Tuesday, October 29, 2019

On Giving Up Smoking


ON GIVING UP SMOKING

Ajit Chaudhuri – October 2019



I am trying to give up smoking. Informing people about this often leads to unsolicited advice such as ‘it is only a matter of will power overcoming Wills power’ or gratuitous comments like ‘it is easy – I have done it many times’. Some ask why is it so hard and, when I think about it, for me it is a combination of three reasons. One, I respect time! Two, I like it! And three, because of the law of perverse incentives!


Allow me to expound!


On one – a downside of always being on time in a society that is never on time is the time on my hands before every appointment, meeting, and occasion. The best way to pass this time? Catching up on Youtube videos? Speaking with assorted acquaintances on the phone? Checking email? No thanks – I prefer a smoke!


On two – there is a couplet that goes ‘mandir masjid dono mein sir jhuka ke jata hoon, insaan se khuda na banoo isliye thoda sa paap bhi karta hoon’ (I bow my head in both temples and mosques but, just so that I don’t turn from person into God, I sin a little as well). A full and balanced life requires at least one vice and, if you have to have one, smoking is a good vice to have. It harms only the smoker, unlike alcohol and hard drugs which takes the user’s family down as well (and destroys society too, if large numbers are indulging). This is corroborated in a 2010 survey in Britain called the Drug Harm Score (described in the article ‘A Sober Brawl’ in The Economist issue of 19th October 2019) that suggests that, on a score of 1 to 100 combining harm to users with harm to others, tobacco stands at 27, well below alcohol (70 plus) and heroin (55) though above ecstasy (9 – but I am beyond frequenting rave parties) and cannabis (20 – but smells like a Turkish brothel).


And finally, on three – a perverse incentive by definition is one that has a result that is contrary to the intentions of its designers, a form of negative unintended consequence. What does this have to do with giving up smoking? Well, the genius administrators at my office purport to discourage smoking by disallowing it within the premises except for one dark corner of the roof. And, most pretty young women at office smoke. Smoking thereby gives me a reason to escape from my desk and meet them, away from prying eyes and running mouths, in a non-hierarchical and non-judgmental space where closed cliques are formed that cut across departmental silos. We discuss friendship, love life, et al, and all of this during work hours. And the envious looks I get from my male colleagues when I am with them in the office corridor or at the coffee machine, and I wave at (and get a smile from) a passing female smoking acquaintance, are to die for. What’s the incentive to stop?


The Case for Strategic Retreat


THE CASE FOR RETREAT AS A FORM OF DISASTER RISK REDUCTION

Ajit Chaudhuri – 9th October 2019

“Retreat, Hell! We just got here!”[1]


The term ‘retreat’ originates from military strategy and has negative connotations (as can be discerned from the quote above) – it is usually a prelude to defeat and a likely subsequent massacre. However, when undertaken in a strategic or planned manner, retreat can be used to serve positive objectives as well. Records suggest that retreat was first used as an offensive strategy by the Mongol armies of the 13th century (who were masters at feigning disarray and inviting cavalry charges that drew enemies into locations of their, i.e. the Mongols’, choice), and most famously by the Tsarist army during the Napoleonic invasion of Russia in 1812 (letting the French reach the outskirts of Moscow before pouncing – of the 500,000 strong invading force that crossed into Russia in June, only 27,000 crossed back in December).


Thinking on disaster risk reduction (DRR), too, has a negative lens on retreat (or the resettlement of communities to pre-identified locations); it is seen as a last resort, as a one-time emergency action, and/or as a failure to adapt – often undertaken in an abrupt, ad hoc and inequitable manner that involves some level of human rights abuse and is unfair to renters and low-income house owners. DRR prefers to focus upon building resilience of vulnerable communities where they already are, so that they have the ability to withstand the hazards that come their way.


And yet, retreat has always been an adaptation option – there is little point in building resilience of communities in areas that are prone to avalanches or landslides, for example, because no amount of resilience is sufficient protection in the face of certain hazards. And people in hazard prone areas usually look to move themselves and their assets out of harm’s way, more so nowadays with global warming, rising sea levels, and climate related extremes. Those with fewer resources have fewer options to address such risks; they are unable to return, or to rebuild more resiliently; some may feel forced into retreating; conversely, some may be unable to afford to move, and feel therefore trapped in a hazardous location. People staying in contexts of informal settings or insecure land tenures can be particularly affected.


