*Disclaimer – This is an editorial written by Mohandas Pai, he was the CFO and then the head of HR at Infosys. He is now Chairman, Aarin Capital Partners. He usually writes for many newspapers including thehindu, Indian express etc.
Please also note that, we are publishing this as-is without any editorial oversight and have NO SAY or bias as far as this editorial is concerned. The editorial shows how media shapes our perception and how perception is stronger than reality. Media and bad Politics are hurting “Brand India” just for the sake of “power”.
There has been a worrisome tendency over the last two years of Delhi-based media using highly local events, mostly in Delhi, to broad-brush the entire country as religiously intolerant; increasingly intolerant; as Freedom of Expression (FOE) and our rights being under attack; becoming increasingly communal; becoming fascist, etc. The good citizens of India are perplexed, hurt and angry at being so branded. The same media also brands citizens who do not agree with their India view as communal, intolerant, Bhakts, internet Hindus and the like, reducing the space for a genuine debate on multiple issues. Local incidents are blown up as All-India issues. Known and unknown political leaders who hold strong extreme views have often had mics thrust into their faces and their views blown out of all proportion as indications of an All-India view. To buttress their arguments they pick on abusive extreme views from Twitter, of which there are plenty.
Delhi is not India, and what happens in localised areas of Delhi is far distant from what India thinks and what India is all about.
West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra …all states in the Union of India think very differently and have their own view, but none of them step out to brand India in their view except the Delhi Media. They are least concerned with localised Delhi events. To them, Delhi even looks like an alien, distant land and yet they get branded. This continued biased tirade by the Delhi Media on purely local issues is tarnishing the image of India globally and hurting the rest of us who are 99.99% of the population and have nothing to do with this. We are 130 crore across India, and the Delhi where this happens is a small part of India.
At the time of the Delhi election, the media there took 7-8 incidents of vandalism on churches and blew it up as acts of growing religious intolerance in India. Bishops and Archbishops came on TV, driven by the media, to express concern. Candle-lit marches were held, led by the clergy, and the whole country stood accused of religious intolerance. The police later gave details of the vandalism and sheepishly the media outcry was buried as the elections got over. Around the same time, an elderly nun was sadly raped in rural West Bengal by criminals. This was again blown up as indicative of growing intolerance, marches were held, the papal representative criticised the government and spoke of increasing communalism. The police soon arrested the culprits, reportedly from a neighbouring country, but India’s reputation was again tarnished globally, and India was branded as religiously intolerant. Of course, many NGOs overseas and in India used these incidents to cover up their activities. Global business was questioned about the impact on investments and Delhi Media expressed deep concern about impact on inward investments.
Citizens are free in our democratic polity to raise their concerns, march in protest, criticise at any time the government of their choice l, but should the whole country and its citizens be wrongly branded? No country has 200 million people of a faith qualified as a minority and given special protection and privileges in the Constitution. Yet, India was branded as religiously intolerant. Lest I am attacked by the same folks, I need to state that I too am a minority under Article 29/30 of our Constitution, and enjoy this protection! Of course if I am attacked, I expect the Delhi Media to denounce those who attacked me as Minority Bashers!
Soon the Bihar election took place and the orchestra started again. There was the sad criminal lynching of a citizen, in a town in UP, which most had never heard of. A crime blown up as evidence of growing intolerance. A “philosopher” said India should be ashamed of this lynching. A crime became a handle to beat us up.
Around the same time, similar crimes took place in a few places across India, but they did not fit the theory espoused by the Delhi Media. There was also the sad criminal killing of three rationalists in Karnataka and Maharashtra. Again, the Delhi Media blew it up as proof of increasing intolerance and attacks on FOE! Many literary award-winners returned their awards in protest, some artists said their freedom was under attack, and the Media ran riot. A forgotten elderly writer was resurrected out of retirement from the hills to lead the charge, expressing deep concern about FOE and openly expressing a personal dislike for a national leader who occupied the chair formerly held by a relative! Again, India was branded as a country where FOE was under attack, with increasing intolerance. The Bihar election got over and the orchestra shut down! India became tolerant again and our FOE remained.
