Wednesday 16 May 2012
India Inc. and Its Moral Discontents
By Ravinder Kaur in EPW
While the Arab revolts were challenging
the western hegemony
to pave way for grass-roots
democracy last year, India was witnessing
a different kind of mass mobilisation
dramatically named by a few in the
media as the “second struggle” for Independence.
Delhi – like Cairo, Tunis,
Damascus and Manama – had become
the centre of protracted though nonviolent
popular protests with demands
for accountability from the corrupt ruling
elite. The media even took to describing
the protests affectionately as “our Arab
spring” and likened the site of protests in
Delhi as “our Tahrir Square” – imbuing
the event with revolutionary fervour
and turning it into a kind of catharsis
necessary to purify a corrupted postcolonial
nation. That these protests were
largely composed of a restless youth
population – though reliably steered by a
non-partisan “Gandhian” patriarch –
only served to make the comparisons to
the Arab revolts seem natural. Yet the
differences could not be starker. Unlike
the uprisings in west Asia that sought
to address the societal crises – rising
inequality, infl ation, massive unemployment,
lack of political freedoms and
disenchantment with the ruling elite –
as political subjects seeking political
change, the popular mobilisation in
India has primarily been the work of
“apolitical” activism more in tune with
the Tea Party movement of the United
States given its neo-liberal fantasies of
“small government”.
This essay sets out to unpack the economy
of the moral outrage we have witnessed
the past several months and which
continues to occupy a central position on
the nation’s agenda. The prime question
that needs to be asked then is, how and
when did corruption become the most
pressing crisis facing the Indian nation?
And in whose interest has this project
of moral cleansing of the nation been
affected? This line of enquiry opens up
some provisional answers that help explain
a movement that has built upon a
successful coalition of as diverse interests
as the techno-elite, professional middle
class, the urban poor, the religious and the
secular-minded individuals, big corporations,
global non-governmental organisations
(NGOs) and localised neighbourhood
associations. Three crucial interrelated
developments within the Indian
socio-political landscape can already
be noted in this regard. First, the neoliberal
conception of the nation-form as
commodity-form that India has steadily
transformed into since the 1990s economic
liberalisation. The success of the
nation is now no longer measured by its
ability to secure territory and the welfare
of its people alone, it is primarily
measured by its ability to attract capital
investments and maximise revenues.
The Indian nation has acquire d a new
nomenclature – India Inc. – that is vastly
popular within the corporate and policymaking
circles. The addition of the suffi
x “Inc.” highlights the corporate character
of the nation that has become its
prime identity in the past two decades.
It is following this neo-liberal logic of
nation as corporation that Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh is often addressed as
the chief executive offi cer (CEO) of India.
This popularly bestowed title gains particular
currency in his case as he is seen as
the main architect of the Inter national
Monetary Fund (IMF)-World Bank-led
economic reforms in early 1990s.
Second, corporations as well as global
bodies like the World Bank have increasingly
become invested in initiating
reform s at the social level in India. The
widely shared belief is that India is unable
to reach its full potential as a global economic
powerhouse precisely because of
socio-cultural constraints. The culture
of corruption – bribes, nepotism, and lack
of transparency within the governmen t
– is seen as one of the biggest impediments
to complete market reforms. The
anti-corruption mobilisation, thus, has
substantial support from the corporate
sector including several corporationcontrolled
newspapers and television
channels. Third, not only is a corrupt
government found detrimental to India’s
rise as a great power, the government
itself is seen as an impediment in the
path to that goal. A particular feature of
the anti-corruption protests is the outrage
against the government as the primary
source and cesspool of corruption. This
popular view is in line with the neoliberal
belief in “less government” and
more market as the path to economic
growth and prosperity. In other words,
to speak of politics – and anti-politics –
of anti-corruption mobilisation in India
today only in terms of “the people”,
“government” and “civil society” is to
miss out on new realities that constitute
the reformed Indian nation. Not only do
corporations play a dominant though
unpublicised role in the currents of Indian
politics, the Indian nation itself has been
reinvented as a corporate body whose
legitimacy is derived from its ability to
maximise revenues and profi ts. This nexus
between corporations, global fi nan cial
institutions and the anti-political populist
rage is key to understanding the new
agenda of nation’s moral cleansing.
What follows is an attempt to outline
the corporate logic of the moral panic
in India.
2 Nation as Commodity
In the past two decades, the free-market
logic of the nation state has increasingly
become visible not only in the attempts
to patent national commodities, but the
nation itself. The nations, especially those
most newly reformed such as India, are
branded, graded and placed within the
global hierarchy of nations according to
their success in attracting foreign direct
investments (FDIs) as well as revenues
from tourism. This commodifi cation of the
nation – as a profi t-making enterprise –
lies at the heart of this great neo-liberal
transformation. The unique assets of
the nation – its culture, history, natural
resources, human labour, locality, and
the inalienable essence that makes it
authentic – are commodifi ed in order to
maximise its capital and expand its power
in the global scheme of things. Nationality
Inc. blurs the lines between the state
and market to an extent that the state no
longer merely exists as the “monitor” of
the market, instead the market becomes
the underlying principle of the state.2 As
Jacques Ranciere (1999), recalling Marx’s
once-controversial assertion that governments
are simple business agents for
international capital, suggests, it is now
an “obvious fact…the absolute identifi -
cation of politics with the management
of capital is no longer the shameful secret
hidden behind the ‘forms’ of democracy; it
is the openly declared truth by which
our governments acquire legitimacy.
The role of the state as an active economic
agent – a corporation in search of
ever greater profi ts and revenues – has
always existed, the neo-liberal thinking
has only brought out in plain sight the
well hidden secret: the collusion between
the domain of politics and the
domain of the economy. In short, the
neo-liberal turn has surfaced the disarticulations
of the hyphenated dialectic
condition that binds the nation with the
state, and instead fully revealed the
corporate logic of the nation. India Inc.,
the new nomenclature for the nation is,
thus, suggestive of the new species of relations
between the market and the nation
where the Indian state appears as a
facilitator for the circulation and maximisation
of capital.
A significant part of the economic
reforms which opened India to flows of
FDI, private participation in the domain
of government, and withdrawal of the
state from the social sector has been the
attempt to brand the nation in the global
market. As early as 1996, the Indian
state had created a subsidiary agency of
the Ministry of Commerce – India Brand
Equity Foundation (IBEF) – with the primary
task of marketing “Made in India”
products around the world. This lagging
project was revived in late 2002 by the
National Democratic Alliance reform
minded government though with a redefi
ned task – to not only showcase Indian
brands abroad but transform India itself
into a corporate brand. The offi cial brief
was now to “celebrate India” as the “destination
of ideas and opportunities” in
order to bring in FDI as well as invigorate
tourism.
And by 2004, Brand India was
set in motion to “build positive economic
perceptions of India globally”.6 The new
initiative not only formalised the corporate
approach to governing the nation, it
also confi rmed the alias by which the
nation is known in the corporate world
– India Inc. – an entity consequently
gover ned by a CEO rather than a political
representative.
One of the key tasks for India Inc.
unsurprisingly, then, has been that of
image making primarily for a global
audience – corporate investors, leaders of
global fi nancial institutions and wealthy
tourists. Two Delhi-based advertising
agencies specialising in place branding
were recruited to create a distinctive
logo, a slogan and a “business kit” to be
presented through glossy campaigns in
print and electronic media.8 While one
of these agencies is responsible for creating
a more popular and vastly visible
global campaign called “Incredible India”
mainly to attract foreign tourists, the
second agency works hand in hand
though with little visibility within India
to enhance “Brand India” in the global
fi nancial markets. Brand India unveils
its annual advertising blitzkrieg spectacularly
at the World Economic Forum,
Davos amidst an assembly of corporate
heads, leaders of industrialised nations
and functionaries of global fi nancial
institutions. The idea is not only to
familiarise the world fi nancial leaders
about the current state of Indian economy
but also to report back on the progress
made by the Indian state vis-à-vis
economic reforms.
