Democracy and House Party

At ITM, the five of us were a very close knit gang. After college, work split us though the bond was intact.

And now, after about ten years all of us are in Chennai. We all got together on Whatsapp. Suddenly, it felt as if we were back in the small room at Vanniyambathi Street in Mandaveli, though virtual.

We decided to to have a family get together. And that's when I realized how difficult it was to run the country in the democratic set up.

Here's how the rest of the story pans out or should I say fizzled out.

1. Date: Since weekdays were impossible, there was an agreement that it has to be on a weekend. But would that be on a Saturday or Sunday, that was the question. I preferred Saturday while other friend preferred Sunday. After a bit of persuasion, we decided on a particular Saturday. But soon after agreeing, few days later one member informed that he was not going to be available that particular Saturday. Now, thankfully we all quickly agreed for the next Saturday.

2. Make, Deliver or Go Out: Initially the plan was that it would be a potluck. Each household gets to make a particular dish. While the idea was good, after some considerations we decided to go to a restaurant. So we started discussing which place and type of food. At this point, I noticed that one particular friend wasn't communicating. So I called him. As I had anticipated he wasn't happy going to a restaurant. So we decided to order and I offered to host the meeting at my place.

3. Biriyani or Pasta: The decision was to order bucket biriyani. Just as we got close, a friend checked if we could order pasta instead of biriyani. After discussing the palate of people, we decided against it. Just as we finished the conversation, we realized we had nothing for the lone vegetarian in the gang. An additional logistic load.

Of course as the day neared, I had a hunch. So three days before our meeting, I called each of them to reconfirm. As I had thought, two of them said that something had come up at home and that they couldn't make it. That was three days before our grand meeting. Finally, there was no get together, no biriyani. Just some irritation and acidity.

Now if you were patient reading all these trivial details about dates and biriyani for an insignificant meeting between friends, I thank you. All these happenings reminds me of the state of our nation. It makes me wonder if Democracy is bane or boon to our country. Is it helping the country move forward or pulling it backwards?

Take Andhra Pradesh turmoil for instance. One party brings the state to a halt as it wants a separate state to be carved out. When a decision is taken, the rest bring it to grinding halt fighting against the division. Take my own state for example, the power starved Tamil Nadu. Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project was planned more than a decade ago. The construction of the plant started in 1998, now in 2011 we have protests about its safety.

Seems like democracy in India is only letting the nation take one step forward and two backwards. The consensus building exercise is a task juggernaut with too many voices and so many power centers.

Would an autocratic rule be the answer? Would someone who can rule with an iron hand be better for the country?

And then I think about this example and feel proud that India a democracy. Because the basic bedrock of democracy is that citizens are intelligent. And that ultimately the power lies in their hands.

Think about how China and India have dealt with one of their biggest problems - the burgeoning population. While China decreed one child policy with strict enforcement. Any exceptions was dealt with strongly.

India too had a brief enforcement through vasectomy. But otherwise, India's strategy to controlling the population growth was and has been based on - advocacy and public relations. No one can ever forget hum do, hamare do (we two, ours two). You could see it everywhere, the inverted red triangle. TV programs, Radio Streams, Hospitals...The messages appealed to people's good sense. Apprised them of the benefits. No coercion, no punishment. In fact, if I am not wrong there were no incentives, as well. It was freewill.

Becoming republic was probably the best gift that our leaders gave us. But I guess with it also comes along different voices often with narrow vision. With Federal system, the power becomes fragmented. And this is a scenario not just in India. The United States of America witnessed shut down recently. There are certainly challenges, but I guess this is the better form of governance.

In the end, it is a two way process. People have to exercise their choice carefully and their representatives in the Republic have to act responsibly. Idealistic? Is that too much to expect? 

How The Internet Can Impede Democracy

I often am lost on why would Chinese Government block and put curbs. I think whoever is ruling China has built it to a great organization which is increasing dominating the entire world. And, of course, people are never happy with their governments. India is the largest democracy, people get 'all sorts' of rights. But we haven't moved.