During the entire media campaign, anchors and critics lambasted the government, accused it of many issues, branded India wrongly, all in a free, open manner. Some political leaders in Delhi abused the PM in terms which were shocking with no impact on them. The rest of the country watched the drama, perplexed as to what right of theirs was diminished. India has an over-active high strung media, a huge number of news channels, an activist judiciary, many political parties freely voicing their opinions as before, but still the Delhi Media branded India and all of us wrongly.
Then came the events in JNU, the bastion of Leftist ideology, with closed minds and extreme views. JNU is intolerant of alternative views, captured by the extreme Left, with Leftist activists of the CPI ML who stand for violence and openly display admiration and support for the Maoists, being showcased as champions of freedom and human rights! The fight for power between two student unions for domination of the university was suddenly blown up by the Delhi Media as another example of an assault on FOE and academic freedom in India. A student leader who was studying for his Phd forever at public cost suddenly was catapulted as a champion of freedom and later dumped. The sad suicide of a student elsewhere became another example of the oppression of students for expressing their ideological views! In a Delhi studio in the debates following this, I was told by a JNU student that students all over India were protesting the lack of FOE. I reminded the student that there were nearly 800 universities, 50,000+ colleges and 3.4 crore students, and this ideological fight was essentially in three Leftist universities for political reasons, and not a student issue! Yet, it was blown up as if all students were protesting.
Then came the issue of hoisting the Indian flag in universities. Then the debate about patriotism and nationalism, etc. All being used to brand India and Indians as intolerant because the Delhi Media thought it fit to do so damaging India’s brand and image globally.
Now the latest incident about two student unions of differing ideology, fighting it out for power and domination in a few colleges of Delhi. A small local fight taking prime time for no reason, save it is in Delhi. Again, attempts being made to blow it up as evidence of assaults on FOE and academic freedom. A Nobel Laureate who makes occasional visits expressing deep concern at the lack of academic freedom and “fear” in campuses. An activist idealist ideological student being made the centre of this fight just because she fits the narrative sought to be made. Students of opposing groups who were assaulted being ignored and condemned as goondas. Physical assault by Leftist students forgiven, and a national newspaper publishing a photograph of Leftists assaulting students as evidence of the opposing camp assaulting the Leftists! Big evidence of fake manufactured news.
Again, anchors writing blogs to buttress their views, forgetting anchors need to be objective and not take sides. Again, the UP election going on at the same time. Sadly the great Media Seer and Champion of the Truth from Mumbai absent from the furore, letting down the Nation Which Needs To Know.
It is obvious that India is in the midst of a deep ideological fight between the Left and left of centre activists and the Delhi Media against the right of centre government. The right again fighting back, branding everybody opposed to them as unpatriotic and anti-national. So, charges of communalism, fascism, intolerance against charges of anti-nationalism and lack of patriotism. All fine for the course except why brand India and Indians with the same charges for a fight between two small groups with 99.99% of Indians – and in all this, India getting a bad name.
I could have, as a citizen, ignored all this as a normal event, except that I witnessed its impact on Indians and the India brand overseas. At a business event, an elderly 80 years + titled peer told me she had signed a petition with 200 others protesting the visit of the Indian PM to London because India was becoming religiously intolerant, saw growing intolerance and there was a big assault on FOE. I said everything was fine, our rights were intact just 24 hours earlier when I had left India. She said she was an Indophile and concerned. I replied that if she was so concerned, she should visit India and find out for herself before she signed the letter and not defame india and Indians.
Sadly, the Delhi Media has damaged the India brand and the fair name of Indians globally by their exaggeration and ideological campaigns to force their ideology on others, forgetting their duty to be more objective. No citizen objects to the vibrant, loud, violent ideological debates on TV, but please, please, please stop pretending that you represent India and what happens in Delhi is an All India issue. Stop branding the rest of us in your India view!
Delhi is not India, what happens in Delhi is not representative of India, nor Indians outside Delhi.