The corporate sector in India together
with the global financial institutions
perceives the 1991 economic reforms as
incomplete and partial, and each successive
government is therefore routinely
asked to undertake further “unshackling”
of the economy and take the reform to
its logical conclusion: a fully liberalised
market economy without regulatory
oversight and constraints affected by the
social and environmental costs. Davos is
one such prominent location where reformed
nations are reviewed in a global
setting – the “good governments” are
celebrated, whereas those lagging behind
are warned and encouraged to follow
suit. India Inc. has been both a subject of
celebration and warnings about its inability
to reach its potential. The little understood
complexities of Indian sociopolitical
order – caste stratifi cations, religious
divisions, communal violence,
and more importantly now, the “culture”
of corruption – are often posed as impediments
in India’s path towards economic
growth. The question confronting the
corporate state – an effective imagemachine
– is: how to create a desirable
image of the nation while erasing or
minimising the effect of all that “holds it
back”? Or more concretely, how to
project India as the most “attractive” investment
destination in order to lure
away potential investors from other
competing nations in the world.9 The
answer, in branding parlance, is to minimise
the “negatives” – associations with
poverty, archaic social practices, political
turbulence, and corrupt practices –
to halt the adverse news flow about the
nation in global media. This constant
quest for an attractive brand image and
the fear of the contaminating effect of
powerful negatives such as corruption,
then, is a partial explanation for the
moral discontent that is currently raging
in India.
Economy of Moral Panic
Anna Hazare’s protest agitation began in
the heart of Delhi – Jantar Mantar, a
part tourist attraction, and part zone of
protest – chiefl y to demand the passage
of the Jan Lokpal Bill (People’s Ombudsman
Bill) as a strong anti-corruption
instrument. The crowds that thronged
the protest site – adorned with symbols
borrowed from the repertoire of Hindu
nationalists and to the chants of Vande
Mataram – in support of the Bill had
pitted themselves not only against the
government’s version (the Lokpal Bill),
but the entire political class as such. And
if there was an enemy in this struggle,
then it was the fi gure of the politician –
usually depicted as a slick character
with easily compromised morals and infi
nite greed for ill-gotten wealth stashed
away in Swiss vaults – that had permeated
the popular imagination egged on by
the rhetoric of protest. The less visible
spokes of the government machinery –
the bureaucrats – were found equally
guilty of entrenching a system that did
not move without adequate grease in the
form of bribery and nepotism. In other
words, it was the domain of government
that had been identifi ed as the root
cause of the rot and therefore in need of
instant repair. This form of identifi cation
also disclosed the collective body of
“the people” in a state of isolation from
the government. Not only was the government
viewed as corrupt, the very
idea of state and government was now
shaped through the discourse of corruption.
Accordingly, the provisions of the
people’s bill focused mainly on the
conduct and practices of public functionaries
which through a series of legislations
– disciplinary measures and
punishment – could be rectifi ed and
controlled. The wider socio- economic
landscape – social injustice and inequities
– around which the notion and practice
named as corruption thrives was hardly
the focus of the protests.
The most telling aspect of both the
competing legislative bills, however, was
the stark absence of any provisions to
scrutinise corporate corruption. This absence
is particularly signifi cant as most
of the scams in India are related to
murky corporate practices ranging from
provision of supposedly mandatory kickbacks,
bribes to impart fl exibility to
existing rules, purchasing infl uence
within the government to ensure friendly
policies, evading taxes, and committing
fi nan cial fraud. Yet, the corporations
appear in the debate, if at all, as victims
of corruption in the domain of government
that hinders the nation’s economic
growth. This is not entirely unsurprising
in a neo-liberal state where the greatest
fear is the fear of failure to attrac t investments
and a slowdown in the pace
of economic growth. But what is surprising
is the intensity with which this
logic has fi ltered to the core of elite politics
in India to an extent that corporate
excesses are more or less effaced from
the public debate.
Corruption has long been seen as an
impediment towards free market and
economic growth. And in the anticorruption
movement, the corporations
have been able to fi nd articulations of
their own interests that seemingly are in
tune with the public outrage harnessed
successfully by the civil society. Even
before the popular protests had taken
off, the Federation of Indian Chambers
of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) had
issued a statement calling for probity in
governance in order “to preserve India’s
robust image and keep the growth story
intact”.10 This was followed by an open
letter by 14 prominent individuals – corporate
leaders, reform-minded economists
and bureaucrats assembled together
under the sign of the “citizen” –
who identifi ed corruption as the “biggest
issue corroding the fabric of our nation”.
The recommendation of the group was
to address the “governance defi cit” that
had permeated every level of state institutions,
and to restore the self-confi dence
of Indians in themselves and in the Indian
state.11 When the protest began gathering
steam, the biggest support to fi ght
corruption came from the corporate
sector. The corporate leaders expressed
their support publicly proclaiming that
“we completely support Hazare in his
fi ght against corruption which has been
denting India”.12 The corporate voices
had not only begun addressing Anna
Hazare as a moral crusader, but in one
instance also as “prime minister” – the
only one morally clean and worthy of
leading the nation – to show their disaffection
with the elected representatives.
13 In other words, the malaise
ailing the nation had been primarily
isola ted within the domain of government,
and only by exposing and emptying
it out in the public could the nation
be put on the path of purifi cation.
The power and infl uence of the corporations
in the anti-corruption movement
can be gauged from the fact that hardly
any critical voices have been heard
demanding corporate accountability.
Yet, bribe-giving or purchase of infl uence
in the government is often seen by
both Indian and foreign businesses as
an acceptable practice. In a survey of
European fi rms conducted earlier this
year, about two-thirds of corporate
employees named bribe-giving as a widespread
strategy to win contracts and
retain businesses.14 Similarly, a Bribe
Payers Index (BPI) found corporate corruption
to be rampant in the “emerging
markets” and particularly entrenched in
sectors like infrastructure development,
construction, mining, oil and gas explorations
and property development.15 The
State’s fear of losing corporate investments
and the attendant possibility of
job creation and revenue generation
means that there is little challenge to
corporate corruption. Instead, the neoliberal
states go out of their way to facilitate
businesses and overlook any exce sses.
This anxiety of alienating corporations
was visible in the controversy over the
2G court case. The union minister of law,
Salman Khurshid, chided the Supreme
Court for not granting bail to businessmen
accused in the 2G spectrum scam.
He was reported as saying, “If you lock
up top businessmen, will investment
come?” to voice his concerns over threat
to the pace of economic growth and
investment in the nation.16 In this case,
17 individuals were arrested and prosecuted
including the former Telecom
minister A Raja and several senior executives
from some of the largest telecom
companies in India. But somehow the
corporate executives escaped the harsh
probing of their conduct in the public
domain whereas the politician involved
was transformed into a symbol of all the
systemic failures and corruption plaguing
the nation. In short, it is the fi gure of
the politician that is frequently evoked
to rouse public passions in the anticorruption
movement while the businesses
are either seen as hapless victims
of the “system” or kept out of public
spotlight when the irregularities are too
momentous to be ignored.
4 Global Panacea of Reforms
The excessive focus on government
together with the near effacement of
corporations from the anti-corruption
discourse is neither an accident nor an
oversight. Rather it is a refl ection of the
global processes that began intensifying
in the past two decades surfacing civil
society as a key player in the domain of
governance. Central to this shift was not
only the lack of belief in the State’s capability
to check corruption, but the fact
that the institution of state per se was
viewed as intrinsically corrupt. The very
defi nition of corruption, at the height of
modernisation theory, came to be particularly
tied to the misuse of public offi ce
for private gains.17 Any checks against
corruption would, then, logically mean
checks against the government itself
which was now largely viewed through
the lens of corruption. This spectre of
corruption became a familiar theme that
was often played out in the context of
the Third World thought to be in particular
need of western style rational
modernisation and development to overcome
the culture of corruption. The anticorruption
campaigns, thus, were initiated
in harmony with the push for structural
reforms in developing countries – more
free market equalled less corruption.
In the early 1980s, coinciding with the
thrust towards structural reforms, the
global institutions such as the World
Bank and IMF began turning their focus
on the “cancer of corruption”18 on the
one hand, and greater collaboration
with civil society organisations (CSOs)
on the other.19 This was the moment
when one could witness the successful
co-option of the robust tradition of protest,
dissent and speaking truth to power
– by ordinary people against hegemons
– by powerful global institutions to
serve its own agendas. While corruption
was necessarily seen as endemic in the
nation states of the South,20 the CSOs
were encouraged and “empowered” as a
way to minimise the infl uence of the
corrupt and ineffi cient states.21 This focus
on indivi dual cooperation at societal
level outside the domain of government
was argued forcefully as “social capital”
– a cost-effective mode that successfully
limits the government and promotes
modern democracy – by neo-liberal
advocates such as Francis Fukuyama.22
The long-standing tradition of public
activism for public good was, thus, successfully
harnessed to the realisation of
neo-liberal ideals of small government.
Accor ding to World Bank’s estimates,
the CSO sector worldwide is currently
worth $1.3 trillion annually employing
about 40 million people, and channels
fi nancial assistance of about $20 billion
to the developing nations per year.23 The
CSOs are involved in up to 81% of the
Bank-funded projects with a presence in
over 100 nations around the world.
