Schools because they believe -- and in many cases, quite rightly, that it is a ticket to a high paying job and some B-Schools are more well known than others because their students end up with more, better or higher-paying jobs.

But why blame B-Schools for this trend. In the 70s, 80s and even as late as the 90s when unemployment was the dominant feature of the economic landscape of India, students would throng the gates of the Engineering schools because because that was seen as the most sure shot ticket to a good job. Students who had neither the inclination nor the aptitude for engineering scrambled to become engineers because of the job prospects. Today, when other opportunities exist in the field of finance, retail, media, life sciences, entertainment, the collective memory of the Indian psyche still drives students to engineering -- but the craze could be ebbing somewhat.

But the craze for a badge from a B-School continues unabated and to keep up with this demand we have an increase in the supply of B-School seats, both at private schools as well as at public sector schools like the IIMs and IIT, plus of course the corresponding expansion in the ancillary industry of CAT-coaching classes.

Which brings us back to the question ... what role does a B-School play ? or rather let us ask a related question : what role should a B-School play ?

Does a B-School add value to a student ? Is he or she taught anything that is of use to the company that hires the student. Any B-School would like to believe that it is adding a lot of value to the student in terms of knowledge and capability but a quiet and anonymous questionnaire among students might reveal some startling facts. Quite a few students tend to have a very poor view of most of their teachers and view the fact that they have to sit through their classes as the price they must pay for getting that ticket to that great job !

So is the view in many of the companies that recruit these B-School students. But if they do not really care for what is taught in B-Schools why do they pay higher salaries to these students ? One widely accepted answer is that these B-Schools provide a good screening tool ! Students who have managed to crack the CAT, JMAT, XAT or similar tests -- whether by aptitude or by hard work -- are just the kind of people who are likely to thrive and prosper in the corporate world. Thus the B-School is not a place that adds value to a student but an effective screening tool that makes the job of selecting employees easier !

Thus from both perspectives -- that of the student and of the recruiter -- the B-School is nothing but a placement agency, but is that what it should be ? Placements are important no doubt but should B-Schools not raise themselves above this mundane role of screening-and-placing students and consider something more substantial for themselves ? For example should B-Schools not play a role in creating new knowledge ? in terms of business models, best practices and in terms of new technology. Should they not establish themselves as centres of thought leadership and guide the national debate on economic and social matters ?

Unfortunately, each and every B-School in India today, including the best known ones, have reduced themselves themselves to the level of placement agencies. At best some of them have managed to elevate themselves to the level of teaching shops -- that teach some tools of the trade, like linear programming and balance sheets.

What is really missing is the big leap of imagination, of innovation, of ideas. Is it not the time for some of the B-Schools to step forward and plug this gap ? And strangely enough once this happens, once we take our eyes off placement and salaries and focus on genuine thought leadership, placements and salaries will fall in place, on their own -- and not be the tail that wagged the dog !

Sandhi Puja

Sandhi puja is perhaps the most significant event in the entire sequence of rituals that constitute the autumnal adoration of the Goddess -- the Durga Puja, but not too many are aware of the legends that have invested this event with the aura of extreme sanctity.

Sandhi means junction and in this case it is the junction between the eighth and ninth lunar day after the first new moon that occurs after the sun moves into Virgo -- as per the Hindu zodiac, which lags the Christian zodiac by the Ayanamsa value of around 23 degrees. That is why the ritual is performed in the last 24 mins of the Ashtami ( the 8th lunar day ) and the first 24 mins of Navami (the 9th lunar day).

Legend says the Goddess in her manifestation of the Mahishasur-mardini, the destroyer of the evil ogre who took the form of a buffalo or Mahish, performed her deed at this precise moment and so at this auspicious hour the manifestation of divinity is at its peak in the clay image that is generally used to represent the Goddess.

The actual killing of the ogre -- the triumph of the righteous and the destruction of all that is evil -- is supposed to be remembered and recalled through an actual blood sacrifice but today, most puja organisers settle for symbolic sacrifice which is the climax of this specific ritual.

The precise moment when the Goddess kills the ogre is marked by the setting off of firecrackers -- in faint resemblance of cannons being fired in the past -- and this creates a very unique audio ambience especially in the rural, and hence quieter ! parts of the country. As the priest in each puja performs the symbolic sacrifice and the drums and firecrackers that accompany him burst out as loudly as possible, it seems as if a wave of sound is travelling across the (usually) darkened landscape. The sound moves from puja to puja until the entire countryside is agog in a joyous celebration of good over evil. Those who celebrate the puja in the noisy environs of a city very often miss out this experience.



This short movie on the Sandhi Puja at Sonartoree, Prantik Birbhum shows the event and the spray of blood -- in the form of coloured seeds!

