PM Modi must push for a self-confident Bharat, not a self-reliant one
India My Land

PM Modi must push for a self-confident Bharat, not a self-reliant one

PM Modi should use his considerable pivoting skills and turn Atmanirbhar to Atma Vishwasi Bharat (AVB) or self-confident Bharat. The Prime Minister usually hits bull’s eye with the branding and messaging of his ideas. But he has had a miss with “Atmanirbhar Bharat”, stepping into the culturally loaded minefield of “self-reliance” —a noble word turned ignoble after 1991. Instead, he should have given a clarion call for “Atma Vishwasi Bharat”. His colleagues and acolytes would not have had such a hard time, splitting hairs, reinterpreting Atmanirbhar to mean self-sufficiency not self-reliance and arguing that the old xenophobic meaning of the word is consistent with the idea of globalisation. He should use his considerable pivoting skills and turn Atmanirbhar to Atma Vishwasi Bharat (AVB) or self-confident Bharat. Signalling “yes we can” will work well with those sections of society eager to claw their way up the social status and income ladder […]

January 20, 2021 0 Comments
‘Migrant’ has become a label that declares someone a perpetual outsider
India My Land

‘Migrant’ has become a label that declares someone a perpetual outsider

The creation of a new class called the migrants makes us forget that they are people and all rules that apply to people, apply to them as well. Many ask, “Why are the migrants leaving? Why can’t they be persuaded to stay? Surely, they would stay if food was actually being provided?” and so on. Passengers wait for their train at New Delhi Railway Station. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, “migrant” and “migration” were emotionally-neutral words used to describe Indians who have moved their residence from one part of the country to another, temporarily or permanently. Now, with due respect to the media and to the wise people who speak on behalf of them, the word “migrant” has acquired an emotional charge, value judgement and social stereotyping, and a new slice of society called “the migrants” has been consecrated. “The migrants” is now shorthand for a people who are poor, homeless, hungry, neglected […]

June 5, 2020 0 Comments
Only half of India’s household consumption will come through post covid
India My Land

Only half of India’s household consumption will come through post covid

The so-called middle class, which is actually India’s richest 20% of households, accounts for 36% of consumption expenditure. India’s household consumer demand is vulnerable and skittish because of dismal occupation demographics, lowly paid and uncertain livelihoods for most Low food inflation and protection of urban salaried jobs may make it better, a spoilt agricultural season may make it worse The ongoing discussion on the prognosis for consumer demand is currently based on extrapolations from supply-side data and macro-economic variables. This column aims to supplement it by providing household-level data on consumption, a “people-view” of those who cause this demand to happen. India’s household consumer demand, the jewel in its gross domestic product (GDP) crown, is vulnerable and skittish because of dismal occupation demographics, lowly paid and uncertain livelihoods for most; and because most Indian households have very little “surplus income”, money remaining after covering their routine expenditure, leave alone their […]

April 20, 2020 0 Comments
Loss of income; ground-up assessment of recovery support to households
India My Land

Loss of income; ground-up assessment of recovery support to households

Based on household-level data on occupation and income, a calculation for helping citizens get to their feet A labourer carries vegetables in sacks at a vegetables market during the nationwide lockdown imposed to contain the spread of the COVID-19, in Chennai, Monday, April 6, 2020. (PTI Photo) This column offers a ‘people view’ — household-level data — of Indian households to feed into the ongoing macro-level discussion about the right level of financial support needed to help citizens get to their feet following the loss of income caused by the lockdown, and where it should be deployed.. Presented here is a ground-up calculation based on what categories of jobs and job arrangements mainly contribute to the income of households, and what that actual income level is. Macro-level discussions are based on a broadbrush understanding of occupation — large swathes of informality, agriculture dependence and migrants. We base our assessment on […]

April 12, 2020 0 Comments
The brands of politics
India My Land

The brands of politics

If brand-speak represents popular culture, we have less to worry about than some of us might think. Image credit: Siddhant Jumde The good news is that Indian brands unequivocally live in the world of customers and the people of India, and not in the world of politicians. They speak to people, mindful of commercial good sense, by tapping into popular culture; adding to the good news is that they still see popular culture as being quite far removed from the patriotic jingoism of today’s politics. Every Independence Day and Republic Day, brands in India do special campaigns—citizen brands talking to citizen consumers—and the conversation is quite revealing of the way business thinks about the state of the nation. We haven’t yet seen what the brand-speak for Independence Day 2019 will be, but it is a very safe bet, based on recent trends, that most will neither echo nor argue against […]