In a recent report published at the
height of the anti-corruption movement,
these seemingly disparate themes – of
corruption, civil society, popular protests
and liberalised markets – were joined
together to weave the narrative of moral
breakdown in the society and its cost to
the Indian economy. The report begins
by evoking the World Economic Forum’s
Global Competitiveness Index24 that
lists a number of freedoms necessary for
a nation’s economic competitiveness
(business freedom, trade freedom, fiscal
freedom) of which India particularly
suffers from the lack of the “freedom from
corruption” that could derail its projected
economic growth and may result in a
volatile and economic environment.25
Nearly one-third of the respondents
believed corruption to be particularly
detrimental to India’s growth poten tial,
while 93% agreed that “corruption
negatively impacts the capital market”.
The lowered levels of ethical values in
the society were no longer merely a
matter of individual immorality and
concern, they had a severe economic
cost for the nation especially its brand
image in the world. The issue of personal
and corporate corruption – evasion of
taxes, for instance – was explained away
in terms of tight regulation and high tax
rates that help produce corruption in
the society.
The successful harnessing of populist
indignation to a cause much favoured by
corporations and global financial institutions
– of free markets – is best illustrated
in the solutions offered to regulate
corruption. Here the provisions of the
people’s bill promoted by the civil societ y
are mirrored in those favoured by the
corporations.26 These include stringent
punishment, high penalties and zero
tolerance to corruption through the establishment
of fast track courts, and special
enforcement powers to the Lokayukta,
or Ombudsman’s offi ce. Remarkably, in
step with the neo-liberal thinking, the
state makes reappearance here in its
new recommended role as that of a strict
regulator of anti-corruption laws and
facilitator of suitable conditions for businesses
to operate in. In this vein, Chinese
state’s solutions to control corruption are
often quoted admirably by the business
community and these include high fi nes
and even imposition of death penalty.27
The Indian model, on the other hand,
with its democratic messiness is seen as
less than ideal for businesses to fl ourish
in. It is ironic that the neo-liberal language
of freedoms that is usually adopted
to advocate for free markets is rendered
speechless when it comes to corruption.
Not only does it look towards an
authoritarian state such as China for
inspiration, it also resurrects the much
despised state to provide legal framework
to control corruption.
Consensual Politics
While the anti-corruption protests have
been widely analysed, and at times even
celebrated, in terms of agonist politics in
a non-violent, democratic space, a closer
look at the movement, its motives, organisation
and opposition shows far
more consensual politics at play between
the government and the protestors than
is commonly believed.28 To begin with,
there is hardly any disagreement with
the central objective of the movement
which is to control and cleanse the public
life of corruption in India. The harmful
effects of corruption on the nation’s
brand image as well as its competitiveness
among businesses and investors
are well understood by the state as well
as the protestors. Though the plight of
the “common man” is the rallying cry
that mobilises diverse groups and interests
– the perception of oneself as victim
of corruption is universally shared
– under the sign of “the people”, it is the
goal of greater reforms and economic
freedoms that guides this politics of
consensus. The differences between the
government and the protestors are of a
more technical as well as tactical nature
concerning the specifi c details of the
regulatory bill and the time duration
within which the bill is expected to
be passed.
That the state is as eager to seize the
populist issue of corruption – and to be
seen as progressive on the economic
growth front – is clear from the ways in
which it responded to the anti-corruption
protests. The protestors were mostly
indulged, and if at all mildly rebuked, in
a manner that appears in stark contrast
to the usual conduct of the police authorities.
The police neither seriously
attempted to disperse the crowds nor
did it pose effective curtailments to contain
the protests. And when Anna Hazare
began his fast-unto-death the second
time around, no one tried to intervene in
order to put an end to his chosen form of
protest. This could not be more different
than the way in which the civil
rights activist from Manipur, Irom
Sharmila, has been dealt with by the
state. She has been on indefi nite hunger
strike for the past decade to protest
against the Armed Forces (Special Powers)
Act, 1958 (AFSPA) which gives exceptional
powers to the army to discipline
what are called the “disturbed areas”
of northeast India. The most striking
reminder of the sovereign state’s power
to intervene and disrupt are the leaked
images of Irom Sharmila being force-fed
through tubes in order to keep her alive.
Unlike Anna Hazare’s widely celebrated
movement, her cause is not universally
shared in the urban middle class electorate
as well as the ruling elite. If anything,
it is seen as a threat to India’s
territorial sovereignty which must be contained through all means.
The anti-corruption movement has
brought in plain sight the unity between
what earlier appeared to be different
interests within the “new” reformed
India. The long-held ambition of India
becoming a global power – or what is
often believed to be the natural destiny
of a civilisational nation such as India –
is widely shared within the ruling elite
as well as the infl uential and prosperous
middle class. This ambition is contingent
to the economic growth rates
and the attendant global infl uence they
can purchase. It is upon this matrix that
the interests of the state, the middle
class and the corporations assemble in
complete harmony. And this is what
probably explains the contrasting outcomes
for the two non-violent, peaceful
and democratic protests led by a highly
successful Anna Hazare and by the
largely forgotten Irom Sharmila.
Tuesday 15 May 2012
Moral decay? Family life's the best it's been for 1,000 years
Conservatives' concerns about marriage seem to be based on a past that is fabricated from their own anxieties and obsessions
George Monbiot
guardian.co.uk, Monday 14 May 2012 20.30 BST
'Throughout history and in virtually all human societies marriage has always been the union of a man and a woman." So says the Coalition for Marriage, whose petition against same-sex unions in the UK has so far attracted 500,000 signatures. It's a familiar claim, and it is wrong. Dozens of societies, across many centuries, have recognised same-sex marriage. In a few cases, before the 14th century, it was even celebrated in church.
This is an example of a widespread phenomenon: myth-making by cultural conservatives about past relationships. Scarcely challenged, family values campaigners have been able to construct a history that is almost entirely false.
The unbiblical and ahistorical nature of the modern Christian cult of the nuclear family is a marvel rare to behold. Those who promote it are followers of a man born out of wedlock and allegedly sired by someone other than his mother's partner. Jesus insisted that "if any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters … he cannot be my disciple". He issued no such injunction against homosexuality: the threat he perceived was heterosexual and familial love, which competed with the love of God.
This theme was aggressively pursued by the church for some 1,500 years. In his classic book A World of Their Own Making, Professor John Gillis points out that until the Reformation, the state of holiness was not matrimony but lifelong chastity. There were no married saints in the early medieval church. Godly families in this world were established not by men and women, united in bestial matrimony, but by the holy orders, whose members were the brothers or brides of Christ. Like most monotheistic religions (which developed among nomadic peoples), Christianity placed little value on the home. A Christian's true home belonged to another realm, and until he reached it, through death, he was considered an exile from the family of God.
The Reformation preachers created a new ideal of social organisation – the godly household – but this bore little relationship to the nuclear family. By their mid-teens, often much earlier, Gillis tells us, "virtually all young people lived and worked in another dwelling for shorter or longer periods". Across much of Europe, the majority belonged – as servants, apprentices and labourers – to houses other than those of their biological parents. The poor, by and large, did not form households; they joined them.
The father of the house, who described and treated his charges as his children, typically was unrelated to most of them. Family, prior to the 19th century, meant everyone who lived in the house. What the Reformation sanctified was the proto-industrial labour force, working and sleeping under one roof.
The belief that sex outside marriage was rare in previous centuries is also unfounded. The majority, who were too poor to marry formally, Gillis writes, "could love as they liked as long as they were discreet about it". Before the 19th century, those who intended to marry began to sleep together as soon as they had made their spousals (declared their intentions). This practice was sanctioned on the grounds that it allowed couples to discover whether or not they were compatible. If they were not, they could break it off. Premarital pregnancy was common and often uncontroversial, as long as provision was made for the children.
The nuclear family, as idealised today, was an invention of the Victorians, but it bore little relationship to the family life we are told to emulate. Its development was driven by economic rather than spiritual needs, as the industrial revolution made manufacturing in the household unviable. Much as the Victorians might extol their families, "it was simply assumed that men would have their extramarital affairs and women would also find intimacy, even passion, outside marriage" (often with other women). Gillis links the 20th-century attempt to find intimacy and passion only within marriage, and the impossible expectations this raises, to the rise in the rate of divorce.
Children's lives were characteristically wretched: farmed out to wet nurses, sometimes put to work in factories and mines, beaten, neglected, often abandoned as infants. In his book A History of Childhood, Colin Heywood reports that "the scale of abandonment in certain towns was simply staggering", reaching one third or a half of all the children born in some European cities. Street gangs of feral youths caused as much moral panic in late 19th-century England as they do today.