Due to some of these reasons, retreat is often undertaken after an unfortunate event, and usually in some distress. The author happened to pass Malpa in 2014 (a Himalayan village along the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra that lost 221 people and its entire housing stock in a landslide in 1998), an eerie ghost village whose surviving residents had resettled in safer locations. While hindsight is always 20/20, the case for retreat was blindingly obvious given the steep, almost vertical, slopes of rock above the location, the proximity of the rock mass to major (and unstable) tectonic plates, and the heavy rainfall that ensured water seepage into the porous rock.


Retreat as a form of adaptation has attracted little research, and there is therefore limited guidance for administrators and DRR practitioners on using it for more than the physical removal of people and infrastructure. There is also limited focus on the social, cultural, psychological and long-term economic consequences for those retreating, those remaining, and those receiving the retreating communities.


It is therefore refreshing to find a recent academic paper[2] that re-conceptualizes retreat as a positive DRR option enabling achievement of societal goals and letting communities choose actions most likely to help them thrive. It recognizes that retreat is hard to do (and even harder to do well) due to issues such as place attachment, a preference for status quo, imperfect risk perceptions, inter alia, and suggests that a strategic, managed retreat could be an efficient and equitable adaptation option.


On the strategic front, the paper suggests that a retreat should not be a goal but a means of contributing to a societal goal (such as economic development, environmental conservation, etc.), and should be larger than a group of individual households relocating for their own benefit in that it is coordinated across jurisdictions, involves multiple stakeholders, addresses multiple hazards and risks at both origin and destination sites, and integrates into planning for economic, social and environmental goals. It should also be forward looking and responsive to economic opportunities, market forces and demographic changes. Policy makers need to identify why a retreat should occur and influence the ‘when’ and ‘where’ of it.


Management of a retreat addresses how it is executed. To enable it to be equitable and efficient, there is a need to a) understand and address barriers – especially those in the form of institutional silos within government agencies and financial constraints, b) develop tools to identify residents who want to retreat and require assistance, and c) have communication strategies that engage reluctant residents.


There are several issues that complicate retreat and incentivize living in risky locales – fishing communities on India’s eastern coast, for example, are constantly battered by cyclones, but any attempt to move them to safer locales inland has to counter the suspicion that the administration is acting at the behest of the tourism and prawn cultivation lobbies that are always looking to occupy sea front areas. There is therefore a need to develop and disseminate high quality hazard maps that enable market prices to capture risk and help communities make informed choices.


There is much to be done before retreat is re-positioned as a positive DRR option, despite the limitations of ‘build back better’ and other strategies that look to win against nature[3]. Evaluation of retreat outcomes, and recommendations for suitable and context specific policies and practices, are scarce. Key research gaps need to be addressed, and deployments in practice require testing and refinement. But first steps have been taken, and there is growing recognition that sometimes retreating from nature instead of fighting it can open new opportunities for communities.


[1] Exclaimed by a US Marine during World War I when advised to withdraw from his position.
[2] Siders AR, Hino M and Mach KJ; ‘The Case of Strategic and Managed Climate Retreat’; Science Vol. 365 Issue 6455 pp 761-763; 23 August 2019
[3] Pierre-Louis, K; “How to Rebound After a Disaster: Move, Don’t Rebuild, Research Suggests”; NYT issue of 22 August 2019; accessed on 23 August 2019.

What Now??


WHAT NOW??

Ajit Chaudhuri – June 2019


An election has happened, the people have spoken, and a government is in place. Notwithstanding the doubts about the partisan role of the Election Commission, the abnormally large margins of victory and the manipulability of electronic voting machines, this is a government that has widespread acceptance and I think we all hope that it buckles down to address the many problems facing us today. The right initial noises are being made about being a government for all Indians, but there is also disquiet about its majoritarian agenda, the nutcase fringes that provide its foot soldiers, from where people are fast-tracked into leadership, and its disrespect for the checks and balances of democracy. I don’t like these people, and I don’t trust them! And the feeling is mutual – secular minded English-speaking liberals are the new anti-nationals.


