A Red Rag Called Modi

Two things have prompted this post.
The first is an article a friend posted on Facebook. It is an open letter to Madhu Purnima Kishwar by a Gujarati Muslim writer, Zahir Janmohamed, in kafila.org. Kishwar had apparently visited Gujarat recently and posted favourable tweets about Gujarat under Narendra Modi. Janmohamed details all that is wrong in Gujarat, especially the status of Muslims there. The friend who posted this article had this to say in his status message: “A must read for 1. all Modi bhakts 2. all poor sods who believe in activists.”
That reminded me of an incident that is the second reason for this post. Last week, a report, Economic Freedom of the States of India, 2012, was released. Gujarat topped in that. At the launch ceremony, the noted agricultural economist and currently chairman of the Commission on Agricultural Costs and Prices, Ashok Gulati, was speaking about the role of rural infrastructure in promoting agricultural growth and mentioned that the rate of growth of agriculture in Gujarat was 9.6 per cent a year for six years, which was unheard of. A friend sitting next to me, scoffed and whispered, “then how come BJP didn’t do well in the rural areas in the elections?” I pointed out that Gulati was citing figures. “No, but I’ve seen villages in Gujarat, some are worse than Bihar.”
The sub-text in my friend’s status message, Janmohamed’s article and my other friend’s refusal to accept agricultural growth figures for Gujarat is the same: How can anything good be happening in Gujarat, considering Narendra Modi is the chief minister? How can a man, during whose reign the 2002 riots happened, ever do anything good at all?
The way people get worked up whenever something positive is said about Modi or about Gujarat under his rule reminds me of the reaction in the Congress whenever the Gandhi family is criticised. All sense of perspective is lost as people scramble to deflect criticism (or praise in the case of Modi). Facts are ignored or (if they can’t be) some completely unrelated fact is quoted as a counter.
I am not getting into a debate on the facts about Gujarat. For one, I don’t know enough about the state. Besides, this post is less about Gujarat or Modi and more about how we refuse to accept facts if they don’t confirm our perceptions about something. I am using the Modi example only to show how a phenomenon that was largely limited to those committed to an ideology or political party has extended to general discourse.
Take Janmohamed’s open letter. He starts by saying he was keen to meet Kishwar because he had heard that she had once signed a petition calling for Modi’s dismissal after the 2002 riots. Shouldn’t that establish the fact that she is no Modi admirer and she is definitely not endorsing his government’s failure to control the riots? Why does the fact that she was once critical of the Modi government mean that she should not give credit where she thinks it is due?
Or take the case of my friend, who questioned the figures on Gujarat’s robust agricultural growth only because the BJP fared poorly in rural Gujarat. So now the soundness of official data has to be tested against electoral verdicts? Besides, why can’t Gujarat have a 9.6 per cent agricultural growth rate and also have villages whose conditions are worse than those in Bihar? How does one fact disprove the other? Going by that logic, India could not have posted over 9 per cent growth for three years in a row because there are parts of the country where conditions are worse than in sub-Saharan Africa. India is a land of contrasts and nowhere is this more obvious than in the economic condition of its people. If Mumbai can have an Antilla and Dharavi, why can’t Gujarat have both great agricultural growth and pressing poverty?
Take also the reactions when Tata Motors shifted its Nano plant from Singur in West Bengal to Sanad in Gujarat. (See my 2008 post on this.) Industrialists hailing Modi as prime minister material and king of kings is sickeningly over the top, yes, but what is wrong if they decide to put their money in a state with a good business environment? I am surprised that even people who criticise CSR (corporate social responsibility) as a concept on the grounds that businesses should be concerned only with profit are uncomfortable with Corporate India’s endorsement of Gujarat as an investment destination. If companies’ sole motive should be to run a business profitably, why should they bother about the ideology of the government in power? If they can invest in China, why not in Gujarat?
This kind of double standards does not augur well for debate and discussion in the country. When an innocuous tweet about Ahmedabad’s auto-rickshaw drivers going by the meter is seen as an endorsement of Modi, when his disgusting comment about Sunanda Tharoor is linked to her being groped (it turned out later that the groping happened before), it’s time to stop and reflect. Isn’t there a danger of such constant, and at times unfair, bashing backfiring? It allows Modi to paint himself as a victim of a biased mindset and, worse, convince people of the fact.
Keep the heat, by all means, on Modi on the 2002 riots and discrimination against Muslims and other real failures. But give credit where it is due. And don’t paint everyone who talks about one positive aspect of him or of Gujarat under him as a Modi admirer or BJP-RSS supporter in denial about the riots.
Kishwar also tweeted: “If I as much as say Gujarat roads are best in country, see Modi’s inclusive development for urself I become political untouchable. Why?”
Why, indeed?
Many readers of this post would have stopped reading mid-way, convinced that I am a Modi-bhakt. Earlier, whenever I would counter such biased views, I would preface my statement by saying I am not a Modi supporter, but today I wondered why I should do it. This blog is called Beyond Labels and the reason I started writing it is to air my views without the fear of being labelled (see Why this blog and why this name?). So go ahead and call me a Modi-bhakt. Because the Modi-bhakts call me a pseudo-secular. Chew on that.

