Diggi Raja, shut up or open up

Digvijay Singh, a former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh and one of the top influential people in UPA 2 has made it a habit of being in the news. Most of the times for the wrong reason. And whenever there is controversy related to terrorism he takes keen interest.

Diggi Raja has an interesting history. He led congress in Madhya Pradesh for two consecutive terms. The media impression during his rule were that he is a progressive chief minister. It was one of the marquee state governments of Indira Congress. It was portrayed as poster child. And even after his rule is over, media always glorified his years at the helm. On the back of being a successful chief minister, he was pretty powerful inside congress party. Though the generic idea that I got was that once he lost power, he slowly started moving away from the main stream of congress party. historically this was pretty much  the fate of any one in congress who grows too powerful to be comfortable. He has been assigned multiple posts within the party. But his performance has been kind of away from the public glare. I think Congress at least in theory works in one person one post mode. He is one of the second rung leaders who are hand picked for ensuring that the party grows in future. So he will never participate in any government but will work on brining the party. He was one of the people working with Rahul Gandhi in UP. The luke warm response from Congress there again is being portrayed as a success by congress. This is because they can not afford to show that their prince - next - in - line - to - hereditary - stone has lost some thing. But they definitely could not achieve the internal goals they would have set for themselves. I do not have any problem with a party looking deep and planning for further in future rather than concentrating on the immediate elections at hand. For stability of India, the most national parties should have good presence in the Hindi heart lands. This will ensure that unity of the country is maintained. One of the short term approaches applied by Congress in general and Digvijay Singh in particular has been appeasement of terrorists from the district of Azamgarh. Most of the activities that are taken up by Diggy Raja there are bordering on supporting the terrorists and their families. But they have played their cards nicely till now and Diggy has always maintained that he was just talking to families and acting against alienation of the entire region where as congress has kept its distance from all this.

Diggi Raja recently has performed completely opposite to his history. He who once was known for his administration and long term decisions for the benefit of his states has stooped down to playing the religious politics and playing with fire using terrorists for these. And he has gone and done this again, this time it is the Mumbai 26/11 carnage.

There was always some thing burning. It is very interesting how he always finds himself in the middle of one controversy after another. Even when there are two independent events, he has managed to involve himself in both these.

There can be multiple reasons for this. It can be because congress is playing a very dangerous game of minority appeasement and Digvijay is the actor. And congress is silently trying to reap the benefits. If this turns sour, congress can always pull its card out and let all the blame fall on Diggy. This way he is one of the most important pieces in their strategy. The other angle can be that Diggi Raja has already been pushed to the long list of has-beens and it is his last bid to relevance. The party as such can not do much but stay completely neutral lest it can be considered to be supporting the fanatics.
But a has - been should only ensure that he takes up what he can handle. This can definitely blow up in congress's face pretty badly. So if it is Diggy's own game,his problem is that he is taking some thing up which he may not have strength to handle.

The worst part of all these is that this has hurt the cause of the martyrs, defeats the pressure on Pak and muddles already dirty picture. I am not sure whether the congress as well as Diggy knows the long term harm they are causing to the already torn fabric of the nation.

This particular approach, along with the inaction raises multiple questions. In the bigger picture the government has not done almost any thing about the terrorism issue. The security hawks in the government have been completely silenced or they have agreed to the general direction of using these events for appeasement and vote gathering.

This is deeply shameful. The country's integrity and sovereignty is at stake. At some level the reactions of then Maharashtra CM and deputy CM to the carnage can be attributed to short sightedness and political and national immaturity. But now there are signs that the congress party think tank has decided to use these events to their own goals.

But for a politician it is nothing new. Politics being art of the possible. But there is always a limit. Of all the failures of this version of UPA, the most biting is this change in strategy. Unfortunately the alternative to all this is equally bad and I see a very bleak picture for the nation ahead. There is not viable alternative to congress, which itself is completely collapsing under its own weight, when it is not crossing boundaries which it should not cross.

It is about time calmer heads and deeper thinkers prevailed.