I am wondering if a good authoritative government is the key. Ah but as they say power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Catch 22!
How The Internet Can Impede Democracy: "
Yesterday I asked the question: does China really feel threatened by U.S. social media services such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube? As usual, I got an education in the comments to the post. While it's true that the Chinese government blocks Twitter, Facebook and all of the main American social media sites, several commenters pointed out they are blocked not because of their popularity (because they aren't, in fact, very popular in China), but due to their degree of freedom. In other words, the more open a social media service is, the more likely it will be blocked in China.

However, perhaps authoritarian governments shouldn't block social media - it may actually be helpful to them!

Sponsor

Evgeny Morozov, a Belarus-born researcher and blogger, presented at TED last year on the topic of How the Net aids dictatorships. In his presentation (embedded below), Morozov makes the contrarian argument that the Internet is actually helping authoritarian governments - more so than being a challenge to them. Morozov asserted that governments like China's have "mastered the use of cyberspace for propaganda purposes."

Morozov noted that in the Iran Twitter protests of June of 2009, services such as Twitter, Facebook and blogs were actually operational and being used by activists. According to Morozov, this was great for the Iranian government - as it enabled them to "gather open source intelligence." The government could identify how Iranian activists connect to each other, by looking at their Facebook pages or Twitter connections.

Kaiser Kuo commented in yesterday's post about the same issue in China:

"...it's astonishing how cavalier some critics of the CCP [China Communist Party] are on Twitter, making no effort to disguise their identities, making their network of friends totally transparent (you can use any of a number of Twitter tools to see the extent of interconnectedness, friend overlap, number of @ messages back and forth, etc) and leaving a completely searchable history. Anyone with a serious anti-CCP agenda would be an idiot to use Twitter."

Also worth noting: Morozov said in his TED talk that cyber-activism may be offset by what he termed "cyber-hedonism." He claimed that people are becoming passive due to the Internet. He said that we often assume that the Internet is going to be the catalyst of change, but it may actually be "the new opium for the masses."

Morozov's theories were challenged in the comments to that TED video. One commenter claimed that "we focus on the obvious totalitarian regimes while our so called democracies use propaganda on a daily basis."

Regardless, Morozov raises some very valid points. While the Web promotes freedom of expression, at the same time it enables authoritarian regimes to monitor their citizens and identify troublemakers.

Let us know your thoughts on this in the comments.


Photo: harrystaab

Discuss

"

www.BSEIndia.com in 17 Official Indian languages

I do not approve of MNS' philosophy. Nor of any other party/organization which has similar outlook. Narrow patriotism has done enough harm. Please refer history.

But MNS' demand to have www.BSEIndia.com in Marathi is a good thought. Today, the site is available in Hindi, Gujarati and English. It would be great if every Indian (like Sachin Tendulkar) can get BSE site in his or her own language. To start with it should at least be in the 17 official languages.

But why should it stop with BSE's site. In fact, all Government sites should be published in these 17 languages. At least, Central Government sites should be. States might still be caught in linguistic patriotism.

This will ensure information democracy, in the first place. It will also mean that Governments are unbiased. Two, this will increase spending, which in turn is required to curb recession; at least in a small way. And finally, technology spending is always beneficial. Promotion of Indian languages over Internet is definitely the way forward.

Internet Strategy for Indian Politicians

The second most populous nation in the world, India, has a human stock of 1.2 billion people. India also happens to be the world’s largest democracy and the Indian Parliamentary Elections due this April-May will probably be the biggest electoral event in the history.

About 700 million citizens will be eligible to exercise their franchise. 500+ seats, thousands and thousands of aspirants, numerous parties huddles loosely (or tightly) into three (oh no, four. Never mind) fronts. Across the length and breadth of the nation, accommodating almost all terrain possible on planet Earth.

Welcome to the World’s Largest Democratic process!

Despite being a developing country, India takes pride in use of technology in this gargantuan process. Not many developed countries can claim to be as savvy as India is.

What really caught my attention this time was the use of technology by political parties to position themselves as the party of choice. In this case, I am more interested in parties using the Internet. I have seen BJP’s LK Advani on Orkut. My colleague Sonia (not Gandhi) informed me that Congress’ Sonia (this time Gandhi), Rahul, and Manmohan Singh stare you from banners in various website.

