Reinforce the values of modern India

India certainly feels endorsed  as a emerging global power after Obama’s visit , but at home it needs to reinforce the  values that are significant to the idea of India itself to sustain its global image.

Now the dust has settled after president Barak Obama’s much celebrated visit as a chief guest for India’s republic day parade, it is imperative to look at how the new found friendship between president Obama and prime minister Modi resonates amongst the ordinary Indians.

It is a little secret that despite India’s subdued relationship with the US during the Cold War era -which began with Nehru’s discomfort  with the US’ capitalism; the subsequent tilt towards Soviet Union and disagreements over wide ranging issues from Nuclear Non –Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to CTBT – for ordinary Indians, however, the United States has always been a country of awe and land of opportunities. Throughout the last six decades millions of Indians have migrated to the US, and today it is a home to as Obama puts it: “3 million proud American Indians.”  They make up the richest ethnic community in the US with a considerable political clout. 

Whilst at political level USSR and now Russia have been India’s all weather friends, this relationship has fallen short of translating into people - to- people contact. The reasons for this are many: a communist USSR was not very welcoming to outsiders, nor their economy was commercially vibrant and diverse as the US.  The fact that Indian’s readily integrated with the American way of life speak volumes about inherent value system of Indians that probably found a stronger expression in America’s identical but much advanced democratic ideals.  Indian Americans naturally prospered and today playing an important role in warming up the US- Indo ties.

 The word “natural” in the context of the US- Indo relationship has never found more symbolic expression then it did last week when the two leaders stressed that relationship between the two democracies can be a defining force in the 21^st century.

In many ways the visit by the US president was special: as a global hero with an inspiring background, Indians were happy to see him as country’s chief guest on the occasion of its republic day.  Political deals apart, prime minster Modi did well to engage the popular leader with ordinary Indians on radio. Discussing common topics about their personal likes and dislikes and reinforcement of the democratic values surely touched the chord of ordinary Indians.  Such things were never seen before but it largely underlined the encompassing significance of this relationship.  Symbolically, it also indicated US’ courtship with India - something Indians love.

 Equally significant was Obama’s speech in the Town Hall which reinforced the shared values of the two nations and an observation that “India will succeed so long as it is not splintered along lines of religious faith, along lines of anything, and is unified as one nation.”

The shared values of the world’s oldest and largest democracies find the deepest roots in India. This country is not just multi-race,  multi lingual and  multi religious but in effect a civilisation of  breath-taking contradictions that is moving forward with a sea of humanity.

Obama in his speech mentioned about his contradictions  “right now, in crowded neighbourhoods not far from here, a man is driving an auto-rickshaw, or washing somebody else’s clothes, or doing the hard work no one else will do,” he told a crowd of about 1,500 people at Siri Fort Auditorium, a performance venue that hosts art and cultural events.

India is a country that is on the course of becoming a major global power, but and also there are regions in the country where a section of the population still cut off from the modern world and there are other divisions of caste, class and extreme overty. Clearly India’s challenges are unique and it requires great understanding of history to understand Indian society.

Does Indians need to be reminded of this? Clearly yes, many affluent Indians have no idea about these contradictions. A respected television news editor recently frowned on me for the stories I was covering for the international media. He said issues like human trafficking and modern –day slavery is not news. “We have internalised these issues”, he said. 

For India to find a respected place in the world India will have to uplift its poor and change its attitude towards people who are not that privileged. For this to happen, a strong leadership is needed that can stand up and defend the supreme values of the country’s constitution premised on justice , equality , liberty and fraternity.

It is in safeguarding these values and promoting the fundamental rights can India ensure an all round development for its citizens and find its glory in the world.

Gift toilets ... from Badaun

Badaun shows many problems that rural India faces- lack of toilets is one of them. 


Katra  Shadat Ganj in Badaun district in Uttar Pradesh is approximately 293 kilometres from New Delhi. 

The remote village sits in between sprawling green and yellow agricultural land. The area is known for its mangoes. It is here, a couple of months back two teenage girls were raped and hanged to a tree, when they went out to relieve themselves in the open.

54% households (408 out of 750 households) have never had toilets in this village.   According to the government census 2011, half of India’s population (around 600 million) don’t have toilets at home.