Conservatives often hark back to the golden age of the 1950s. But in the 1950s, John Gillis shows, people of the same persuasion believed they had suffered a great moral decline since the early 20th century. In the early 20th century, people fetishised the family lives of the Victorians. The Victorians invented this nostalgia, looking back with longing to imagined family lives before the industrial revolution.
In the Daily Telegraph today Cristina Odone maintained that "anyone who wants to improve lives in this country knows that the traditional family is key". But the tradition she invokes is imaginary. Far from this being, as cultural conservatives assert, a period of unique moral depravity, family life and the raising of children is, for most people, now surely better in the west than at any time in the past 1,000 years.
The conservatives' supposedly moral concerns turn out to be nothing but an example of the age-old custom of first idealising and then sanctifying one's own culture. The past they invoke is fabricated from their own anxieties and obsessions. It has nothing to offer us.
George Monbiot
guardian.co.uk, Monday 14 May 2012 20.30 BST
'Throughout history and in virtually all human societies marriage has always been the union of a man and a woman." So says the Coalition for Marriage, whose petition against same-sex unions in the UK has so far attracted 500,000 signatures. It's a familiar claim, and it is wrong. Dozens of societies, across many centuries, have recognised same-sex marriage. In a few cases, before the 14th century, it was even celebrated in church.
This is an example of a widespread phenomenon: myth-making by cultural conservatives about past relationships. Scarcely challenged, family values campaigners have been able to construct a history that is almost entirely false.
The unbiblical and ahistorical nature of the modern Christian cult of the nuclear family is a marvel rare to behold. Those who promote it are followers of a man born out of wedlock and allegedly sired by someone other than his mother's partner. Jesus insisted that "if any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters … he cannot be my disciple". He issued no such injunction against homosexuality: the threat he perceived was heterosexual and familial love, which competed with the love of God.
This theme was aggressively pursued by the church for some 1,500 years. In his classic book A World of Their Own Making, Professor John Gillis points out that until the Reformation, the state of holiness was not matrimony but lifelong chastity. There were no married saints in the early medieval church. Godly families in this world were established not by men and women, united in bestial matrimony, but by the holy orders, whose members were the brothers or brides of Christ. Like most monotheistic religions (which developed among nomadic peoples), Christianity placed little value on the home. A Christian's true home belonged to another realm, and until he reached it, through death, he was considered an exile from the family of God.
The Reformation preachers created a new ideal of social organisation – the godly household – but this bore little relationship to the nuclear family. By their mid-teens, often much earlier, Gillis tells us, "virtually all young people lived and worked in another dwelling for shorter or longer periods". Across much of Europe, the majority belonged – as servants, apprentices and labourers – to houses other than those of their biological parents. The poor, by and large, did not form households; they joined them.
The father of the house, who described and treated his charges as his children, typically was unrelated to most of them. Family, prior to the 19th century, meant everyone who lived in the house. What the Reformation sanctified was the proto-industrial labour force, working and sleeping under one roof.
The belief that sex outside marriage was rare in previous centuries is also unfounded. The majority, who were too poor to marry formally, Gillis writes, "could love as they liked as long as they were discreet about it". Before the 19th century, those who intended to marry began to sleep together as soon as they had made their spousals (declared their intentions). This practice was sanctioned on the grounds that it allowed couples to discover whether or not they were compatible. If they were not, they could break it off. Premarital pregnancy was common and often uncontroversial, as long as provision was made for the children.
The nuclear family, as idealised today, was an invention of the Victorians, but it bore little relationship to the family life we are told to emulate. Its development was driven by economic rather than spiritual needs, as the industrial revolution made manufacturing in the household unviable. Much as the Victorians might extol their families, "it was simply assumed that men would have their extramarital affairs and women would also find intimacy, even passion, outside marriage" (often with other women). Gillis links the 20th-century attempt to find intimacy and passion only within marriage, and the impossible expectations this raises, to the rise in the rate of divorce.
Children's lives were characteristically wretched: farmed out to wet nurses, sometimes put to work in factories and mines, beaten, neglected, often abandoned as infants. In his book A History of Childhood, Colin Heywood reports that "the scale of abandonment in certain towns was simply staggering", reaching one third or a half of all the children born in some European cities. Street gangs of feral youths caused as much moral panic in late 19th-century England as they do today.
Conservatives often hark back to the golden age of the 1950s. But in the 1950s, John Gillis shows, people of the same persuasion believed they had suffered a great moral decline since the early 20th century. In the early 20th century, people fetishised the family lives of the Victorians. The Victorians invented this nostalgia, looking back with longing to imagined family lives before the industrial revolution.
In the Daily Telegraph today Cristina Odone maintained that "anyone who wants to improve lives in this country knows that the traditional family is key". But the tradition she invokes is imaginary. Far from this being, as cultural conservatives assert, a period of unique moral depravity, family life and the raising of children is, for most people, now surely better in the west than at any time in the past 1,000 years.
The conservatives' supposedly moral concerns turn out to be nothing but an example of the age-old custom of first idealising and then sanctifying one's own culture. The past they invoke is fabricated from their own anxieties and obsessions. It has nothing to offer us.
Sunday 13 May 2012
Aamir Khan on Satyameva Jayate
Aamir Khan’s 13-episode Satyameva Jayate which
fuses together the mass appeal of celebrity with the mass reach of the
TV medium to raise awareness on social issues, is already the toast of
drawing rooms. But it has also sparked questions: do hi-glitz shows such
as this have a lasting impact? Or could this, like other shows, end up
being just another platform to peddle products? Aamir spoke to Namrata
Joshi in Jaipur. Excerpts:
Did you expect the programme would strike such a chord?
I was hoping it would be this huge. It has been a dream response.
Is the response due to the issue, the cause or the sheer power of your stardom?
No, it’s not about my stardom. Perhaps in a broad way people would come to the show thinking let’s see what he is saying. But it’s a combination of the research work of my team and the strength of TV which can, potentially, take change to every home. I am the via media in getting people to watch the show, to see the extraordinary stories of ordinary people.
Female foeticide (the topic of the first episode) has been much covered in the media. But Aamir Khan has got everyone talking about it now. Is the star turning into a citizen journalist here?
I am happy to be called a journalist. The first phase of our job, when we were dealing with research work I was a journalist. What I am doing here is empowering the viewers with 360 degree information on an issue. The information is emotional, social, legal, economic about the possible solutions and the way forward. Of course it is limited to my understanding of it. How my team and I, to the best of our ability, have understood various issues after two years of research.
But I get creative when it comes to taking that material to people. I am interested in reaching people on a human level. It's about what is the most effective way to touch your hearts. I am using entertainment to reach out. Which is not to say I am using fun and games. It's more about underlining things with emotions. Like I did with the issue of childcare and education in a film like Taare Zameen Par. The information people get from a newspaper and magazine article doesn't change their heart. Very few people cry on reading newspapers. I try to affect them emotionally.
The show has been criticised by some for being too manipulative...
I am using honest emotions to say something good. Look at the manner in which I open the show. I talk about mothers and motherhood. Then go on to pick one mother to show how we treat our mothers. I don't say the word foeticide immediately at the start of the show but after two cases have been discussed. I gradually take you to the issue. I am a communicator. I scare you with its eventualities when I talk of women being bought and sold. I am not limited by the format of an article. I am on a general entertainment channel. I am a person who makes feature films. These are my skillsets and I am using them to deal with the issues. Am good at engaging with people emotionally. That's what I have a passion for and am good at and I am using that ability.
Do such shows bring about change? Or do people engage and move on?
Often the stance on any problem is why doesn't the police, the government do something about it. However, here I am asking people to do what I am doing myself which is to look within and ask what am I doing about it. It's not about physical action but an internal, personal journey. The biggest change we can bring about is in ourselves. I am not asking people to come on the roads and take out a dharna. Three crore female foetuses have been aborted in the last 30-40 years. Female foeticide is a crime planned in our bedrooms and we can't have cops in the bedrooms to monitor us. But if we get even a hint that something like this is being planned in our family or by our friends we can create a ruckus. I won't tell you to decide. I won't judge you if you don't do anything. The choice has to be yours, I can't force it on you. I hope people do find courage and desire to change. So if a doctor who has been involved in foeticides decides after seeing the show that he or she won't do it anymore bas mera kaam ho gaya. Even if one girl child is saved then the show is a success.
I will be on TV. I will also be on Vividh Bharati, AIR, Radio Mirchi, Star News. I will write a column in HT. With every issue I want to go wide on many platforms. It's a deep and concentrated approach to reach out in as many different ways as possible. I hope it will make people understand an issue for a life. I hope it will have them converted for life.