Working at the speed of trust

Some time back I had this training from my organization. This was not necessarily the training I like to attend. But this was kind of a different training in a crazy way. It was really a lotus eaters delight. And as I am one such nut case, I really liked it.

Here are some thoughts on it

I definitely agree to the maxim that speed travels faster than light. If there is any thing that is going to cause a huge jump in productivity, it is basically trust that gets us to jump multiple levels in productivity. In software business, it is the next thing to the smart design and work allocation and tracking.

The training was by Franklin Covey institute and they have a book also along with it. I do not want to break their copyright by giving excerpts of their work here. So there are just some random musings inspired by the book and training. I am not even saying that you should go for that training or should buy that book. None of these two things have ever worked for me. Even if I am a self confessed self-help book junkie, the books that affect me most are the ones which are not written for doing so. So here is the divorce from the training and the book.

I think there is an interesting perspective of looking at trust, trust can be both directions, outward and inward. trust in others and trust in yourselves to achieve the desired goals. First thing that needs to be done when you want to trust some one is that you should build up that trust in others. It is a strange thing that comes back as much as you give it out.

The training really brings up this fact completely. Building trust is a very lengthy process. Losing it may not be. There are scientific steps which can be taken to build up trust. It needs the relationship to go through a set of levels before trust is built. It needs both the parties to be mature and winning. There is a high chance that trust can be broken and then it takes you down a very bad slippery slope. Inherently trust means that you would not have spent time building alternate solutions. If that happens, then once your trust-party fails you, you can never recover.

If this has to be a “fail-safe scenario” , this means that there is another angle to trust. It is of interdependence. There is another angle of making your dependencies soft. If your dependencies are soft, this means that you can still survive when everything else fails. And if every thing succeeds, you are at the pinnacle of success.

Trusting some one also means that the person you are dealing with should not have any exterior motives about your failure. If some one is fully inclined to make you a failure, it is very difficult to trust him. That's why trusting people is an issue in case of an environment where you are competing for survival. In an environment where you are losing ten percent of people annually you will be most probably collaborating with, it is really difficult not to think about stabbing people in the back when the opportunity provides. Some one trying to build trust is exactly giving the same opportunity to your competitors.

But in the long run, trust is the best way to achieve some semblance of justice in all this process is to be yourselves and ensure that people are always supported and helped. Working towards a greater goal and benefits of the collective may look like a day dream. but people have been achieving this even in case of worse situations than this. There are proofs of such behavior in extreme situations like the concentration camps. Then it should not so difficult to put it to use in normal office scenarios. You need not be a saint to reach there. As man is a social animal, soft power has been built by normal people and more competitive scenarios tackled effectively.

So we are just being our natural self when we behave in a collaborative manner. Only people with a deep sense of lack of confidence in their own abilities can rule this out. What is done is always more important than what is seen. If you do really stellar work, it can not be kept in cage because of just incompetence.

As a leader, the lead should ensure that the same thing happens in the team as well. Being the lead of my team, I am the owner of the direction, culture and success of it. My success should be measured with the ease with which I setup the culture of initiative, ownership, belonging and achievement in my team. In that sense, every team member should be like one to me. This is again some thing that is contradictory. How can I behave exactly same with all the reportees if I am the one who is going to differentiate between these two times a year. Or as the thing goes, I may be asking some of these to leave. but that is completely different track and I should be able to behave independently in both these situations. I think I need to do a bunch of stuff to track these things.