The incident had lead to a renewed global outcry over the growing incidents of rape in India. Two months down the line, the sleepy and poverty-ridden village is witnessing a flurry of construction work.  The village is getting toilets – thanks to Sulabh international that has decided to build toilets for every household following the horrific incident.

The toilets could soon act as one of the vital life-changing agent for the villagers.  Rushina Begum, 35 years, is a mother of three daughters. The eldest daughter, Chandi is 14 years old.  For Rushina, the biggest worry is the safety of her three daughters. “There is a fear in my heart following the incident; I personally take my daughters to the field”, she says.

The new toilet in their courtyard is going to change their lives. “We are vey happy, we can’t wait to use the toilet”, says Chandi.

The Sulabh toilets are sleek, concrete structures, finished with ceramic tiles, has waterproofing cement paints and aluminium doors.

The project engineer, Ramesh Misra explains that the $ 700 toilets that Sulabh is building suit the local conditions. “The soil is sandy and has high moisture”, he says.

Sulabh International is India’s largest NGO that has been working in the field of sanitation for over four decades.  Its founder Dr Bindeshwar Pathak pioneered a two- pit technology that is affordable, culturally acceptable and can be easily built under any conditions.  The technology can be further used to harness biogas and produce fertilizer from human excreta.

Sulabh expanded the concept of public toilets in India. Today, it maintains 8000 public toilets and constructed over1.3 million household toilets. Its ground-breaking innovation is seen as one of the biggest social movements in contemporary India. 

Sulabh, under the leadership of Dr Bindesheswar Pathak has a vision to provide toilets for every household by 2019, something shared by the newly elected prime minister of India, Narendra Modi, who during the election campaign echoed “ toilets first, temples later.”

However, dealing with India’s sanitation problem will require challenging the mind-set and changing social habits.

Dr Pathak says, “not having toilets in not directly linked with poverty. Lack of education for a vast majority of population means that people don’t have basic sense of sanitation, healthcare and hygiene.”

It’s true: across north India, where the problem of open defecation is rampant, some villagers have concrete and even big houses but the men running the household don’t feel that toilet is necessary.

Getting every household to use toilets will require motivation at one level, but more importantly this shameful habit speaks volumes how miserably India  has failed to educate its population.

Modi and South Asia

 Engaging with South Asia should be one of the key objectives of India's new foreign policy

Narendra Modi, India’s new prime minister, has assumed office in style.  Those who have been following him through the election campaign know that he is great in raising expectations. His speeches were powerful:  loaded with cliches of dynamism, development and growth that sparked the excitement of the crowd wherever he went. It gave them hope for change that India desperately needs.  This created the ‘Modi wave’, and it has successfully propelled the 63 year old to become India’s most powerful man.

The ‘Modi  wave’ didn't stop there.  No one really expected that he would fire his first salvo at India’s foreign policy by inviting the leaders of South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) - India’s immediate neighbours- on his oath taking ceremony in New Delhi.  This well thought out plan took the entire south Asian region and the world by surprise. From Kabul to Dhaka, people were  jerked to take notice of the man who is going to take charge of the region’s most dynamic economy.  With the presence of Pakistan’s Prime Minister, at this historic moment, Mr Modi turned his swearing in ceremony into a grand international event.

The Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif must also be appreciated for seizing this opportunity to come down to India and give a fresh momentum to the stalled Indo- Pakistan peace process. It was under his and then India’s then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s leadership (also from Modi’s BJP party) in 1999 that concrete efforts were made to improve the ties between the two countries, and a bus service was started between Delhi and Lahore. The efforts were later thwarted by the Kargil war. Mr Sharif now promises ‘to pick up the threads’.

The invitation of rest of the south Asian leaders sends out an important signal. The countries that make up SAARC(India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Maldives, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka)  are historically and  culturally connected to India. But over  the years,  due to a combination of factors that includes India’s  neglect  of the region coupled with high –handed attitude  meant that  India’s relationship with some of its neighbours, particularly Bangladesh,  have been patchy. India’s lukewarm engagement with its neighbours has made these countries to turn to China for economic help. The Chinese have been generous in dolling out millions for  infrastructure projects in Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh. There is growing Chinese expats in Nepal, and not to mention about China’s ‘all weather’ friendship with Pakistan. New Delhi has been nervous about Chinese presence in India’s backward . Strategic experts warn of India being surrounded by the ‘string of pearls’.