August 19, 2019 0 Comments
Opinion | Diary of an airport anthropologist
India My Land

Opinion | Diary of an airport anthropologist

There’s no place like large city airports to get a sharp yet nuanced sense of what India today is all about. In cities with two terminals, this is especially true of “low cost” terminals rather than the newer “global” ones, which are great to experience, but lack an Indian soul—just like those very upmarket shopping malls. Some would argue that this is exactly what these airports are, only with an airstrip or two attached. On a bus ride to the aircraft at Ahmedabad airport was a group of four loud and excited Gujarati-speaking men with a 10-year-old boy in tow, clearly from small-town Gujarat. Remember the bygone days when people wore suits and ties to get on a plane? They wore traditional weave kurtas and shawls with narrow pants, embroidered mojris and ear studs with great confidence, not self-consciously trying to become invisible in a sea of Western attired men. […]

March 15, 2019 0 Comments
New residents in search of the new city
India My Land

New residents in search of the new city

An even more disheartening statistic is that, in the top 53 cities, about 16 per cent of the population lives in slums. Indian cities once used to have distinctive characteristics. There was beavering Mumbai, epitomised by the hordes milling in and out of train stations, and cabbies who would not bother to give up precious billable hours to molest a passenger, and the rich and famous living discreetly. In contrast, there was middle-class, government Delhi and powerful, political Delhi, where everyone understood their place in life and how best to signal it loudly. Kolkata was the bastion of genteel poverty and good manners, as seen from its decaying buildings and the way it cared for its women. Unlike Delhi, where women were traumatised with male harassment, in Kolkata, women were offered seats in crowded mini-buses and were treated like everybody’s mothers and sisters on the street. I once got into […]

January 6, 2015 0 Comments
The brave new world
India My Land

The brave new world

Not so long ago, a woman who needed to be out at a late hour would use a recommended cab company, her employer’s car and driver, or most likely, the reliable neighbourhood taxi stand. If not, someone in the family would come and pick her up. Today, there is a swelling tide of women in the workforce, but their safety is as precarious as ever. The alleged Uber rape in Delhi reveals that now, in this new world of contract work and “aggregators”, no cab company is safe. You pay a premium not for guaranteed safety, but for efficiency and comfort and travel at your own risk. The BPO bus drivers are no better. Companies who hire security for their women are still offering unknown, unverified contract workers. A world of opportunity has opened up in the last 15 years. Rising education levels and the chance to earn more and […]

December 19, 2014 0 Comments
Taking Stock of the World of Young India
India My Land

Taking Stock of the World of Young India

Leadership is about how people behave and what values and tendencies drive such behaviour. All behaviour has psychological, social and cultural foundations; and anyone attempting to influence leadership behaviour of a cohort or understand it better needs to understand the social environment in which the cohort grew up and the challenges it faces in life at this point in time. Needless to say this is the “baggage” that they will bring into the workplace that HR professionals need to be cognizant. But first, a necessary caution that has to be heeded by anyone seeking to lead young India or prepare young India to become better leaders: Young India is not singular and homogeneous. It is very heterogeneous and the different segments of it are quite different from each other. Yes, all of them are a singular age cohort – liberalization children; born after 1991 and now entering the work force. But just as post […]

April 1, 2014 0 Comments
New India, New Ideas
India My Land

New India, New Ideas

It is hard to see why preserving the idea of India should include preserving dynasty and feudalism. (Source: AP) The young care about achievement and opportunity, reject fear mongering. Mani Shankar Aiyar is right when he says that the idea of India is not “Hindudom” (‘The dying light of freedom’, IE, May 17). Each of us who loves our country (and there are multitudes outside the Congress, too) must rise up in arms and fight if it threatens to become so under Narendra Modi’s regime. Like most middle-of-the-road Indians who happen to be Hindu, I agree with him on the sacredness of the secular and inclusive idea of India. But I also know that Indira Gandhi’s wearing a rudraksha in her later years or Sonia Gandhi doing a puja before filing her nomination does not make either any more secular, and Modi’s forehead tika and Ganga aarti does not make him any more communal. However, Aiyar, like […]

May 19, 2014 0 Comments
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