Quite surprising! At least, I am surprised.

Why would political parties use the Internet to propagate themselves? The penetration of internet is so low that, in my opinion, it is neither effective nor efficient medium. Internet is medium for the crème-de-la-crème and this number is likely to be miniscule. And most importantly, it is as fragmented as any other medium available.

Let us ponder over the voter base and the reach of different media. We may be able to arrive at a good media strategy for the politicians of country then.

As I had mentioned the voter base of India is around 700 million (meaning people over the age of 18). According to IAMAI, there are about 45 million internet users. We will consider this base 800 million in this article. This is for ease as the IRS studies has taken 12+ population as the sample for its studies on media and Internet as a medium.

According to this report in IAMAI, the number of people who use Internet in India is 45 million. Of the 800 million population, the number of people in the urban and rural India is approximately 250 million and 550 million, respectively. While urban India is savvier, which is no brainer, the Internet penetration in rural India, which is “where India lives”, is abysmally low. In terms of percentages, the total Internet penetration is approximately 6%. Rural India is in decimal figures.



In a stark contrast is the extent of penetration achieved by other media. TV tops at 467 million, publications comes second at 323 million and radio, with its emergence, stands at 180 million.

Some of the leading TV channels, publications and even radio channels can put total Internet penetration figures to shame. Some figures have been provided in this article for you to refer.

So, why are our politicians from the Left, Right and Centre so visible on the IT horizon? Just a small digression, as I write this article, Samjawadi Party has released its manifesto and if I have to believe news reports have decided to shun machines for men.

The problem with media in India is that it is highly fragmented. Primarily, India states have been divided based by the lingua franca spoken in that particular region. For example, Tamil Nadu is inhabited by people who speak Tamil, Andhra by Telugu, Karnataka by Kannada and so on. Each state government over the years has done well in promoting the local culture and language. The role played by local language (or vernacular) medium has to be commended. It will be worthwhile to mention here that according to a study, the number of English speaking populace is only a meager 90 million (maybe it is not meager but the point is that local language prevails). Consider this, Tamil Nadu state has 60 million Tamil (a language which was spoken even before the advent of Sanskrit). Population of Uttar Pradesh (UP), the most populous state in India, is 100 million. The language predominantly spoken in UP and in most part of the heartland is Hindi. Bottom-line, similar to the penetration of Internet, English, Internet’s (un)official language, is pathetically low.



Two, the Indian media is segmented, as it would be anywhere else in the world, based on the content it delivers. General Entertainment channels – Hindi, English, and regional languages, News channels – Hindi, English, and regional languages, Infotainment and Music – channels are primarily English though there are many local language Music channels, Movie – English and Hindi primarily, though regional channels do exist. Internet is also fragmented though the primary use of Internet in India is Mail (91%), Search (76%), Education Information Search (49%) and Text Chat (46%).

And finally, the segmentation based on Socio-Economic classification (SEC). The digital divide is total in India. We have seen that the penetration of Internet in rural India is paltry. Even in urban India where 43 million have access to Internet, the penetration cannot be claimed to be substantial (around 5%). It is no brainer that computer and Internet is used more in the SEC A1/2 section of the society. That again is not big number. Also, I do not think that this section is a large enough vote bank for anyone.



So why? Why Internet? Why are these politicians sprinkling/putting (not betting) their money on banners and ad words? How do they exactly plan to capture votes and imagination of the masses?

As Sonia, my colleague and a strong supporter of the Internet strategy for politicians put it, “it is not for masses but classes. Politicians are trying to reach out to thinkers and opinion shapers.”



Valid point!!! Or is it?

This article is dedicated to Manoj, who commented after reading my piece on differentiation for James Bond, that my thoughts are too frivolous and devoid of any facts or figures. So, Manoj here it goes. I have tried to put as many figures and tried to make this look like a research piece. Thought most is secondary data but relevant.

This article would not have been possible without the help of my very able colleagues who did the research on my behalf. Thanks Sonia, Durai and Rashmi.

If you are interested to read more on Internet in India, please visit http://www.iamai.in/reports1.aspx