The Paradox of the Happy Prisoner

Maureen Dowd in her op-ed article -- Blue is the new Black -- published in the New York Times has referred to a survey that, if really true, should force us to seriously rethink the outcome of the War of Civilisations.

But first what is this survey all about ? "According to the General Social Survey, which has tracked Americans’ mood since 1972, and five other major studies around the world, women are getting gloomier and men are getting happier" .... First there is no further reference to this General Social Survey and to the five other major studies ... but we shall let that pass and focus what appears to be the core of Dowd's hypothesis. The reason that women are getting gloomier is because they have more choice today ! In the past, before feminist activism unshackled women from petty domesticity, women lived lives that were tightly controlled by the men in the family -- father, husband, father-in-law and son. They basically did what they were told to do ... and that was pretty much restricted to cooking, cleaning, managing the home and hearth and of course sex. But once these shackles fell away and women ventured out into schools, colleges, employment, entrepreneurship and what not it was thought that it would lead to a more fulfilling and happy life. But according to Dowd's article, what has happened is just the reverse. “Choice is inherently stressful,and women are being driven to distraction.” ! But even if one were to look at the bright side of things, women were "happy to have ... newfound abundance of choices, even if those choices end up making us unhappier" A paradox indeed !

We can now either disregard these 1+5 surveys and treat Dowd's article as utter trash, or else assume that she has indeed stumbled upon a fact of significance. Since the first option is a dead end let us instead explore the full implications of this paradox.

The liberation of women from the shackles of domesticity, from the shackles imposed by a male-dominated society, is one of the many liberation movements that mankind in general has gone through.

The first was the liberation from the physical environment when man learnt to control the taste of food and the temperature of the environment with fire and then went on to use technology to liberate himself from the whims of the environment.

But the more important instances of liberation were the twin instances of (a) relegious and (b) political liberty. The renaissance and similar social movements showed that the gods and their agents on earth, the religious institutions, were no more the absolute arbitrars of what is right and wrong and in the political sphere, the disintegration of the feudal society and the divine right of kings demonstrated that the will of the people was supreme. In fact the pillars of modern civilisation is based on the premise that individuals have the freedom to do exactly what they want -- except that this should not infringe on the similar rights of another individual.

Opposed to this concept of personal freedom is the belief that society at large, manifested either (a) through a tyrannical state like Communist Russia, or kleptocratic Zimbabwe or (b) religious fanaticism as evident in Wahabi Islam -- knows what is good or bad and individual rights must necessarily be subordinate to the dictates of this society.

In the what is commonly referred to as the War of Civilisation, the fault lines are very clear. One one side we have the liberal democracies that are based on the principle of personal freedom and choice and on the other the forces of totalitarianism that seek peace and tranquility in the subversion of the same principle of personal freedom and choice. The crux of the matter in either case is that of personal freedom.

And this is precisely the point where Maureen Dowd's article strikes a thunderbolt ! If we extrapolate from her analysis of women's freedom and enlarge our discussion into the domain of general personal freedom then we are left with a bigger paradox : Are we happy to have an abundance of choice and freedom even if the exercise of the same choice makes us unhappy ? Is the prisoner happy to be confined to a fixed routine ? Or would he be happy if were given the choice of doing whatever he wanted to know ?

Who knows ?

Tranquility of Saptami

The evening of Mahasaptami at Sonartoree, Prantik, Birbhum

The Broken Shivalinga at Kankalitala

Kankalitala is one of the 51 Shakti Pithas in the Indian sub-continent and is a place of pilgrimage and tourism for those who visit Shantiniketan. While most visitors are happy to visit the tiny shrine of the divine mother, not too many take the trouble to walk another 100 metres to the shrine of the Pitha Bhairab -- the consort of Shakti -- who is referred to here as Ruru Bhairav. But those who do, get a glimpse of one of the darkest images of medieval Bengal.

Sulaiman Khan Karrani was the Pathan who ruled Bengal in the second half of the 16th century and his general KalaPahar [ the black mountain, perhaps an allusion to his physical size ], a Hindu who had converted to Islam was notorious as the demolisher of temples in Bengal and Orissa. Legend claims that he was finally killed before the temple of Sambaleshwari by the goddess herself in the guise of a milkmaid who seduced him and his people with a gift of milk and sweets that was laced with cholera germs.

Kala Pahar is known to have demolished a number of fine Hindu temples in Birbhum and the temple of Ruru Bhairav is one such. If you enter the temple today, you will see the dismal remnants of a giant Shivalingam that is nearly two feet in diameter and it is broken ! Unlike a normal Shivalinga that rises up and erect from its seat in the yoni of the Mother Goddess, this one has clearly been broken off -- with great force and malevolence -- near the ground. A piece of basalt this big does not break off or topple so easily .. and so it is natural to infer that this was the handiwork of someone who was inimical to the temple.

Waiting for the Goddess