My Goodbye to the Braveheart

The sun stayed away and a biting icy wind blew as the family members of India’s Braveheart collected her ashes from the crematorium at Dwarka where she was cremated yesterday under a blanket of fog and policemen.
As I reached the crematorium, the first sight that met me was khakhi uniforms of the police. There were ten of them from constables to the assistant commissioner of police, Dwarka. Two constables stood guard at the gate as the family members performed rituals at the platform where she was cremated, not allowing anyone inside. Apparently, the police had kept watch all night as well.

The police outnumbered the others present there, six journalists (four of them photographers) and a couple of others who appeared to be with Congress MP Mahabal Mishra. Mishra was  was there helping the family, coming out briefly to discuss various arrangements with the ACP, especially about facilitating the family’s travel to Varanasi. 

Soon the girl’s family came out with the urn wrapped in a white cloth. It was a very small group, less than ten of them.  `The ashes should not be taken to the home,’ Mishra explained to them as he instructed police officials to make arrangements for the urn to be kept at the police post in Dwarka Sector 1, close to Mahavir Nagar, where her family stays.
The family looked at us gathered there. Perhaps they were wondering who we were and why we were there. The expression on one young boy’s face – a mixture of bewilderment and grief.
I couldn’t bring myself to say anything to them. After all, I was an interloper in their grief.
So why did I go?
When news of the girl’s death broke, I had posted on Facebook that I hoped the media would give her family privacy and not hound them during the cremation. But the manner in which the cremation was orchestrated by the police and the government angered me. Pressuring the family first to cremate her in Ballia, and then to cremate her before dawn (against Hindu custom where it has to be done after daybreak) just so that people don’t come to know (even as political heavyweights attended the funeral) disgusted me. She was a victim of utter indignity before she died. Couldn’t she have been given some dignity in death?
One battle that all women who complain about any form of sexual harassment wage is that of being labeled as the problem. By first making her father issue a statement asking for calm (when the protests were going out of hand), then taking her to Singapore and then cremating her in such a hush-hush manner, the government and the police sent out only message - that she and her dead body were a problem that needed to be disposed off without a fuss.
I went today to say in my own way that she was not a problem. To salute her.

The Particular and the General

It often happens that a particular incident turns the much-needed spotlight on a larger issue that has been swept under the carpet for long. The brutal gang rape in Delhi on the night of December 16, whose victim is now unfortunately dead, did that to the issue of safety of women and laws relating to sexual violence.
There are the stray voices asking why the rape of a girl in Delhi should do this, and not the many rapes in other cities or in the deep, dark interiors of the country. There are also people saying where was such outrage during the Gujarat riots when worse was being done to women.
That is not a relevant question. There have been other shocking rapes in Delhi earlier – the gang rape by members of the President’s bodyguards in Buddha Jayanti Park, the rape of the medical student in the afternoon in a Mughal monument on the busy Bahadurshah Zafar Marg, the abduction from Dhaula Kuan and gangrape of a call centre employee – but they have not evoked the reaction that this one has. The `why now’ does not matter. What does matter is that the issue has been highlighted as never before and the focus on it should remain.
But when the particular and the general start getting mixed up, there’s a problem. There is serious danger of that happening in this case.
Let’s take the particular in this case. A girl was brutally assaulted and raped in a moving bus on the night of December 16. Her male friend was also beaten up badly. They were stripped of their clothes and dumped on the road.
The crowds thronging Vijay Chowk and India Gate started with calls for justice for the young girl and steps to ensure safety of women in Delhi in future. All the rapists were arrested in less than a week (four of them within twenty-four hours). The case was given to a fast track court, which is to hold hearings on a daily basis. Now after the girl’s death, they will also face the charge of murder.
The government also announced some steps to ensure safety of women in Delhi – more policing, more buses at night, removing dark films and curtains from windows of buses and making it compulsory for them to keep lights on inside at night. Three police personnel who had been on duty that night were suspended. A man the rapists had robbed earlier that evening had approached them and they had brushed him off. If they had acted, that young girl would not have been battling for life. So they were rightly punished.
The particular incident, therefore, has been addressed.
So why are protestors out there demanding justice for the braveheart, death for the culprits? I’ve got bizarre sms-es saying the culprits should be hanged by the end of the year.
So then we are told that this is about the larger issue – harsher laws, better enforcement, changing the medieval mindset, judicial reforms, police reforms. Sure that needs to be put into focus. But it can’t be done overnight. The protests will help if they keep the pressure on to get these issues addressed, as they must.
But why make it a Congress issue? Why ask for chief minister Shiela Dixit to resign? Why mock Manmohan Singh for not shedding tears like Barrack Obama did after the school shooting in the United States?(Let me hasten to add that I am no supporter of the UPA government or of the Congress party.). How will this larger cause be helped if police commissioner Neeraj Kumar is sacked?
They may currently be the symbols of al that is wrong with the way women’s issues and law and order issues are handled. But concentrating on attacking them will take the focus away from the need to address far more fundamental issues.
We need to separate the particular and general for any lasting solutions to emerge from our anger.