Source- NDTV
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Steve Ovett, the famous British middle-distance athlete, won the 800-metres gold medal at the Moscow Olympics of 1980. Just a few days later, he was about to win a 5,000-metres race at London’s Crystal Palace. Known for his burst of acceleration on the home stretch, he had supreme confidence in his ability to out-sprint rivals. With the final 100 metres remaining,
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]Ovett waved to the crowd and raised a hand in triumph. But he had celebrated a bit too early. At the finishing line, Ireland’s John Treacy edged past Ovett. For those few moments, Ovett had lost his sense of reality and ignored the possibility of a negative event.
This analogy works well for the India story and our policy failures , including during the ongoing covid pandemic. While we have never been as well prepared or had significant successes in terms of growth stability as Ovett did in his illustrious running career, we tend to celebrate too early. Indeed, we have done so many times before.
It is as if we’re convinced that India is destined for greater heights, come what may, and so we never run through the finish line. Do we and our policymakers suffer from a collective optimism bias, which, as the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman once wrote, “may well be the most significant of the cognitive biases”? The optimism bias arises from mistaken beliefs which form expectations that are better than the reality. It makes us underestimate chances of a negative outcome and ignore warnings repeatedly.
The Indian economy had a dream run for five years from 2003-04 to 2007-08, with an average annual growth rate of around 9%. Many believed that India was on its way to clocking consistent double-digit growth and comparisons with China were rife. It was conveniently overlooked that this output expansion had come mainly came from a few sectors: automobiles, telecom and business services.
Indians were made to believe that we could sprint without high-quality education, healthcare, infrastructure or banking sectors, which form the backbone of any stable economy. The plan was to build them as we went along, but then in the euphoria of short-term success, it got lost.
India’s exports of goods grew from $20 billion in 1990-91 to over $310 billion in 2019-20. Looking at these absolute figures it would seem as if India has arrived on the world stage. However, India’s share of global trade has moved up only marginally. Even now, the country accounts for less than 2% of the world’s goods exports.
More importantly, hidden behind this performance was the role played by one sector that should have never made it to India’s list of exports—refined petroleum. The share of refined petroleum exports in India’s goods exports increased from 1.4% in 1996-97 to over 18% in 2011-12.
An import-intensive sector with low labour intensity, exports of refined petroleum zoomed because of the then policy regime of a retail price ceiling on petroleum products in the domestic market. While we have done well in the export of services, our share is still less than 4% of world exports.
India seemed to emerge from the 2008 global financial crisis relatively unscathed. But, a temporary demand push had played a role in the revival—the incomes of many households, both rural and urban, had shot up. Fiscal stimulus to the rural economy and implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission scales had led to the salaries of around 20% of organized-sector employees jumping up. We celebrated, but once again, neither did we resolve the crisis brewing elsewhere in India’s banking sector, nor did we improve our capacity for healthcare or quality education.
Employment saw little economy-wide growth in our boom years. Manufacturing jobs, if anything, shrank. But we continued to celebrate. Youth flocked to low-productivity service-sector jobs, such as those in hotels and restaurants, security and other services. The dependence on such jobs on one hand and high-skilled services on the other was bound to make Indian society more unequal.
And then, there is agriculture, an elephant in the room. If and when farm-sector reforms get implemented, celebrations would once again be premature. The vast majority of India’s farmers have small plots of land, and though these farms are at least as productive as larger ones, net absolute incomes from small plots can only be meagre.
A further rise in farm productivity and consequent increase in supply, if not matched by a demand rise, especially with access to export markets, would result in downward pressure on market prices for farm produce and a further decline in the net incomes of small farmers.
We should learn from what John Treacy did right. He didn’t give up, and pushed for the finish line like it was his only chance at winning. Treacy had years of long-distance practice. The same goes for our economy. A long grind is required to build up its base before we can win and celebrate. And Ovett did not blame anyone for his loss. We play the blame game. Everyone else, right from China and the US to ‘greedy corporates’, seems to be responsible for our failures.
We have lowered absolute poverty levels and had technology-based successes like Aadhaar and digital access to public services. But there are no short cuts to good quality and adequate healthcare and education services. We must remain optimistic but stay firmly away from the optimism bias.
In the end, it is not about how we start, but how we finish. The disastrous second wave of covid and our inability to manage it is a ghastly reminder of this fact.