People are critical of the way you get involved with a cause and then get out. For instance, the Narmada protest, which you joined briefly.
I find it a very faulty critique. It's actually your desire of seeing me as a full time, 24X7 social activist. I am not that. It's not what I claim to be. I can agree, support, endorse but I can't leave my job which is films. Talaash is delayed right now. But I will go back to it. Am doing Dhoom 3 and P.K. next. But I will continue to support causes while doing my work. I can't measure up to the 500% expectations that you have of me. I am consistent with what I am committing myself to. It's like I have just said that I will come and have tea with you but it's you who are assuming that I am going to come and live with you for life. If my involvement with an issue seems less to you then why don't you do the good work?
You can question me two months hence that you had done a show on this issue and why don't you remain with it your entire life. According to me it's for the state and administration to take forward the job. You, as an individual, also need to take a call, be responsible and decisive.
There are whispers about your charging Rs 3 crore per episode for a show on serious social issues...
I never discuss my fee. But since you asked I am getting Rs 3.5 crore per episode. Firstly what I get is none of anyone's business. Main apni mehnat ki kama aur khaa raha hoon. [I am earning and enjoying the benefits of my hard-work]. I am not doing anything wrong. Main izzat se, achchaa kaam karke roti kama raha hoon aur mujhe fakr hai is baat ka [I am honourably, by doing good work, earning my bread, and I am proud of it]. Secondly to clear the misconception this amount includes the cost of the episode also. The bulk of the money goes into the cost and some of the episodes may have overshot the amount. Thirdly, I have endorsements deals of about Rs 100-125 crore per year. I have stopped them for a year while the show is on. There's no logic in the decision, it's purely emotional. But tell me who has ever said no to Rs 100 crore for a cause?
So what issues do we see next?
We started off with 20 topics of which we fleshed out 16 and eventually locked in 13. These are topics which affect every Indian. But the topic of next week will not be revealed in advance. Even when I start the episode you wouldn't know immediately. It's not just the topic that's important but also on how I present it and get you engaged and involved with it.
Will you discuss contentious political topics like Gujarat, Kashmir, North East?
The issues will be social more than political. At this point I want to concentrate only on social issues. But it's impossible to cut away political aspects from any issue. Also if we bring about change in the people and their perceptions our political processes will also change over time.
You'll see all kinds of India: the India I have seen. There are heart-breaking and traumatic stories, inspiring stories of great courage and high values and ideals.
Do we see you taking to politics like stars abroad?
I have always been categorical about my no to politics. Political alignments, party affiliations I am not interested in.
--------
Did you expect the programme would strike such a chord?
I was hoping it would be this huge. It has been a dream response.
Is the response due to the issue, the cause or the sheer power of your stardom?
No, it’s not about my stardom. Perhaps in a broad way people would come to the show thinking let’s see what he is saying. But it’s a combination of the research work of my team and the strength of TV which can, potentially, take change to every home. I am the via media in getting people to watch the show, to see the extraordinary stories of ordinary people.
Female foeticide (the topic of the first episode) has been much covered in the media. But Aamir Khan has got everyone talking about it now. Is the star turning into a citizen journalist here?
I am happy to be called a journalist. The first phase of our job, when we were dealing with research work I was a journalist. What I am doing here is empowering the viewers with 360 degree information on an issue. The information is emotional, social, legal, economic about the possible solutions and the way forward. Of course it is limited to my understanding of it. How my team and I, to the best of our ability, have understood various issues after two years of research.
But I get creative when it comes to taking that material to people. I am interested in reaching people on a human level. It's about what is the most effective way to touch your hearts. I am using entertainment to reach out. Which is not to say I am using fun and games. It's more about underlining things with emotions. Like I did with the issue of childcare and education in a film like Taare Zameen Par. The information people get from a newspaper and magazine article doesn't change their heart. Very few people cry on reading newspapers. I try to affect them emotionally.
The show has been criticised by some for being too manipulative...
I am using honest emotions to say something good. Look at the manner in which I open the show. I talk about mothers and motherhood. Then go on to pick one mother to show how we treat our mothers. I don't say the word foeticide immediately at the start of the show but after two cases have been discussed. I gradually take you to the issue. I am a communicator. I scare you with its eventualities when I talk of women being bought and sold. I am not limited by the format of an article. I am on a general entertainment channel. I am a person who makes feature films. These are my skillsets and I am using them to deal with the issues. Am good at engaging with people emotionally. That's what I have a passion for and am good at and I am using that ability.
Do such shows bring about change? Or do people engage and move on?
Often the stance on any problem is why doesn't the police, the government do something about it. However, here I am asking people to do what I am doing myself which is to look within and ask what am I doing about it. It's not about physical action but an internal, personal journey. The biggest change we can bring about is in ourselves. I am not asking people to come on the roads and take out a dharna. Three crore female foetuses have been aborted in the last 30-40 years. Female foeticide is a crime planned in our bedrooms and we can't have cops in the bedrooms to monitor us. But if we get even a hint that something like this is being planned in our family or by our friends we can create a ruckus. I won't tell you to decide. I won't judge you if you don't do anything. The choice has to be yours, I can't force it on you. I hope people do find courage and desire to change. So if a doctor who has been involved in foeticides decides after seeing the show that he or she won't do it anymore bas mera kaam ho gaya. Even if one girl child is saved then the show is a success.
I will be on TV. I will also be on Vividh Bharati, AIR, Radio Mirchi, Star News. I will write a column in HT. With every issue I want to go wide on many platforms. It's a deep and concentrated approach to reach out in as many different ways as possible. I hope it will make people understand an issue for a life. I hope it will have them converted for life.
People are critical of the way you get involved with a cause and then get out. For instance, the Narmada protest, which you joined briefly.
I find it a very faulty critique. It's actually your desire of seeing me as a full time, 24X7 social activist. I am not that. It's not what I claim to be. I can agree, support, endorse but I can't leave my job which is films. Talaash is delayed right now. But I will go back to it. Am doing Dhoom 3 and P.K. next. But I will continue to support causes while doing my work. I can't measure up to the 500% expectations that you have of me. I am consistent with what I am committing myself to. It's like I have just said that I will come and have tea with you but it's you who are assuming that I am going to come and live with you for life. If my involvement with an issue seems less to you then why don't you do the good work?
You can question me two months hence that you had done a show on this issue and why don't you remain with it your entire life. According to me it's for the state and administration to take forward the job. You, as an individual, also need to take a call, be responsible and decisive.
There are whispers about your charging Rs 3 crore per episode for a show on serious social issues...
I never discuss my fee. But since you asked I am getting Rs 3.5 crore per episode. Firstly what I get is none of anyone's business. Main apni mehnat ki kama aur khaa raha hoon. [I am earning and enjoying the benefits of my hard-work]. I am not doing anything wrong. Main izzat se, achchaa kaam karke roti kama raha hoon aur mujhe fakr hai is baat ka [I am honourably, by doing good work, earning my bread, and I am proud of it]. Secondly to clear the misconception this amount includes the cost of the episode also. The bulk of the money goes into the cost and some of the episodes may have overshot the amount. Thirdly, I have endorsements deals of about Rs 100-125 crore per year. I have stopped them for a year while the show is on. There's no logic in the decision, it's purely emotional. But tell me who has ever said no to Rs 100 crore for a cause?
So what issues do we see next?
We started off with 20 topics of which we fleshed out 16 and eventually locked in 13. These are topics which affect every Indian. But the topic of next week will not be revealed in advance. Even when I start the episode you wouldn't know immediately. It's not just the topic that's important but also on how I present it and get you engaged and involved with it.
Will you discuss contentious political topics like Gujarat, Kashmir, North East?
The issues will be social more than political. At this point I want to concentrate only on social issues. But it's impossible to cut away political aspects from any issue. Also if we bring about change in the people and their perceptions our political processes will also change over time.
You'll see all kinds of India: the India I have seen. There are heart-breaking and traumatic stories, inspiring stories of great courage and high values and ideals.
Do we see you taking to politics like stars abroad?
I have always been categorical about my no to politics. Political alignments, party affiliations I am not interested in.
--------
Jump cut - His Star Grounded
He was not aspiring to be Balraj Sahni. He was a superstar and he wanted to be accorded his rightful place.
Bishwadeep Moitra
The
summer of 2007 brought me a rather unusual invitation. Unusual, because
the round table conference in Florida that I was invited to participate
in—pompously called the Leadership Project—had little in common with my
vocation. But the real hook for me was the opportunity to meet Aamir
Khan, who too had been invited—and had consented to come.