Stop this hysteria

Sunday’s gangrape incident in Delhi is so appalling that it’s easy to go over the top in reacting to it. It makes one feel angry, helpless and extremely vulnerable.
But I am tired of seeing hysterical crowds screaming about death penalty, castration and demanding that everyone from the police commissioner to the chief minister resign.  
The main target of public ire is the police. There are calls for the police commissioner to be sacked. He has to explain to the High Court why the bus passed five police pickets without being stopped. One lawyer is planning to initiate action to ensure that policemen who were on duty on the stretch that the bus drove on that night are penalised. CPM leader Brinda Karat is also the same.

But this is one case where the criticism of the police is totally. Here’s why.
One, there was nothing – absolutely nothing – to arouse suspicion about the bus and the horror being perpetrated inside. It was a luxury bus, with tinted windows and drawn curtains. That’s quite normal. So how can anyone, police included, know what was going on inside? It probably was being driven in a way that it doesn’t attract attention. That could be the reason why the bus passed five police pickets without arousing suspicion.
Two, the police acted promptly once they were informed about the incident. No one is saying there was any delay in the police reaching the scene where the girl and her friend were thrown out of the bus. The bus was traced within hours and four of the rapists were arrested within twenty-four hours. What more could the police have done in this case?
In fact, the real indictment should be of the public. According to a story in yesterday’s Indian Express, when the police reached the spot where the girl and her friend had been thrown out, they found people just standing around, looking at them. “Not one of them took off a jacket or piece of clothing to cover the victims. There were women in cars that had pulled over but they did not approach the victims,” a policeman was quoted as saying.
When people scream into television cameras that women are being raped every day and the police is not doing anything to check it, do they even know what they are saying?
Even as people rallied at India Gate, protested outside the Police Headquarters and the chief minister’s residence, a three-year-old girl was raped in a playschool by the husband of the woman who ran it. In an overwhelming majority of cases, rapes are committed by people known to the victim. A neighbour/colleague/classmate who offers a lift. A family friend/relative who drops in home. A teacher in school or college. How can such rapes be prevented? Who can anticipate them to prevent them from happening? What is important to see is if the police acted promptly in each case. If it did not, then, by all means, ask for action against the police.
Preventing rape cannot be a police responsibility alone. It is also about having well-lit roads. It would make far more sense for resident welfare associations to fight for roads around their colonies to be well-lit, instead of lighting candles for the victim.
Preventing rape is also about good public transport. Why did the girl and her friend board that bus, which was not a regular public transport vehicle? Let me make an educated guess. There is no bus from Saket (where they had gone to see a movie) to Dwarka. So they took an auto-rickshaw up to Munirka from where there is a bus to Dwarka. Given erratic bus timings and the fact that it was getting late, when a bus taking passengers for Dwarka came, it must have been a blessing in disguise at that time. It would be far better for Brinda Karat to press for a proper and reliable public transport system that can ensure that Delhi-ites can travel safely at any time of day. Let’s just keep aside the inconvenient fact that women are groped and molested even within buses in broad daylight for the time being.
Preventing rape is also about each one of us being alert. But we are so inured to irregularities happening around us all the time that we just don’t react. So a bus not authorised to pick up passengers openly does so; we see it and keep quiet. Even if the bus had been driven in a rash manner, that is so common a sight that nobody would have thought of informing the police.
Above all, we don’t want to get involved. Even if someone had seen something amiss, they would have preferred to look the other way.
Perhaps the only person who made sense in the charged-up crowds at India Gate protesting the horrific gangrape was a young long-haired man who asked – can all of us who are gathered here take a pledge that the next time any of us see a woman being harassed, we will not remain silent and will go to her help?
This was perhaps one of the few voices to articulate what is being lost in the hysterical responses across the country – that all of us are responsible for what happened that day.
But it is so much easier to take one day off, scream at rallies and blame the Authorities and the System for everything, isn’t it?