So where does this leave the likes of me? I can –

·         Lament, like the old man in the cult film ‘Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron’ who throws his hands up in the air and says ‘yeh kya ho rahaan hai (what’s going on)’, and leave it at that.

·         Run, like Kashmiri Pandits in the 1990s – but where to in these Trumpian times?

·         Get out of the way! I’m at the fag end of my career, a peaceful (I hope) retirement involving gardening, watching TV, and playing the guitar at some seedy bar beckons – why bother myself with grandiose matters such as the direction of the country?

·         Hold my nose and join them – and hope to influence from within. Many likeminded people have changed colours recently – why not me? But – can I live with looking into a mirror and seeing a rat? And, what use would they have for the likes of me?

·         Oppose, by working with political parties that profess to share my values – but which ones? Family businesses masquerading as political parties are repugnant to me, and the extreme left indistinguishable in practice from their counterparts on the right.


In deciding, I would like to believe that –

·         The country needs the likes of me – somewhat educated, liberal, with no allegiance to any caste, religion, community language or region – who only has a country.

·         The country needs an opposition – the current political situation is not healthy for it.

·         The country needs a political party occupying the center-left, which speaks for the poor and marginalized, for whom the development discourse is more about basic education, basic health, minimum wages, and basic infrastructure, and less about the stock market, interest rates, and rupee value of the dollar.

·         The country needs people who speak for its constitution and underpinning values.


Is there an option to oppose merely by being an unorganized voice for a better India; progressive, just, peaceful, celebrating its social, ethnic, religious and cultural diversity, balancing its multiple needs in a fair and humane way, a force for good in world affairs, etc.? 

I would like to explore this path. What would this take, and what are the costs?

Sunday, October 27, 2019

(Another) Book of Lists


LISTING – RECENTLY READ BOOKS

Ajit Chaudhuri – October 2019


I had, in August 2012, come out with a listing of the best books I have read; 42 in all, along with when I had read it and why I had liked it (for those interested, it is at http://theintelligentwomanstoyboy.blogspot.com/2012/08/book-of-lists.html). What have I read since, in the seven years that have passed? Well, I confess that the vicissitudes of life in the form of demands on my time from work, Netflix and football (not always in that order) have affected my reading habit, as has the rapidly diminishing pool of people whose recommendations I trust. And yet, I have managed to go through a few in the recent past. 

The good ones? Here goes (in alphabetic order)!


A Man Called Ove – Fredrik Backman – published in 2014

Birds Without Wings – Louis de Bernieres – published in 2004

Kafka on the Shore – Haruki Murakami – published in 2002

Pachinko – Min Jin Lee – published in 2017

Pax Feminica – Ajit Chaudhuri – published in 2018

The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and DisappearedJonas Jonasson – published in 2015

The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon – published in 2001

Wonder – RJ Palacio – published in 2012

Saturday, September 7, 2019

Great Expectations!


GREAT EXPECTATIONS


Ajit Chaudhuri – September 2019



I joined the private sector in 2014! Or rather, re-joined after a 30-year hiatus – I began my career the day after my BA Final exams as a salesman for a Delhi-based computer company, and lasted less than a year. I didn’t expect to be back; a life misspent down the salt mines of the development sector does not qualify one for management positions in institutions purposed to ‘maximize shareholder value’, and I was surprised to be at the receiving end of an offer of employment from a large and reasonably respected conglomerate. The role sounded good, the pay almost enough (no one’s pay is quite enough), and so I accepted and buckled down to work.



It will be 5 years this month! This note reflects on some matters relating to life here in the private sector that took me by surprise – both pleasant and unpleasant.