Aamir came across like the character he had played in Dil Chahta Hai, charmingly unassuming. He took his wife Kiran Rao’s environmental concerns seriously. When she objected to the engine of our monstrous safari jeep idling every time we stopped for a sighting in the 7,400-acre Wild Oak park, Aamir dutifully went up to the driver and asked him to switch the engine off.
Finally, after doing our bit to save the world in three sessions, we had some time to luxuriate at the sprawling facility. All of us had been allotted chalets to be shared with a fellow delegate. Aamir and Kiran, of course, had been given a chalet of their own, complete with a swimming pool and a sauna. They very generously invited some of us to hang out in their chalet. And what an afternoon it turned out to be.
Aamir’s entourage consisted of a three-member personal staff. A bodyguard who doubled as a physical trainer, another who did his suitcases, and a third who was his feeder (read on). Aamir was about to shoot for Ghajini and had to look big and brawny. Mr Feeder’s job was to make sure Aamir followed the dietary regimen. Every hour, he would bring an egg yolk balanced precariously on a spoon to pour into Aamir’s mouth. This, a rather strange ritual, went about in a very matter-of-fact way.
All evening, Aamir regaled us with anecdotes about the co-stars, producers, directors he had worked with, and his family with great candour. He told us that when Tahir Hussain (Aamir’s producer-father) offered Jeetendra a double-role, Jumping Jack quipped: “Mujhse ek role ki acting to hoti nahin hai, double role kaise karoonga!” He said he watched few films, but read a lot. He didn’t think much of Sholay or any other film—save his own.
Our adda eventually thinned out and I could feel the star becoming more at ease. But I could also sense a rancour. Aamir could not hide his disappointment that he was still not regarded like a Amitabh Bachchan or a Dilip Kumar despite two decades of stardom and a dozen runaway hits. Ghajini, Taare Zameen Par and 3 Idiots had not yet happened; another Khan was King.
Aamir felt Shahrukh Khan managed the media very well, giving the impression that SRK’s movies were all superhits. He rattled off box-office figures to prove that all of his movies had fared better than SRK’s. The Aamir Khan I was now chatting with had shades of Satyajit Ray’s protagonist Arindam Mukherjee, played by Uttam Kumar, in Nayak. A superstar at the helm of stardom, struggling to be at peace with himself.
I then advance a meek defence, saying, “Outlook has put you on its cover twice.” To which Aamir charged, “But India Today had me on its cover three times.” I said, “Look Aamir, the dignity and gravitas you bring with the characters you play and the high probity you display in public life makes you the modern-day Balraj Sahni, a fine actor and an exemplary citizen.”
The moment he heard the B-word, Aamir’s expression changed from an accommodative amiability to a grim grey.
By way of placation, I attempted another salvo. “When Amitabh Bachchan, hailing from a literary family, wanted to join the debauched film industry, his first director in Saat Hindustani, K.A. Abbas, cited Balraj Sahni to AB’s father Harivanshrai: ‘An industry with which a man like Balraj Sahni could associate himself, your son too should be able to survive honourably’,” I said.
Aamir saw red. He was not aspiring to be Balraj Sahni. He was a superstar and he wanted to be accorded his rightful place. Saat saal baad, surely he has got it?
Bishwadeep Moitra is executive editor, Outlook
Aamir came across like the character he had played in Dil Chahta Hai, charmingly unassuming. He took his wife Kiran Rao’s environmental concerns seriously. When she objected to the engine of our monstrous safari jeep idling every time we stopped for a sighting in the 7,400-acre Wild Oak park, Aamir dutifully went up to the driver and asked him to switch the engine off.
Finally, after doing our bit to save the world in three sessions, we had some time to luxuriate at the sprawling facility. All of us had been allotted chalets to be shared with a fellow delegate. Aamir and Kiran, of course, had been given a chalet of their own, complete with a swimming pool and a sauna. They very generously invited some of us to hang out in their chalet. And what an afternoon it turned out to be.
Aamir’s entourage consisted of a three-member personal staff. A bodyguard who doubled as a physical trainer, another who did his suitcases, and a third who was his feeder (read on). Aamir was about to shoot for Ghajini and had to look big and brawny. Mr Feeder’s job was to make sure Aamir followed the dietary regimen. Every hour, he would bring an egg yolk balanced precariously on a spoon to pour into Aamir’s mouth. This, a rather strange ritual, went about in a very matter-of-fact way.
All evening, Aamir regaled us with anecdotes about the co-stars, producers, directors he had worked with, and his family with great candour. He told us that when Tahir Hussain (Aamir’s producer-father) offered Jeetendra a double-role, Jumping Jack quipped: “Mujhse ek role ki acting to hoti nahin hai, double role kaise karoonga!” He said he watched few films, but read a lot. He didn’t think much of Sholay or any other film—save his own.
Our adda eventually thinned out and I could feel the star becoming more at ease. But I could also sense a rancour. Aamir could not hide his disappointment that he was still not regarded like a Amitabh Bachchan or a Dilip Kumar despite two decades of stardom and a dozen runaway hits. Ghajini, Taare Zameen Par and 3 Idiots had not yet happened; another Khan was King.
Aamir felt Shahrukh Khan managed the media very well, giving the impression that SRK’s movies were all superhits. He rattled off box-office figures to prove that all of his movies had fared better than SRK’s. The Aamir Khan I was now chatting with had shades of Satyajit Ray’s protagonist Arindam Mukherjee, played by Uttam Kumar, in Nayak. A superstar at the helm of stardom, struggling to be at peace with himself.
I then advance a meek defence, saying, “Outlook has put you on its cover twice.” To which Aamir charged, “But India Today had me on its cover three times.” I said, “Look Aamir, the dignity and gravitas you bring with the characters you play and the high probity you display in public life makes you the modern-day Balraj Sahni, a fine actor and an exemplary citizen.”
The moment he heard the B-word, Aamir’s expression changed from an accommodative amiability to a grim grey.
By way of placation, I attempted another salvo. “When Amitabh Bachchan, hailing from a literary family, wanted to join the debauched film industry, his first director in Saat Hindustani, K.A. Abbas, cited Balraj Sahni to AB’s father Harivanshrai: ‘An industry with which a man like Balraj Sahni could associate himself, your son too should be able to survive honourably’,” I said.
Aamir saw red. He was not aspiring to be Balraj Sahni. He was a superstar and he wanted to be accorded his rightful place. Saat saal baad, surely he has got it?
Bishwadeep Moitra is executive editor, Outlook
Saturday 12 May 2012
An Article against MBAs
Bloodless bean-counters rule over us – where are the leaders?
The inexorable march of the managerialists is creating resentment and social division.
Charles Moore in The Telegraph
Recently, a man got in touch with me who works for the defence services contractor QinetiQ. He wanted to complain about the way it was run. The company, in his view, suffers from “managerialism”.
Managerialists, he says, are “a group who consider themselves separate from
the organisations they join”. They are not interested in the content of the
work their organisation performs. They are a caste of people who think they
know how to manage. They have studied “The 24-hour MBA”. There is a clear
benefit from their management, for them: they arrange their own very high
salaries and bonuses. Then they can leave quickly with something that looks
good on the CV. The benefit to the company is less clear.
I also spoke to a former senior employee of QinetiQ. He corroborated my informant’s points with gusto. He said managerialists were particularly unsuited to industries such as QinetiQ’s, where scientific knowledge is all. He put it simply: “People who are making bits of technology, or servicing them, should know about technology.”
Skills are not infinitely transferable. “You used to be the editor of a broadsheet newspaper,” he said to me. “How do you think a former chief executive of Ford would perform if he suddenly came and edited a national title?” (or, he politely didn’t say, if the reverse were to happen).
The lack of knowledge at the top of a firm obviously creates a practical problem – “You don’t have people to get under the bonnet. They can only kick the tyres and change the oil.” They don’t understand the needs of the core customer. It also, in his view, creates a moral problem. The workers cannot respect their bosses. Management becomes “not symbiotic, but parasitic”.
I do not know whether these men are right about QinetiQ. I have no experience
of the company and no technical expertise. One must also allow for the fact
that, in any organisation, there are people with axes to grind. But I did
find the way they talked striking. It seemed to accord with so many things I
hear about life in so many organisations.
It is a big complaint, for example, about the modern National Health Service. Nowadays, on the dubious principle that all businesses and services are essentially the same, managers are a non-medical breed. The effect can be laughable. I heard of a case in which the managers told the doctors in a big hospital to save money by sending all their instruments away to a centralised off-site sterilising unit. Fine, said one mischievous consultant, but in that case may I have a second set of instruments so that I can work on my patients in emergencies? The managers, having no idea about his instruments, thought he probably could. “That’ll be £2 million then,” he said.