When Statements Go Unchallenged

Incidents of atrocities against Dalits in Haryana are increasing, says Prakash Javdekar, Rajya Sabha MP and spokesperson of the Bharatiya Janata Party on a television show to discuss the issue in the light of the horrible incident in Hissar, Haryana, where a Dalit girl was gangraped and her father committed suicide because of the humiliation.

He is from the BJP and there is a Congress government in Haryana, so political grandstanding is inevitable.

“Crime being committed per lakh [population of scheduled caste] is the highest in Haryana,” asserts P. L . Punia, Congress MP and head of the National Commission of Scheduled Castes on the same show. Grandstanding on his part is also inevitable, given his official position.

“Why is it that only Dalits get raped by upper castes, whether it is Khairlanji [the 2006 carnage in Mahrashtra] or Haryana?” asks activist Kancha Ilaiah, another participant in the show. He too can be forgiven for being dramatic – he has made a name as a Dalit scholar and activist and is expected to take a certain position.

But is it the job of the media to let all these statements go unchallenged?

NDTV anchor Vishnu Som did not ask any of these worthy gentlemen to substantiate their statements with figures.

Does Javdekar have any firm numbers on the rise in atrocities in Haryana?

We don’t know.

Is Punia basing his statement on some study? Can he give any numbers on how many crimes per lakh of population, which is the state with second highest crimes per lakh population? We don’t know.

Can Ilaiah back his startling claim with data? Are upper caste men really raping only Dalit women? Are they not raping upper caste women? Then what about the cases of rape of upper caste women? Who are the perpetrators?

We don’t know.

Okay, so let us concede that Som, in his hurry to wrap up the programme, forgot to ask follow up questions to the panelists. Here's the link to the show.

But does a newspaper have that same excuse?

Punia repeats the same statement in an interview to Economic Times published the following day (Tuesday) and that is taken as the heading of a five-column anchor on page 2: Maximum Anti-Dalit Crimes in Haryana: Punia. Once again, there is no attempt to ask him to elaborate or any attempt to double check on one’s own. The newspaper adds to the whole campaign by saying “several cases of atrocities on Dalits have taken place in the state,” mentioning the Mirchpur incident as the most serious. The only other anecdotal example it gives (again no numbers) is of a wall being constructed around a Dalit village in Hissar last year.

Som does fall back on one report. He mentions a 2010 report of the ministry of social justice and empowerment (the report is not named), which apparently mentions that there is an increase in crimes against Dalits between 2009 and 2010 in Kerala, Haryana, Bengal, Himachal Pradesh and Punjab. But there is no mention of what is the percentage increase or disaggregated figures on the states, which could, perhaps, show that the increase in Haryana is more alarming than in the rest. In fact, the other figures in the report contradict the thesis that Haryana tops in atrocities. In that report, quoted by Som, Rajasthan tops the list of states with registered crimes against Dalits and five states – Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Andhra, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh – account for 70 per cent of registered crimes.

When my boss got excited by Punia’s statement and wanted me to do a story on this, I took the trouble of checking things out. I downloaded the 2011 statistic of the National Crime Records Bureau. Here’s what I found. In 2011 Uttar Pradesh topped the list of registered crimes against Dalits  with 22 per cent of cases, followed by Rajasthan with 15.4 per cent, Andhra Pradesh 11 per cent, Bihar 10.7 per cent and Karnataka 7.4 per cent. Haryana is only 1.2 per cent.

The only report of the ministry of social justice and empowerment report I could find online was the annual report of 2009-10, which takes figures from the NCRB and that report too showed Haryana was way below several states in terms of Dalit atrocities.

I couldn’t find any report on the website of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes.

Maybe Javdekar and Punia were basing their statements on some other data or reports, which they were privy to. Maybe Som had access to a ministry report which is not online or I couldn’t find it because I didn’t have the name.