A visit to Mongolia: Not many can out-boast me in ‘been-there-done-that’ conversations on visiting remote, difficult and beautiful places (on the occasions that I choose to compete) – a pleasant consequence of a life basically spent roaming around. And yet, some places were always beyond the scope of my imagination! Mongolia was one such; the largest expanse of land without a fence, the coldest capital city in the world (with a year-round average temperature of 1 degree centigrade), the lowest population density in the world, the longest distance from a sea – absolutely the middle of nowhere, and the last entry in a list of places one expects to travel to. I was therefore shocked to get, in 2018, an opportunity to spend time in Ulaan Bataar on work, i.e. not only was I to go there but my organization was paying me to do so, and my boss was shocked at the extent to which I was willing to kiss his backside to make this happen (he was used to the US and western Europe visits incentivizing this sort of behavior). The visit was awesome – highlights included going into the countryside and seeing Mongolian dancing, falconry, wrestling and horsemanship in the backdrop of the steppes; eating horse’s tongue; hearing a public concert in Ulaanbataar’s town center, which included the dual tone singing that is traditional to the country and a brilliant rendition of ‘Amazing Grace’ on a morin khuur (or horse-headed fiddle); and dancing the evening away to pop music at Beatles Square in the heart of the city. I also zapped others by being able to read all the local signboards – they did not know that I am familiar with the Cyrillic script that is similar to Mongolian. I doubt that lightning will strike twice and I will get another opportunity to go there, but if it happens that I do I will jump at it.



Feet of Clay: I went into the job holding some myths about corporate leaders, that here were India’s elite – the brightest, best educated and most capable people in the country, and I expected to be in awe of them. Five years and four bosses later I find that, with some exceptions, I have yet to be seriously impressed. It was Norman Schwarzkopf who said that ‘leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character, but if you must be without one, be without strategy’. A distinctive feature of a regime change that we underwent some years back was the loud sucking sounds discernable across the so-called corridors of power. The middle management, who are either younger or not from elite education institutions, are far more impressive.



Gender Guru-dom: Gender experts tend to be soft-spoken but terrifying harridans in whose company the likes of me transform temporarily into sensitive metrosexuals, and I had requested one to hold a ‘gender workshop’ at a conference I was organizing. She backed out at the last minute, I couldn’t find a replacement, and I decided to do it myself rather than cancel. I survived! The 40-odd participants overcame their shock at a man facilitating such a topic, refrained from throwing eggs and tomatoes (both verbally and literally) at me, and were kind in their feedback. They also lapped up my quiz on ‘the differences between sex and gender’ and explanations on ‘strategic’ and ‘practical’ needs of women, both interspersed with examples from my days forming women self-help groups in western Rajasthan. It was my wife who put matters into perspective, saying that ‘if a fraud like you is giving gyan (knowledge) on gender, the private sector must be really desperate’.



Afternoon Tea with the Hizb: My first responsibility upon joining my job was to organize a humanitarian response to floods in J&K, and I was promptly bunged off sans induction and other such niceties to the K valley for the next two months. The visit was memorable for many reasons; a week spent sleeping on the floor of a local NGO’s office at a time when all hotels were under water, the rekindling of many old friendships from my time here after the 2005 earthquake, and re-acquaintance with the wonderful wazwaan style of local cooking. And for an entire afternoon spent in the attic of a house in a village near Bijbehara (similar to where they held Arvind Swamy in the 1992 film ‘Roja’), where a colleague and I explained our intentions to a group of bearded men over multiple cups of kahwa. They turned out to be from an overground institution of the Hizb-ul-mujahedin (not that we asked)! A consequence was that, while there were the usual problems of resistance to our relief efforts from local politicians, administrators and community power brokers, we did not face a single barrier from the militancy (and yes, we did work without security arrangements in areas that feature prominently in news channels for not-very-nice reasons).



A Musical Evening on the Roof of a Kathmandu Hotel: Movies such as “The Wolf of Wall Street” provide a distorted picture of parties in the private sector – in reality, they are civilized affairs in which embellishments such as cocaine, underage prostitutes, etc., are conspicuous by their absence and one doesn’t get up to anything that would shock one’s wife or mother. And yet, very occasionally, they can be fun! One such occasion was in the midst of death and destruction in the aftermath of the 2015 Nepal earthquake, when I was part of a relief distribution team that on top of everything else was dealing with about four aftershocks a day, and we decided one evening to de-stress by having some impromptu fun. I managed to procure a guitar, a colleague some wine, and a few of us absconded to the terrace of our hotel one evening and spent it singing Kristofferson, Nelson, Dylan, et al. A strong-ish aftershock happened during this event, the building swayed (and the terrace swayed more), but we were so high that this was one that we enjoyed rather than endured.