Comparable problems afflict the Armed Forces. They have fought several wars in the past 15 years, dealing with a Ministry of Defence staffed by people who know nothing about war. More generally in the Civil Service, it has become common to reduce specialist skills – language training in the Foreign Office, for example – and to move able people around from department to department. The present permanent secretary of the Home Office had never worked there before she took her present post at the beginning of last year. Since it is a department of fantastic complexity, it is perhaps not surprising that it has recently taken a series of tumbles on such issues as deportations and borders.
You find this hollowing-out everywhere. In schools, the head who does not teach is now a familiar, indeed dominant figure. University vice-chancellors, instead of being dons who move from their subject into administration for a period of their lives, are now virtually lifelong managers, with hugely increased salaries to match. It is even commonplace for charities to be run by people with no commitment to the charity’s specific purpose, but proud possession of what they call the necessary “skill-sets”, such as corporate governance.
With the rise of the managerialist comes a special language – a weird combination of semi-spiritual banality (“unlocking energies”), euphemism, and legalese. If you want to see the difference between people steeped in their trade and people steeped in managerialism, compare the testimony, at the Leveson Inquiry, of the Murdochs, father and son. The wicked old man spoke in the language, simultaneously sharp and blunt, of people who know and run their business. The evasive son adopted the locutions taught in business-school courses, honed by big law firms, footnoted by anxious compliance officers.
My friend at QinetiQ draws my attention to some of the usages which predominate where managerialism rules. The system of internal communications becomes a platform not for sharing knowledge but for propaganda. Human Resources invent things like the Personal Improvement Programme, which is really a means of punishing staff. “Consultation”, he says, is a word meaning that managerialists “tell you what they are going to do, 30 days before they do it”.
These habits are now pervasive across industry and the public services. “Diversity” is always “celebrated”, but it never means diversity of thought. The people who tell you they are “passionate about” X or Y are usually the most bloodless ones in the outfit.
In such cultures, just as the experts, the professionals and the technicians bitterly resent the managerialists for neither understanding nor caring, so the managerialists secretly detest the professionals who, they believe, get in the way of their rationalisations. They are desperate to “let go” of such people. Very unhappy organisations result.
A few weeks ago, after Dr Rowan Williams had given notice of his retirement as Archbishop of Canterbury, there was a story about his potential successor, Dr John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York. Dr Sentamu’s critics, apparently, had been saying that he was too much like an African tribal chief. Friends of Dr Sentamu were angry at what they saw as a racial slur.
But it struck me that the qualities of a tribal chief are now shockingly rare in big modern organisations. They might be just the job, and not only for the poor old C of E. The point about a tribe is that it unites its members by ties that are very hard to break. Tribalism, for sure, can be a bad thing, but a tribe understands matters of life and death. It recognises the importance of yesterday and tomorrow as much as today. It maintains the interest of the whole over that of a particular part. The chief of the tribe is not a manager: he is a leader.
No one sensible thinks that a large organisation can exist without being managed. Old stagers in companies, regiments, professions and, in my own experience, newspapers, easily over-romanticise their achievements and are unfair about the poor “bean-counters” who make the sums add up. But management should not dominate. As Lord Slim, who brilliantly led the British Army through the Burma campaign, put it: “Managers are necessary; leaders are essential.” We now have unprecedented numbers of the former, not so many of the latter.
Because, since the credit crunch, Everything Is Different Now, this problem is causing real social division. It explains much of the rage about executive pay. It is not so much the numerical difference between the top and the bottom which causes the anger, as the sense about why that difference exists. It has been arranged by the managerialists. It may even be the chief purpose of the managerialists’ working lives, as they edge towards the exit with the largest portable share of the takings available.
It is a big complaint, for example, about the modern National Health Service. Nowadays, on the dubious principle that all businesses and services are essentially the same, managers are a non-medical breed. The effect can be laughable. I heard of a case in which the managers told the doctors in a big hospital to save money by sending all their instruments away to a centralised off-site sterilising unit. Fine, said one mischievous consultant, but in that case may I have a second set of instruments so that I can work on my patients in emergencies? The managers, having no idea about his instruments, thought he probably could. “That’ll be £2 million then,” he said.
Comparable problems afflict the Armed Forces. They have fought several wars in the past 15 years, dealing with a Ministry of Defence staffed by people who know nothing about war. More generally in the Civil Service, it has become common to reduce specialist skills – language training in the Foreign Office, for example – and to move able people around from department to department. The present permanent secretary of the Home Office had never worked there before she took her present post at the beginning of last year. Since it is a department of fantastic complexity, it is perhaps not surprising that it has recently taken a series of tumbles on such issues as deportations and borders.
You find this hollowing-out everywhere. In schools, the head who does not teach is now a familiar, indeed dominant figure. University vice-chancellors, instead of being dons who move from their subject into administration for a period of their lives, are now virtually lifelong managers, with hugely increased salaries to match. It is even commonplace for charities to be run by people with no commitment to the charity’s specific purpose, but proud possession of what they call the necessary “skill-sets”, such as corporate governance.
With the rise of the managerialist comes a special language – a weird combination of semi-spiritual banality (“unlocking energies”), euphemism, and legalese. If you want to see the difference between people steeped in their trade and people steeped in managerialism, compare the testimony, at the Leveson Inquiry, of the Murdochs, father and son. The wicked old man spoke in the language, simultaneously sharp and blunt, of people who know and run their business. The evasive son adopted the locutions taught in business-school courses, honed by big law firms, footnoted by anxious compliance officers.
My friend at QinetiQ draws my attention to some of the usages which predominate where managerialism rules. The system of internal communications becomes a platform not for sharing knowledge but for propaganda. Human Resources invent things like the Personal Improvement Programme, which is really a means of punishing staff. “Consultation”, he says, is a word meaning that managerialists “tell you what they are going to do, 30 days before they do it”.
These habits are now pervasive across industry and the public services. “Diversity” is always “celebrated”, but it never means diversity of thought. The people who tell you they are “passionate about” X or Y are usually the most bloodless ones in the outfit.
In such cultures, just as the experts, the professionals and the technicians bitterly resent the managerialists for neither understanding nor caring, so the managerialists secretly detest the professionals who, they believe, get in the way of their rationalisations. They are desperate to “let go” of such people. Very unhappy organisations result.
A few weeks ago, after Dr Rowan Williams had given notice of his retirement as Archbishop of Canterbury, there was a story about his potential successor, Dr John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York. Dr Sentamu’s critics, apparently, had been saying that he was too much like an African tribal chief. Friends of Dr Sentamu were angry at what they saw as a racial slur.
But it struck me that the qualities of a tribal chief are now shockingly rare in big modern organisations. They might be just the job, and not only for the poor old C of E. The point about a tribe is that it unites its members by ties that are very hard to break. Tribalism, for sure, can be a bad thing, but a tribe understands matters of life and death. It recognises the importance of yesterday and tomorrow as much as today. It maintains the interest of the whole over that of a particular part. The chief of the tribe is not a manager: he is a leader.
No one sensible thinks that a large organisation can exist without being managed. Old stagers in companies, regiments, professions and, in my own experience, newspapers, easily over-romanticise their achievements and are unfair about the poor “bean-counters” who make the sums add up. But management should not dominate. As Lord Slim, who brilliantly led the British Army through the Burma campaign, put it: “Managers are necessary; leaders are essential.” We now have unprecedented numbers of the former, not so many of the latter.
Because, since the credit crunch, Everything Is Different Now, this problem is causing real social division. It explains much of the rage about executive pay. It is not so much the numerical difference between the top and the bottom which causes the anger, as the sense about why that difference exists. It has been arranged by the managerialists. It may even be the chief purpose of the managerialists’ working lives, as they edge towards the exit with the largest portable share of the takings available.
Thursday 10 May 2012
The Five Best Ever Spinners according to Ashley Mallett
Ashley Mallett in Cricinfo
Shane Warne's
star illuminated the cricket firmament, inspiring generations with the
majesty of his art. When Warne reigned supreme on the Test stage, you'd
see kids in the park and in the nets trying to emulate him. They got
the saunter right, but what they didn't see was Warne's amazing
strength, drive and energy through the crease. Watching him, it all
looked so easy. They would emulate his approach, release the ball, and
more times than not watch it disappear out of the park. There was a
general lack of understanding about energy and drive through the crease.