Maybe Haryana does, in fact, top in atrocities.

For me, which state tops in atrocities is irrelevant. Would it be better if some other state topped?

What is relevant for me is that people on television discussions and newspaper articles, whom people will believe because they are experts (as my boss did) are allowed to go unchallenged on facts and figures they dish out. By journalists, whose job is to challenge people.

What is also relevant for me is that television and print journalists are not checking facts properly and are satisfied with vague numbers and generalized statements.

Cash over Price Control

I had made an interesting trip to Alwar, the location of a pilot project on direct cash transfer of subsidies that finance minister Pranab Mukherjee mentioned in his budget speech. This one related to kerosene subsidy. The project started only in December so it is probably too early to draw any conclusive lessons from it but it definitely shows a way forward.

I had gone to Alwar to do a story on the project for The Telegraph. Following is the link to the story. I had to stick to a tyrannical word count limit but have the more detailed piece below the link.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120401/jsp/7days/story_15319785.jsp#.T3f5GnqVol8

Sorry, Cash Only

Seetha

There’s a small crowd outside Rohitash Kumar’s fair price shop at Gunsar village in the Kotkasim block of Rajasthan's Alwar district.  The monthly supply of subsidised kerosene has arrived and villagers have come for their quota of three litres each.  

Shyam Lal hands over Rs 135 and gets his can filled -- almost Rs 90 more than what those in other blocks of Alwar pay for the same amount of kerosene. 

No, the tailor with a below poverty line (BPL) ration card can't afford to pay Rs 44.50 for a litre of kerosene, three times more than the Rs 15.25 that people in the rest of Rajasthan pay. It’s just that the district administration refunds the extra money he has paid, directly into his bank account. So he winds up paying the same as others in the district.

In December 2011, a dramatic experiment to deliver subsidies directly to the poor, in cash, started in Kotkasim.  So far, the central government has been subsidising fuel prices by capping the prices at which they are sold in the market.

Kerosene is now sold at Rs 44.50 a litre in all fair price shops in Kotkasim. That’s the open market price set by oil companies. However, it is sold through the public distribution system (PDS) at a highly subsidized price (Rs 15.25 in Rajasthan) and the central government pays the difference to the oil companies. For the pilot project at Kotkasim, the central government gave the subsidy amount to the district administration which transfers it to eligible ration card holders.

Why make a poor person pay extra and then return the amount?  Direct cash transfers are widely believed to be a more efficient way of helping the poor, than prices artificially low. For as the Economic Survey of 2010-2011 points out, government price controls "invites adulteration, pilferage and corruption".

Kerosene is a case in point. The interim report of the government's Task Force on Direct Transfer of Subsidies on Kerosene, LPG and Fertilisers pointed out that the use of kerosene for cooking in urban and rural areas has fallen -- proof that subsidised kerosene was being diverted for other purposes, including to adulterate diesel.  Letting everyone buy at the market rate and then compensating the poor through cash transfers, both documents say, not only checks such diversion but also ensures that only the poor get subsidised goods.

In 2011, the petroleum and natural gas ministry invited state governments to take up direct subsidy experiments. Rajasthan pitched for the project on kerosene subsidy and picked Alwar for the experiment.

Alwar collector Ashutosh A.T. Pednekar and district supply office Lalit Jain spent two months on awareness campaigns, holding lengthy sessions with consumers, ration shop owners, wholesale dealers as well as representatives of rural local bodies. Finally, the backing of the zilla pramukh and the village pradhan – both women – saw the project taking off.

Of the 25,000 ration card holders in Kotkasim, those with a double gas connection were weeded out. The project now covers around 20,000 ration card holders. All of them were told to open zero-balance, no-frills bank accounts into which the subsidy would be deposited (even if they had an existing bank account). Till March end, 16,000 such accounts had been opened.  Interestingly, nearly 90 per cent of the card holders did not have a bank account till then and were brought into mainstream banking. “We never expected that this project would help us in financial inclusion,” says Pednekar.

There are some minor glitches that need ironing out. Bank accounts have to be opened in the name of the ration card holder, who is the head of the household. In a few cases, the head of the household has died and the name has not been changed. Such families cannot avail of the subsidy.