 

Obama In India- Part III : The Future; near and far

As put earlier, Obama has got what he wanted while giving very less and promising a lot. He came here on the back of a big set back domestically. He had to show some thing short term that he gained. The problem was dealt with properly and he gained what he started with in his mind. A new business of tens of billions of dollars and jobs for tens of thousands of American workers is the bargain he had come with. Hopefully this will ensure that he has some breathing space at home. Even this relief looks temporary. The Grand Old Party has him in a death grip now and will keep squeezing it as they want for next two years. This may make Obama more belligerent and try to do extra ordinary things to break out of the grip. We can use this more and make use to gain more from him. I think helping him in his pull out from Af-Pak is the next important thing we can do. Once he is out of Af, we can deal with Pak on a one on one basis. With out any body else's strategic interests being hurt. I think one more split Pakistan will make India more stronger. Baluchistan and other tribal areas which are now any ways partially autonomous can become an independent country and they can be our very good friends. This looks like a fantastic thought right now but can be reality and will definitely be a good thing. We can use the capital we put in by helping Obama. Right now he has got away with what he wanted but we can definitely give him and America more. This will ensure that we will get back some thing other than just empty words.

Even if these are just empty words, this is also enough coming from the leader of the most influential nation on earth. We definitely have some thing tangible at hands short term. We can put this to better use. We can use the short term advantage to get some thing long term. May be increase out influence in Sri Lanka or Nepal. Right now it looks like we are tongue tied and are not comfortable with our strength. This also some times means that others are not comfortable with our strength. Right now the Man Mohan government is too dovish for my liking. We have tied our own hands in knots. We can improve on this by being more hawkish and being more transparent. As Obama mentioned our power gives us some moral responsibilities and give us some rights as well. We should work as big brother in most of the conflicts. We need not be completely on one side always. For example, dealing with Burmese Junta and Aang San Su Ki, we should ensure that we let the Burma know that even when we are supporting them, we want slow and steady improvement in the situation. And Obama is right in this sense. This is where America has also faltered historically. They have always gone for short and mid term goals without being aware of the rights and wrongs. If we use our power considerately, we can get what we want along with making the world a better place.

The problem is that historically we have been used to the responsibilities more and not made good use of the rights and opportunities. This is a tight rope walk and the balance is very difficult to maintain. It is even more difficult to show that the balance is optimal. But this is what foreign policy is all about. Obama's visit and his promises has definitely given us a new status. We should get used to the new status, even if it is short lived. We can make it more long term by doing some thing wiht a great impact pretty quickly. We can use this to solve some domestic problem OR use it to solve some problem with our neighbors. Our mid term goal is to stop the terrorist training centers in Pak which work against us. Even the congress needs to get his done so that they have some thing spectacular to show for the next elections. Civil Nuclear deal, a permanent seat at the security council, and stopping the terrorist camps in Pak as a stretch goal can be very good as a foreign policy achievement the congress can take it to the people in the next elections.

In my opinion these can be very formidable achievements.   And these can take us further down the path of being a responsible super power.  We can use it to get some things done that we wanted.

P.S. This is how I felt while writing this: http://750words.com/entries/share/367723

Obama in India–Part 2 : There is no re course to good strategy and honesty

 

Continuing from my last post: Here’s how I felt writing this  http://750words.com/entries/share/365045

 

India and United States have always been more of unnatural enemies than natural allies. We have always been distrustful of each other. Though their a very sizable population of India who has always been in awe of the United States. Some times for these people this country is their life's destination and destiny. Even with this for the fist fifty years or some thing of Indian independence, America has always been wary of India and Indians. Despite many times acting against India’s interests, Indians have always been pro US. This is in stark contrast with the rest of the world.

Very few times we see eye to eye. Whenever there is a chance of having the same point, the prevalent situation has always been such that we could not be on the same side. Latest example being Afganistan. (Read India's Afghanistan dilemma)   However India wants to involve in Afganistan more actively, the domestic politics does not allow India to do so.

In case of Burma, I think Indian intelligence has some under handed and shady dealing with the military Junta OR has failed miserably in the policy of intervention and wants to keep its hands off the east. It again can be a tactical necessity. Similarly in Bangla Desh war and India - china war, United states has been very actively on the other side  OR a silent spectator respectively. We definitely would have liked to do more. India by leading the non Aligned Movement and being inclined to the Russians has always sowed seeds of doubt in US's mind. So successive presidents have been wary / ignorant of India or did not care much for it. where as Pakistan has always been the blue eyed boys.