Warne turned up just when we all thought legspin had gone the way of the
dinosaurs, who were bounced out when Earth failed to duck a hail of
meteors. Sir Donald Bradman said Warne's legspin was the best thing to
happen to Australian cricket in more than 30 years. I, along with
thousands of television viewers, watched transfixed as Warne weaved his
magic. Poor Mike Gatting, poor, hapless Daryll Cullinan.
I was in the South African dressing room when Warne destroyed them with 6 for 34 in their second innings at the SCG in 1998. And we all remember the time he got seven wickets for 50-odd at the MCG
against West Indies, getting Richie Richardson with a flipper. Before
that grand performance, which sparked his career, the camera focused on
Warne in the field, and Bill Lawry said on air: "Now there's a young man
who won't get much bowling today." The Phantom was right: Warne bowled
23 overs; not a lot of work for a slow bowler, but that was all he had
to get seven wickets.
Warne's genius got him 708 wickets in 145 Tests. His physical skills were matched by an incredibly strong mind. He was frequently in a lot of controversy off the cricket field, but he managed to focus totally on his cricket when it mattered on the field of play. As with Don Bradman and Garry Sobers, he was a cricketing phenomenon.
The Indian offspinner Erapalli Prasanna
was a small, rotund chap, with little hands and stubby fingers. Not the
size of hand you'd think would be able to give a cricket ball
tremendous purchase.
Pras, as he was affectionately called, bounced up to the wicket and got
very side-on. He was short, so he tended to toss the ball up, and he
spun it so hard it hummed. Unlike the majority of spinners, he could
entice you forward with tantalising flight or force you back, and often
got a batsman trapped on the crease. His changes of pace weren't always
as subtle as Warne's, but Pras broke the rhythm of batsmen better than
any spinner I've seen - especially with that quicker ball, which
perplexed the best players of spin bowling in his era.
He possessed a mesmerising quality in that he seemed to have the ball on
a string. You'd play forward and find yourself way short of where you
expected the ball to pitch. In Madras once, I thought I'd take him on
and advanced down the wicket only, to my horror, find that Pras had
pulled hard on the "string" and I was miles short of where the ball
pitched. I turned, expecting to see Farokh Engineer remove the bails,
only to see the ball, having hit a pothole, climb over the keeper's head
for four byes.
Pras was one of the few spinners to worry the life out of Ian Chappell,
for he could trap him on the crease or lure him forward at will. Doug
Walters, on the other hand, played the offspinners better than most -
perhaps because his bat came down at an angle and the more you spun it,
the more likely it was to hit the middle of his bat.
In 49 Tests Prasanna took 189 wickets at an average of 30.38. For a
spinner who played a lot on the turning tracks of India, his average is
fairly tall, but Pras was a wicket-taker and he took risks, inviting the
batsman to hit him into the outfield. He always believed that if the
batsman was taking him on and trying to hit him while he was spinning
hard, dipping and curving the ball, he would have the final word.
For his tremendous performances in Australia in 1967-68, I place Prasanna if not above, at least on par with another genius offspinner, the Sri Lankan wizard Muttiah Muralitharan.
Murali's Test figures beggar belief - 133 matches for 800 wickets at
22.72, with 67 bags of five wickets or more (though, for some reason, he
didn't shine in Australia).
He operated from very wide on the crease - which would inhibit the
ordinary offie - but got so much work on the ball and a tremendous
breadth of turn that he got away with bowling from that huge angle. At
times he operated from round the wicket to get an away drift. Murali had
the doosra, which fooled most batsmen, although the smart ones knew
that his offbreak was almost certainly going to be a fair way outside
the line of off stump to a right-hander and that the doosra would come
on a much straighter line.
| His changes of pace weren't always as subtle as Warne's, but Prasanna broke the rhythm of batsmen better than any spinner I've seen | |||
Saqlain Mushtaq lost his way over the doosra, the delivery he created,
because he ended up bowling everything on too straight a line, and thus
his offbreak became far less effective at the end of the career than it
was when he began.
As with Saqlain and Warne, Murali made good use of his front foot. When
any spinner gets his full body weight over his braced front leg at the
point of release, he achieves maximum revolutions.
As a youngster Murali attended the famous St Anthony's College in Kandy,
and every Sunday morning he trained under the tutelage of Sunil
Fernando. Ruwan Kalpage, who also trained under Fernando at the time,
and is the current Sri Lankan fielding coach, maintains that Murali
always had the same action that he took into big cricket.
As with Warne, when bowling, Murali had an extraordinary area of danger,
as big an area as your average dinner table. The likes of Ashley Giles,
say, on the other hand, who didn't spin the ball very hard, needed to
be super accurate, for their area of danger was about as a big as a
dinner plate in contrast.
The key to spin bowling is not where the ball lands but how the ball
arrives to the batsman. As with Warne and Prasanna, when Murali bowled,
the ball came with a whirring noise and after striking the pitch rose
with venom. Throughout his career and beyond there has been that nagging
doubt about the legitimacy of Murali's action, but the ICC has cleared
him and that is why I place him among the best five spinners I've seen.
My No. 4 is Derek Underwood,
the England left-arm bowler, who has to be categorised as a spinner,
although he operated at about slow-medium and cut the ball rather than
spun it in the conventional left-arm orthodox manner. On good wickets
Lock was a superior bowler to Underwood, but on underprepared or
rain-affected wickets, the man from Kent was lethal.
He had a lengthy approach, a brisk ten or so paces, with a rather
old-fashioned duck-like gait, and a hunter's attitude, along with a keen
eye for a batsman's weakness. In August 1968, Underwood demolished Bill
Lawry's Australian team on the last day of the fifth Test.
Heavy rain gave the Australians hope of escaping with a draw and so
winning the series 1-0. But Underwood swooped after tea and cut them
down, taking 7 for 50.
|
|||
A week later he joined John Inverarity, Greg Chappell (who had just
completed a season with Somerset) and me on Frank Russell's Cricketers
Club of London tour of West Germany. We stayed in a British Army camp
just outside the old city of Mönchengladbach. We played a cricket match
against the army, using an artificial pitch and welded steel uprights
doubled for stumps.
A huge West Indian came to the crease and we pleaded with Deadly to
"throw one up". Having faced him over five Tests in England, where his
slower ball was about the speed of Basil D'Oliveira's medium-pacers, we
were keen to see how the batsman - any batsman - would react, when
Underwood gave the ball some air. He eventually did. As the ball left
his hand we could see a hint of a smile on the batsman's face. The ball
disappeared and was never retrieved. Underwood's face was a flush of red
as he let the next ball go, and what a clang it made as it hit those
steel uprights, while the West Indian's bat was still on the downswing!
Apart from his destructive ability on bad or rain-affected tracks,
Underwood was also a brilliant foil for the fast bowlers on hard
wickets. He kept things tight as a drum when bowing in tandem with John
Snow during Ray Illingworth's successful 1970-71 Ashes campaign Down
Under.
My fifth choice might surprise some for I've gone for Graeme Swann, the best of the modern torchbearers for spin bowling.
I first saw him with Gareth Batty and Monty Panesar, fellow spin
hopefuls, in Adelaide in the early 2000s. Swann had energy through the
crease, he spun hard, and he tried to get people out. At that time some
of the coaches leaned towards Panesar and I couldn't understand it, for
Swann wasn't just a fine offspinner, he could bat when he put his mind
to it, and he was an exceptional slip fieldsman. In comparison Panesar
did not seem to have the same resolve or the cricketing nous.
When he was finally recognised as a top-flight spinner, Swann proved
himself straightaway. He was 29 years old when he played his first Test,
against India in 2008-09, and in the four-odd years since, he has
played 41 Tests, taking 182 wickets at 27.97. Swann doesn't have the
doosra, but he does have the square-spinner, which looks like an offie
but skids on straight, and he can beat either side of the right-hander's
bat.
There's a cheerful chirpiness about him that may annoy his opponents,
but that is part of his make-up, just as the aggression of a Bill
O'Reilly, or the cold stare of Warne, helped them dominate batsmen.
Statistically Swann's record so far compares well with Jim Laker's (193
wickets at 21.24 from 46 Tests) and Tony Lock (49 Tests - 174 wickets at
25.58 with 9 five-wicket hauls).
There are lots of good spinners who I have had to omit, including Lock,
Laker, Abdul Qadir, Lance Gibbs, Richie Benaud, Daniel Vettori, Anil
Kumble, Sonny Ramadhin, Intikhab Alam, John Emburey, Pat Pocock, Ray
Illingworth, Fred Titmus and Stuart MacGill. But the five I did pick -
Warne, Prasanna, Murali, Underwood and Swann - would do well against any
batsmen in any era.
Wednesday 9 May 2012
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