The administration is planning to integrate the smart cards issued under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) with this system. Then the subsidy can be transferred directly into the NREGS accounts, avoiding the need to open new accounts. It is also considering roping in the business correspondents of banks who will come to individual’s homes and operate the accounts, as well as mobile banking, considering the penetration of mobile phones is very high. Hari Prasad, a BPL ration card holder, hasn’t availed of the scheme because he hasn’t had time to go to the bank and see if the advance subsidy has been deposited. The Rajasthan Grameen Bank (which has opened the bulk of the accounts) doesn’t have an sms alert facility, he complains!

Yet the project had to battle with public scepticism. When told they would be compensated after they bought kerosene, people flatly refused to play along. Nor were they confident when told they would be given one month’s subsidy in advance. Pednekar than got the state government’s sanction to give three months’ subsidy in advance. With accounts getting credited with Rs 263 (three months subsidy), resistance from the consumers disappeared. Those with a single gas connection get a lower subsidy.

The extent of diversion of subsidised kerosene earlier soon became evident. The block is allotted 84,000 litres of kerosene a month. Before the project started, the entire stock would get sold. Since December, however, monthly sales have averaged 22,000 litres, around a quarter of the allocation. This brings down the subsidy bill by three-quarters. Currently, though, the saving is only notional as advance subsidy has gone into all bank accounts.

How did this happen? Earlier, people would collect other’s ration cards and use them to buy subsidised kerosene. That’s no longer possible. Anyone going to ration shops in Kotkasim now has to pay Rs 44.50 a litre. But since the subsidy goes into the bank account of the ration card holder, the actual purchaser only gets a higher bill. “Once I get the money, why will I give it to someone else,” laughs Subhash, another Gunsar villager. With the market price of kerosene higher than that of diesel (Rs 42 a litre) it no longer makes sense to buy it as a substitute for the latter.

But the authorities can’t track what happens to the kerosene once it is sold. So, a person buying kerosene for Rs 15.25 can still sell it for, say Rs 25, pocketing both the government subsidy and a Rs 10 profit. That’s possible, admits Jain, but the whole process is more inconvenient. Going to the shop with a bunch of ration cards and a large container is far easier and more cost-effective than collecting three litres each from individuals. What’s more the price difference between kerosene and diesel also comes down, since the ration card holder is selling it at a Rs 10 premium, instead of just handing over his card as he did earlier. “The whole transaction has become less attractive,” he points out.

To be sure, not all the reduced sales are a sign of diversion. Many eligible ration card holders who never took their kerosene quota are not availing of the scheme. The government giving them close to Rs 90 every month is not incentive enough. Others who have got the subsidy in their accounts but are using part of it to pay someone to cut the mustard stalks in their fields for use as fuel! They are pocketing the subsidy and not buying kerosene as well.   Some card holders are migrant labourers working outside Alwar who come home only during the agricultural season. Sales could pick up then.

But there are also people like Rani Devi of Kotkasim village who genuinely need more than the monthly quota of three litres. She used to borrow her neighbours’ cards and buy more than her quota. Since December, however, she hasn’t been able to do so. She now has to pay the market price for the extra kerosene. “How can I afford it,” she laments.

The project, notes Pednekar, has helped the administration sift genuine users from non-users. Since close to 70 per cent of kerosene allocation to Kotkasim is not being sold, the administration is thinking of doubling the monthly allocation to six litres a month, which will help people like Rani. The administration plans to study the kerosene lifting pattern closely, identify the non-users and then ask them why they are not buying kerosene.

The reduced sales have cut the earnings of fair price shop owners. Rohitash and Mahipal, the manager of a fair price shop in Kotkasim village, used to sell close to 3,000 litres a month before the project started. Since December, however, monthly sales have averaged less than 500 litres. With a commission of 90 paise a litre, earnings from kerosene have plunged from Rs 2,700 a month to around Rs 450 a month. Anticipating this, dealers and wholesalers had put up stiff resistance to the project. The administration has now decided to allow them to sell non-PDS commodities like tea, salt, fortified flour under the state government’s Raj brand name. The government, says Pednekar, is planning to add more products and also help spruce up the shops.

Could this become the model for all future subsidy delivery? The initial results are too tentative to base policy decisions on, cautions Rajasthan’s principal secretary, food and civil supplies, J. C. Mohanty. The experience in Alwar, which is a relatively better off district, will be different from some of Rajasthan’s poorer and backward districts, he points out. There may be more ghost customers in Alwar than in some of the poorer districts where the share of genuine customers may be more. The state government will get the project evaluated by a professional research body once it completes a year. It has, however, taken up a petroleum ministry offer for a one-time grant of Rs 100 crore to implement the system state-wide. The petroleum ministry made this offer to the food and civil supplies secretaries of all states at meeting on 16 March. Apart from Rajasthan, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Maharashtra have also agreed.  