India’s long term security and economic stability largely depends on the prosperity of its neighbours. As India’s economy grows, the region as a whole must benefit from it.  It is also important the countries must work together to fight the scourge of extreme poverty, climate change, human trafficking, drugs, insurgency, terrorism, migration,  HIV and other diseases. These are shared problems and have a knock on effect on each other. The  solutions have to found locally as they have a direct bearing on a common man.

Narendra Modi has demonstrated great statesmanship by inviting the SAARC leaders on the first day of his term. How will this translate in to action is difficult to say but it’s a great start. South Asia needs vision and a leadership and above all an environment of trust.  India as a powerful and big country  under leadership of Modi might want to show magnanimity by engaging constructively with its neighbours, and hopefully other countries will respond. This should be in the interest of the people that make up one fifth of the world’s population, majority of which lives with an income of less than $2 a day.

  

Why Facebook 'likes' matter to politicians?

Social media seems to be have caught up the imagination of political leaders in India, and, like everything else in Indian politics, it has sparked a new controversy. 

Indian media reports say that Indian politicians are ‘faking’ it online. A news report on NDTV- an English national news channel- says that number of ‘likes’ on the Facebook page of the Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has suddenly doubled in just a month (216049 likes). Interestingly, the report says the most number of ‘likes’ have been clicked not in his home state, or in India, but in Istanbul! India’s opposition party the BJP has accused the Congress chief minster of buying the ‘likes’.  

The use of social media by political parties and governments are increasingly becoming popular across the world. The Chilean government was one of the first to broadcast press releases on Twitter. The US State Department, for example, actively engages with its audience by organizing a series on events on its Facebook page. It allows the audience to directly interact with key figures in the US political circle.

Following Mr. Kerry’s visit to India, the US Department of State organized a Facebook event titled “India and America: A Defining Partnership of the 21^st Century”, where Ambassador Robert O Blake directly took questions from the audience all over the world. It was an example of reaching out and directly engaging with the most important stakeholder “the people”.  This is probably one of the major advantages of using social media: to be able to interact directly with the audience.

In India, the Gujarat’s chief minister, Narendra Modi has been on the forefront of integrating various digital media tools. His dynamic website www.narendamodi.in is rich in content, and his social engagements and agendas are actively posted on Facebook and Twitter. His public speeches are instantly put on YouTube.

Social media tools are a great way of communicating with the public. It obviates the traditional modes of communication, and the public, in turn, can directly interact with their leader.

If a person’s query is responded to on social media platform, it can help create a favorable image for the party and of  the politician.  The follower feels acknowledged and derives satisfaction.

Managing digital reputation

Imagine a situation where a, voter is undecided whom to vote for. He might simply Google the name of the leader to make up his mind based on the content the search result generates. It can simply influence his decision. However, in absolute terms more Facebook 'like' doesn't mean more votes! 

Can the search result be managed, manipulated or controlled? Yes, to a certain degree by putting a massive content on the website, blog and on other social media platforms.  Google is more likely to toss up information on the top of a page if the ‘subject’ or the ‘topic’ is invariably linked to social media sites.

The manner in which Google optimization works, it is likely that the content on Facebook, Twitter, blog or website will show up on the top of a page. In public relations, the strategy adopted for maintaining such an outcome is called digital reputation management.

Many politicians and corporates hire PR firms both in India and abroad to manage their digital reputation.  Flooding the internet with positive information on a topic or a person and then maximizing it with  ‘hits’ can push existing negative reports on the back pages of a Google search.

 For example, if you type ‘Narendra Modi’, you are likely to notice that his website will appear above a popular news website that carries his name on that day.  His Twitter, Wikipedia, Facebook and YouTube will also be ranked amongst the top ten pages.  A general search on Modi will not show anything that is negative about him. It is precisely for this reason the politicians like to have more followers on their Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Sometimes, smart PR companies dispatch hundreds of not very relevant press releases to smaller targeted news organizations. Once these smaller organizations publish the release online, it can be used as a reference to make a Wikipedia entry- another website that Google loves. (In Wikipedia every sentence requires reference.)

In India, the use of the Internet and smart phones are growing phenomenally. Creative digital videos and smart management of social media tools will soon become an important tool for campaigning.  If done wisely, it will have a decisive say in the over outcome of elections results in the years to come. Let the cyber war begin!