To conclude, if you are planning to relocate to the private sector you may be surprised on some matters! Don’t expect to merely go to office in the morning, put your neck into the grinder for 10 plus hours, return home in the evening, and wait for your retirement benefits to kick in. You might be in for a little more than that!

Wednesday, July 17, 2019

A Life Less Ordinary

A LIFE LESS ORDINARY

Ajit Chaudhuri – July 2019


I don’t often speak about my family, and I have my reasons for this. There are, however, a selected few worth speaking about and one such is my mother’s brother Aku Roy. I remember Akumamu very well as a small child – he was a naval pilot with a larger-than-life persona and always had sweets hidden on him when he visited (my sisters and I would clamber all over him to find them before even saying hello). I remember visiting the INS Vikrant when he was serving on it, and being taken out for joy rides in a red Standard Herald that was the love of his life. I was 8 years old at the time of the 1971 war, in which he was (and still is) deemed missing in action (MIA) after an operation in the Arabian Sea. I also remember my maternal grandparents’ distress in dealing with this – my grandfather was a tough guy, a General in the Army’s Medical Corps who had fought the Japanese in WW2, and it was strange for me to see him so distraught at the time. Life went on, as it always does, and Akumamu slowly became a forgotten figure – appearing only in occasional listings of MIAs as a cryptic ‘Lt. Cdr AK Roy, VrC’ and of Vir Chakra awardees, again with minimal details of who he was and what he did.


It is only now that I have some idea of events leading up to the 1971 war and his role in them. The Pakistani Army was given carte blanche to curtail a freedom movement in what was then the Pakistani province of East Pakistan, resulting in large numbers of refugees flowing into India from late-1970 and in the formation of the Mukti Bahini (MB), a guerilla force of Bangladeshis who were tasked with fighting back.


My Akumamu was pulled out of normal duties (he was posted in Bombay at the time), sent to Tripura, and tasked with selecting young men from among the refugees and training them to be naval commandos who could disrupt shipping along East Pakistan’s waterways (which was the main mode of transportation in the province). He himself went into East Pakistan for missions with his trainees, particularly brave for a fair, ‘Pathan-like’ six-footer who was easily identifiable by authorities in a group of Bengalis.


One such was the bombing of Chittagong Harbour in August 1971, which announced the MB as a serious fighting force and highlighted the issue of Bangladeshi independence to the world. He and his men returned into Tripura by intermingling with refugees, where he was caught by an Indian Army unit at the border on the suspicion of being a Pakistani spy trying to infiltrate into India. He was tied up, beaten and abused until he asked to speak in private to the commanding officer of the unit, wherein he exposed himself to prove he wasn’t Muslim and identified himself as an officer of the Indian Navy. A hair-raising description of this encounter by the army officer concerned, Maj. C. Singh, is available in this link - https://salute.co.in/a-surgical-strike-at-sea-in-1971/.


Aku Mamu returned from the eastern front and rejoined his naval base in the west before hostilities between India and Pakistan formally began. He was shot down during an operation over the Arabian Sea during the war, disappearing and never to be seen again.

All this was almost 50 years ago. A recent book, “Operation X: The Untold Story of India’s Covert Naval War in East Pakistan 1971” by Captain Samant (who oversaw the navy’s involvement with the MB) and my journalist colleague in India Today Sandeep Unnithan, tells the story of some of India’s forgotten servants, among them my Uncle. I am grateful because, in bringing this man to life, it has provided subsequent generations of my family with a role model who did a little more than live well and make money.

Saturday, May 25, 2019

Societal Problems and Corporations: Should Business Do More?


SOCIETAL PROBLEMS AND CORPORATIONS: Should Business Do More?


Ajit Chaudhuri – April 2019

I.            

Background

The world is in deep trouble, according to many analyses. People are frustrated for various reasons; stagnant wages, increasing inequality, the effect of technology on jobs, uncertainty regarding the future, inter alia – in turn leading to anger, nationalism and xenophobia. Leading democracies have descended into dysfunction, exacerbating public frustration. Society is unnerved by fundamental economic changes and with the failure of the state to provide lasting solutions, and trust in multilateralism and official institutions is crumbling. These make for a fragile global landscape that is susceptible to short-term behavior by corporations and governments, in turn leading to market uncertainty, decreasing confidence, and an increased risk of a cyclical downturn.
II.       