A universal cash transfer scheme has its share of problems. Many poor people don’t have ration cards. Mohammed Ishaq, a roadside tailor in Delhi suburb Dwarka, has been running around for one for two years now. Rekha, a maidservant, has got a ration card but there is no fair price shop in the unauthorised colony in south-west Delhi where she lives. Nor has she been able to open a bank account. A direct cash transfer system will leave such people out of the benefits of subsidy completely.

The pilot project has one universal lesson, though. “The biggest learning is that it is very easy to enlist political and public support for reforms like this once things are explained properly,” says Mohanty. Indeed, now the zilla pramukh is asking for a similar cash transfer for domestic gas cylinders as well.

Change, clearly, is in the air.

Dadagiri in Dwarka

You must have seen countless films with this storyline: one person bullies an entire locality/village; those who he bullies keep quiet, not wanting trouble; others say let’s keep out of his way, or he’ll get after us next; he gets bolder by the day and finally crosses his limits; the victims stand up to him, but the entire locality turns against them and cows down before him. The victims are isolated and harassed in various forms.
Did you think it ever could happen to you?
I didn’t.
But this has happened to me and a couple of others.
And we stand alone.
On November 19 this year, around 9.30 pm, the guard of the gated locality I live in came with a circular. It was from the present Residents Welfare Association (RWAs) and said an emergency meeting the following day (Sunday, 20 November) to discuss some serious issues had been convened and called all present and previous office-bearers to attend. My name was on it, though I had resigned on October 18.
I went to the meeting and what we heard there made our hair stand on end.
Two young men of the locality (one of whom is a major in the army), along with a friend, had been walking around in the campus around 2 am, chatting. The guard came and said he had received complaints and asked them to leave. They asked who had complained and that they would apologise. Meanwhile, one office bearer (let’s call him Mr X) started shouting at them from his house on the top floor, saying he was in charge of the security of the whole campus (there is no circular to that effect, though). There appeared to have been an exchange of words and then the boys started to return to their flat, cutting across the central park. As they reached the end of the park, Mr X (who had come down from his third floor flat) called them back. Let us allow for both sides not being entirely frank about their versions of the sequence of events that followed, but the short point was that Mr X hit the major with a lathi, the other RWA office bearers who had gathered by then rallied around Mr X. The younger boy had called 100 by then and at some point had received a call asking for directions. When they found the office bearers siding openly with Mr X, the younger boy said let us call the police and let them decide, the general secretary apparently said, ‘tum kya police bulaoge, hum bulayenge aur kahenge kit um logon ke gharon mein jaankh rahe the’ (we will call the police and tell them you were peering into people’s houses). (The general secretary completely denied this, but when the boys confronted him, he said it might have come out like that but that is not what I meant!!!) The altercation was somehow ended and one of the office bearers took the major to the hospital where his wound was stitched up.
When the boys’ mother came to know this, she demanded a general body meeting be convened to discuss this. `What wrong did my boys commit,’ she wanted to know. `And if they were up to something wrong, why didn’t the RWA call the police and hand them over?’ The RWA then convened the emergency meeting of only select people. Sixteen people attended that meeting.
When the boys had finished relating their story – Mr X was out of town and had to be called back, so he arrived late – others present at the meeting, feeling slightly emboldened by the mood, came out with more stories about Mr X’s bullying and intimidating ways. This changed the mood of the gathered people who thought what happened that night was a one-off incident involving Mr X.
Someone said this shows the person concerned is a permanent threat; someone else told the RWA office-bearers that if Mr X wasn’t checked he would become a problem even for those who were now backing him.
People discussed various kinds of action that could be taken against him. Finally it was decided that he would be expelled from the RWA and be barred from contesting elections for five years.
Mr X came and his version was heard. With an air of injured innocence, he said the young men were disturbing people at night and that is why he had objected to them and that he had hit them only because he feared that they were three of them and he was alone and he feared that they would assault him. (My comment: this guy is over six feet tall, extremely muscular and goes around flaunting his muscles in tight-fitting tees, while the two young residents were shorter and much slighter in build.) He said he later realized he shouldn’t have hit them and felt very sorry and that he had told his wife immediately on reaching home, and that he felt worse when he was told that the major required stitches for his wound.