 

But things have changed quite drastically in last fifteen to twenty years. India's emergence in the world economy has been slow and steady .

Indian economy does not have the explosive growth of a Japanese OR a Chinese economy. Though it is strong in its own. By not growing too fast we have avoided going bust the Japanese way. (see chart)

India has the biggest middle class who are getting away from the normal spend thrift ways of Indians and is ready to splurge its income in the way it fits good. In parallel, United States has been losing its grip and lead as an economic power house. A unipolar world economy where Us is the only strong leader and director has numbered days . US needs to sell things to countries of it has to continue being the caller of the stakes, and which country if not India with its ready made set of middle class buyers. As indian economy is growing, India's other needs in infrastructure and industries is also growing. This is where U.S. can earn its next share of pie. With the emergence of the Indian middle class, we are going to be world's consumers. US is going to do any thing to ensure that it has favorable access to this group. This can involve giving in to some long term strategic demands like Security Seat and talking down Pak.

The danger there is that most of the late presidents (from Clinton to Obama) who have had an eye on Indian middle class do not still consider India as a trusted ally. India's centrist politics is one of the reasons for it. Indian leaders' non strategic ideas and moves can be another reason for it. We rarely do any thing for long term at least when foreign policy is concerned. We are too enamored with our two enemies China and Pakistan. We could influence the world more but we get embroiled in only these two countries. Manmohan two successive terms have been trying to change that but it always comes back. We are not planned enough to ensure that we progress despite these oppositions. We have always allowed other countries to gang up against us and then we have played the martyr. The benefits given by last three presidents, Clinton-Bush-Obama have been pretty substantial. But to me , the things offered by Obama look the most superficial of them all. We can not do any thing more with a permenant seat in the security council than we can do now. Similarly, the indemnity given to US companies is a cause for concern. So most of the times there is a thought that we are getting trivial pursuits OR empty promises and we are giving away more than we are getting in the bargain. So, the qeustion is The Obama gifts, are they  Trojen Horses? to me it looks more like the right of the Lord of The Rings. It has immense power but it comes with its own problems. We would want it as dearly as we can. But the problem is that it is going to tie us and make us a slave to its power. Hope fully our leader ship will pay heed to the state of Pakistan who has latched on to the US tit for last fifty years and majorly because of this is turned into a Mandalik state of it. It can not have any strategic position in the world as it has to pay US back the favors that the US did.
Though in short term, Pak can milk the Al Queda and US presence in Afgan and earn billions of free dollars, it is always a different case when you earn your dues through long term strategy and hard work rather than being at the right place for your master.

Obama in India–Part I–Tu hi aashiqui hain

 

Today I would like to talk about Obama and his visit to India. Foreign policy and strategies being my most interesting arm chair pastimes, I think I am entitled to my opinions. And all of these opinions are hundred percent right ones. As a warning, this may be affected by my political standings which is center – left to center.
The thing that struck me (again) about India is the importance we give to authority. We were going out of our way to please Obama. This does not include the hospitality that we are famous for but it does include the giving in of every thing you have to gain some thing more. I remember there was a controversy regarding "Jan Gan Man" being targeted to Geroge Fifth and not to the people of India. Similarly there was a song sung for him "Tu hi dil hain .. Jaan bhee hain ... Tu khushi hain .. Aaasaraa bhee hain". This really jarred. Who ever has chosen this song is the one to blame. This of course does not represent our national position and is just some lowly official trying to get exceptional rating from his superior but this is how it started.
The more important things that happened were most of the times expected and some times the unexpected were mostly pleasant. First let's discuss the expected things. I think depending on the importance of the president and the hope good part of the world has pinned on him. Being the harbinger of hope and a riding knight in shining armor, we should have enough belief in him. At least we should try and allow him to fail and give him room and time to do all this. And to be sympathetic to him, I think we should go out of our way to accommodate and honor him.
So apart from two things, one where some body low screwed up and another where the prime minister took a very good decision out side of the protocol, things went more or less on the accepted lines.
The reaction of Bharatiya Janata Party was expected and it is really sad to see the depth it has sunk to. Along with their criticism on the interlocutors to Kashmir , this was once again that they have been foolish and short sighted. They definitely do not look like a party who is expecting to come to power the next time and want to keep things as they are and in continuity. I think in matters of national importance, it is always important to have all parties either signed in before hand OR they ensure that their reactions are muted enough not to reflect our country badly in front of others. BJP failed in both the counts.
Other expected thing was that Obama will speak like a merchant. I think it is important for him to take back what he has earned, especially after his debacle in senate.
So he comes in as a messiah of hope and has to talk like a businessman working in a small margin business. This meant that he has to fill in the gap with him charm. He can not give away any thing else. Giving away some diplomatic advantages to India just because he is not behaving according to the perceptions is too much to lose. The only other option he has was to turn on the charm. Which both he and his wife are really good at. So he walked the tight rope easily, did not talk about controversial issues. Came across as genuine and charming, made the points back home by being business like and by winning a number of business deals.
I think the most important things are the ones that are discussed behind closed doors. But these will be apparent only in due course. If there is a drastic change in the attitude and stands taken by India in next four to six months, we can safely assume that we have sold it to Obama and he has agreed to our steps.
It is highly unlikely that any thing will change. But if it does, it is a pleasant surprise again.