Should the Corporate Sector Do Something?

Some suggest that it should! The UN system, for example, has designed the Sustainable Development Goals with the participation and involvement of the corporate sector in mind (their precursor, the Millennium Development Goals, required only the state, the UN system and NGOs to be on board), recognizing that business brings in critical elements – systems and processes, innovation, technology, capital, focus on results – for targets to have a realistic chance of being met. Most multilateral institutions and NGOs now have departments that seek partnership with the corporate sector to further their agendas, though in many cases the terms ‘partnership’ and ‘cheque signing’ are synonyms in these times of decimated budgets. Countries too expect businesses operating within to do so keeping social responsibilities in mind, with India going to the extent of mandating a minimum expenditure for companies on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) related activities. Academia is in a race to identify a new type of capitalism that does not bring to mind connections with robber barons, unrestrained markets and inequitable growth, with terms such as ‘compassionate capitalism’ (which does not externalize environmental and ecological damages, lessens the gap between executive and rank-and-file pay, and is transparent in its dealings with regulators and other stakeholders) and ‘progressive capitalism’ (which seeks a new social contract between voters and elected officials, workers and corporations, rich and poor, and those with jobs and those un or under employed[1]) vying for prominence.


Others are not so certain! Public trust in the corporate sector is low, and to many the thought of its involvement in addressing societal problems, or in fact in anything more than providing goods and services of adequate quality and employing people on fair terms, would be tantamount to the state abdicating its responsibilities, to backdoor privatization of public service provision, and generally to ‘a fox repairing a henhouse’.


Corporate leaders’ own views on whether the sector should address societal issues differ according to the type of business they are in (also including its profitability, size, type of ownership, and the globality of its operations) and the personal predilections of the leaders. 


The views themselves usually fall within four broad categories[2].


The first are adherents to the traditional viewpoint that ‘the business of business is business’ and that ‘corporate social responsibility is to maximize profit’. They recognize that producing the goods and services that people demand, employing them on fair terms, observing the law and paying taxes is difficult enough (and requires all one’s energies), and anything more transgresses into the realm of the state.


The second are a variant of the first in that they subscribe to the traditional viewpoint but, for different reasons, do not want to be seen as such and therefore direct their corporate communications and PR departments to project a progressive image with liberal usage of terms such as ‘triple bottom line’ and ‘social license to operate’.


The third are those who recognize that, to prosper over time, companies need to deliver financial performance and show that they make a positive contribution to society. They look within the companies they lead to enable this by creating a sense of purpose without which the company would sacrifice investments in capital, innovation and employee development and provide sub-par returns to investors[3]. Such companies are close to the communities they serve and have a strong CSR culture.


The fourth are those who believe that ‘there is a special place in hell for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight’[4] and want to advocate for change towards addressing pressing socio-economic issues. They look to set their own companies right (as above) and to engage with external stakeholders (the state, the political space, other corporates, and NGOs) for this. They may also run businesses with products/services that directly address societal problems.
III.          


Conclusion

There are varying opinions on the corporate sector doing more about the societal problems described in section I. At one extreme, there is a view that business should stick to what it knows, which is producing goods and services while simultaneously employing people, observing laws and paying taxes. Others suggest to differing degrees that business is a force for good, it has advantages in the form of bright people, strong systems and processes, capital, and the ability to innovate and use technology, and these should be harnessed to address intractable societal problems. Whether the corporate sector can do so and, if so, what it should do is entirely another matter.


[1] Stiglitz, Joseph E, ‘Progressive Capital is not an Oxymoron’, Opinion piece in NY Times issue of 19 April 2019
[2] There is a zero-eth category of leaders who see opportunities in lax regulation, poor enforcement and vague accountability to maximize profits at the cost of societal wellbeing, and they are not included in the analysis.
[3] Larry Fink’s (of Blackrock) annual letters since 2012 provide a perspective on the need for responsible business.
[4] Paraphrased from the Martin Luther King Jr. speech ‘Beyond Vietnam – A Time to Break Silence’, Riverside Church, NY City, 4th April 1967.