Those assembled asked him and the RWA why the police hadn’t been called and the young men handed over in the first place. They demanded that Mr X apologise to the young men, undertake that he would “maintain decency and decorum of conduct” and that the decisions on his expulsion and bar on contesting elections stay. That very night a circular was issued to this effect. Everybody thought that was the end of the matter and the atmosphere within the campus would be peaceful and relations cordial.
Exactly a week later (Sunday 27 November), Mr X’s downstairs neighbour had to call the police at midnight or so. The police came and the case was allegedly turned against the neighbour. Earlier that evening, the Congress MLA had visited the block and Mr X had flaunted his closeness to him.
On November 29, Mr X’s lawyer sends a legal notice to five of those 16 persons present  at the meeting – the general secretary, the two young men, me and a former president of the RWA – leveling various fabricated charges including that of defamation (that is the only charge against me). The former president – an extremely decent, mild-mannered man of high integrity whose views are heard with seriousness in the locality – has been accused of trying to assault Mr X and instigating others to do so. (The only charge that sticks is the one against the RWA general secretary for not following norms in convening the meeting and expelling Mr X from the RWA). We have to unconditionally apologise within 15 days of receiving the notice or pay Rs 21 lakh each to Mr X or else he will file a defamation case against us.
Now an elaborate drama to get the circular withdrawn starts. The young men’s father and the former president approach the RWA asking why only four people who attended a meeting called by the RWA have been targeted and what the RWA is proposing to do. I sense a trap and decide not to speak to the RWA about this. Instead I approach some people who attended the 20 November meeting. They say we are entirely with you, how can this fellow run amok like this, we will call another meeting and take a decision on this. But soon there is a growing mood to take back the circular and the expulsion (this is the trap I feared). People start avoiding us. We hear that others present at the 20 November meeting are being threatened that there are legal notices lined up against them also and will be issued if they come to our help. But nobody will speak openly about this, let alone go to the police.
On 2 December, the RWA writes to the persons named in the legal notice asking for their comments before further action is taken. Acting on legal advice, I respond merely by saying “I have taken a very serious view of the fact that out of 16 people present at the emergency meeting of 20 November 2011 I have been singled out for the said legal notice and am taking appropriate legal action regarding the same.”
(A word about why I was targeted. On 1 November, my car cleaner told me he had been barred from entering the campus by Mr X. I rang up the general secretary (GS) and asked how he could do that. The GS said the cleaner’s work was not satisfactory. I argued that Mr X cannot decide that. The GS called the president and Mr X and there was a heated argument, at which Mr X admitted to slapping an earlier car cleaner because he wasn’t satisfied with the quality of the work and that what he was doing was only to ensure better quality of service. I pointed out then – and later in a long email to the president, GS, joint secretary and a few other residents – that a few RWA members being dissatisfied with the services of someone providing a personal service could not be a reason to bar that service provider from catering to other residents.)
On 3 December the RWA issues another letter to the 16 present at the 20 November meeting asking them to tick on either of two options – whether the RWA go ahead with the court case or whether the case should be amicably resolved by withdrawing the earlier circular. If a majority of the 16 agreed with the second option, another circular withdrawing the first would be issued. This would be done after the legal notice was taken back, those who got the circular were assured.
There was a clear attempt to influence the vote by writing in brackets after the first option (financial implication involved/rift among members may erupt) and after the second (will be able to maintain a harmonious relation). The responses were to be given by the evening of 4 December. There was also no instruction to sign after ticking the option chosen, leaving scope for the vote to be rigged. 

Meanwhile, the father of the young men asked for a copy of the circular dated 19 November convening the 20 November meeting. The RWA has been stalling him.
On 4 December evening, a circular is issued withdrawing the earlier one, saying this was with the consent of the majority of those who had attended the meeting of 20 November. This circular was to be issued after the retraction of the legal notice. It was issued before, with no assurance that it will be withdrawn.
One of those who got the legal notice asked the RWA president why the circular had been issued before the notice was withdrawn. He was told oh, Mr X has assured that it will be withdrawn. The word of a person who promises before an assembly that he will behave himself and then proceeds to revert to his old ways is to be relied upon!
A fraud has been committed on us – those who stood up to be counted.
Thirteen people cowed down.
But there is an upside to everything. Yesterday I returned from the South Asian Bands Festival at 10.30 pm. I passed my next door neighbour and his wife on the staircase. This guy who always asks kahaan jaa rahi hain/kahaan se aa rahi hain) (where are you going/coming from) – to which I always say baahar (out) – didn’t say a word. Oh the joys of social boycott!!