To be continued: Here is the analysis of this post of mine in 750 words:

http://750words.com/entries/share/363422

A strong BJP is a necessity for Indian democracy

I has been quiet some tine since the congress is firmly placed at the helm.

Still the secularists have not stopped gloating about the defeat of religious extremism. The BJP itself is torn from within and till now has not shown itself to be above the failure.

The thinkers inside BJP have already conceded that it can not come to power on a sustained basis on the Hindutva agenda. Gods and places of worship is not a sustained model. Bajpeyee knew that and concentrated more on right wing nationalism and progress. Though some pretty good work was done, it surpisingly was not enough to get them back to power.

It is really surprising that a party which continued to remain one for more than 50 years out of power can not now digest two contineous defeats. This definitely denotes that during its rise as one of the national parties who matter, it has definitely diluted its ideology. Picked up large number of floatsam hungry for power. And worse, some of the staunchest stalwarts were damaged beyond repair by one whiff of power.

Trusty cadres is something which will point to a strong party in India from now on. Rahul Gandhi looks like he is trying to build one. Left already has a good structure. BSP is one such party. But depeding on a parallel organization for its ideology and think tank is somethink unique and one of the main cause of everything that is wrong with BJP. There is a Strong thought in BJP to move away from extreme Hindutva agenda, but the dependence of the mother ship is something which is stopping them.

For the Sanghrajya to be successful, there needs to be a very good and delicate balance between the regional parties and the national parties. This balance is right now skewed in the favor of regional parties. To keep the only remaining national party on its toes, there needs to be a very strong and challenging national opposition party. BJP's growth is necessary for both our democracy as well as our Sanghrajya.

And moving away for radical Hindutwa and establish its own cadre is necessary for BJP.

Hurrah to a stronger BJP. Hurrah to a stronger democracy. Hurrah to a stronger Sangharajya.

10% Loose Canon

Mr Zardari had caused the clock to turn full circle.

In the eighties, his wife threw her full weight behind the then nascent terrorism in Kashmir. In what could be termed as a total turn-around Zardari has named them as terrorists and not as freedom-fighters as they are called in Pakistan.

This is the most controversial action/statement in the short time he has spent as the president of Pak. And believe the list is already impressive and pretty huge.

What does it mean to India? Not much. An honest and true to is word enemy is preferable to an indecent and conniving ally. Zardari till now has only been true to his reputation. His manoeuvres to get to the president's seat have been none other than diabolical. But while doing these, he has been tactically very strong but very weak on strategy.

He is not going to last long and even if he does, is not going to cause big changes in Pakistan's policies. So just sit down with a bowl of pop corns and enjoy the show till it lasts.