The Spectator: Two is competition, Three is crowd, More is a mess???

The Spectator: Two is competition, Three is crowd, More is a mess???

Two is competition, Three is crowd, More is a mess???

Koppala constituency by-poll election result in Karnataka is out and it is yet another win for ‘Operation Kamala’ campaign.

Koppal by-poll results
Party	Candidate	Votes
BJP	Karadi Sanganna	60,405
Congress	K Basavaraj Hitnal	47,917
JD(S)	Pradeep Gowda Malipatil	20,719
Others	---------------------------------	55,959
Total number of votes: 1,85,000

It is evident that the BJP has a healthy win margin of 12488 votes. But lets look it in a different way.How many people in Koppal constituency accept the winner as their political leader or how many people think that he can represent them in Karnataka assembly?

The answer is only 60,000 people out of 1,85,00 who has voted in this by-election.

Other 1,25,000 (more than double who accept) think either he is not suitable for the job or they think some other person is more suited for this job. This calculation is true for the congress or any other candidates as well, that more people ‘dislike’ him for the job than the people ‘like’ him for the job.

Koppal is just an example here, This is likely scenario in almost all election results.

Now that brings the ‘good old’ discussion of having limit on number of candidates or number parties in our democracy.

In our democracy we have accepted that any number of eligible parties or any number of eligible candidates can contest in an election. Yes, that is the beauty of democracy that it allows diversified view points to come in every matter. Not only in election in other govt. function as well like policy making etc. (Even in judiciary, we are seeing lot of split verdicts from judges on a particular case).

But for electoral system, this flexibility of pitching in any number of candidates simply diverse the core intention which is electing a able leader.

It is not a secret that political parties give tickets to candidates based on the major caste in that constituency. That means criterion for candidature is not the quality of the person but his caste. Our electoral process is not intended to elect religious leader. We have so many other places for that. Electoral system is for electing a candidate who can represent most people in his constituency.

It is good that politicians now can not simply switch parties after they are elected by people. Like this rule, I just wish a new rule will be introduced to restrict number candidates for particular constituency election. When you have more candidates, people tends to divert their opinion (vote).

I feel, Limit of 2 or Maximum 3 candidates per constituency with O Form (option of rejecting all candidates) will allow able candidates to get ticket from the parties. I am not saying number political parties must be restricted to 2 or 3. Political parties can have allies like NDA, UPA etc to support their candidates. But number of allies and hence number of candidates should be restricted. It may put pressure on independent candidates to get support for political allies but if one person is an able and widely acceptable candidate, He will not have problems in getting support.

We as Indians are at our best when we are lead by a strong and mostly accepted leader. This may be true for people from other nations as well, but it is absolute necessity in our case because we have more points (based on caste, language, region etc) for de-linking yourself from your leader or from your team.

So when you have only 2 or 3 candidates, it will force political allies to search for the person who is more acceptable and has strong leadership capabilities. When you have capable candidates contesting election, it brings out the best.

And also I think it will encourage more people to participate in voting, especially the educated and urban class who do not vote due to lack of belief in this political system.

Admitting a Problem

Often we come across situation where people have 'problem' in accepting the real Problem.
We see people in 'denying mode' when they face some problem.

Let us look at  some of the recent issues  and the way people associated with these issues delt with them. 

 
• Govt. Handling of Anna Hajare movement.
• BCCI and Cricket Players reaction to fatigue issue.
• Delhi high court bomb blast and reaction given by concerned officials regarding security.

When Anna Hajare movement-2 started, Govt. felt they were prepared for it. So they went ahead and arrested Anna even before the protest was started.

But this step was a great mistake and fuelled the movement. But UPA was not ready to accept the fact that people are very angry and applied 'wait and watch' policy hoping protest is just a weekend drama and it will end very soon. Everyone was aware that the deadline of 15 days set by Anna was unrealistic (I think even Team Anna knew this) and passing the bill is not in govt. hand as UPA do not have the full majority.

It took 10 days to arrive at a solution that JLB will be presented in parliament and accepting\passing resolution is responsibility of the whole parliament.

In my opinion, they could have arrived at this solution after Anna's release from tihar jail itself.
By then Govt. had fair idea of size of this movement and they could have easily transfered the problem of passing the bill over to the parliament. But by dragging it for 10 days, UPA took whole blame on itself and made it a movement against the govt. But this movement was not against any particular govt. rather it was against whole corrupt political system across all parties.

Second incident was after the England series debacle, BCCI was bashed from all corners that they are very cruel on the players w.r.to scheduling the matches. But unfortunately BCCI is still in denial mode and takes defiant stand saying 'players can take rest from any series whenever they want'. But practically it is not possible for the players to take rest because of money and competition.

BCCI is not only denying this problem but also they want to prove a point by introducing more and more (half cooked) young players on international stage. This will definitely hurt team India's long term growth. It is very hard for coaching staff to concentrate and develop players when players come and go (due to injury) like passengers of a city bus!.

Third and most importantly the concerns raised regarding security threats.

We have seen numerous attacks by the terrorist groups. Things are not changing even after so many attacks. Home minister gives the statement that all necessary precautions have been taken to avoid such attacks but the fact is our security system (police and Intelligence) is too weak and lot of catch up to do to face current advanced terrorism. It is high time that our administrators admit that our fat belly police officers are neither focussed nor equipped to fight terrorism.

After each attack one or more terrorist groups claim the attack but even after so many attacks no branch of our security system admit that it is their failure which caused the attack!.

after delhi high court bomb  attack, It was very sad to see that in one of the TV shows ,a senior IPS officer was still not ready to accept that there is vigilance problem!.

Intelligence blame the police, police blame the politics.

                     Among all the issues discussed, the attitude of the concerned is same. i.e "Denying Mode". But this attitude takes longer time to solve the problem.

In our day-to-day life also we face such situations. But how many times do we admit that there is a problem?

We can take many examples in our daily life, But I have restricted myself only to generic or institutional problems in this post :-).

Admitting to a problem is easier said than done. Sometimes ego and sometimes status are the main hindrance in admitting a problem.

But Admitting to a problem in its early stage itself has two main advantages:

1. It assures the other party that you really 'care' about the problem.

In the first example given above, UPA completely lost confidence of the people.

2. It allows you to find a solution which can last longer. It will allow you to plan for long terms.

In the second and third example discussed, If concerned authorities realise that they have a potential problem, then they can think of some real solution. 
If BCCI agrees that frequent injuries are destabilising the team and they agree that too much cricket is a reason, then they can utilise the rich pool of talent in a better manner either by re-scheduling or by better rotational policy.

Similarly,  One needs to realise our security system failures and need to focus more on the problem. You need to equip policemen to fight advanced terrorism and in a country like India (with huge population), you need to avoid people forming crowd wherever it is possible. 
for ex: In delhi high court bomb blast a terrorist came and placed the bomb easily at the gate where there are lot of people standing in a queue for ticket to go inside high court. Definitely such large queues can be avoided with e-ticket or by having more counters. Later it was also found that CCTV cameras were not functioning even after bomb blast at same place before 3 months!
I heard that there is a police reform bill, which proposes many changes to our police system, infront of the Govt. But govt. has kept this bill for years but has not acted on it.

You might have heard a saying "The person who asks the question is a fool for few minutes but the person who does not ask the question is a fool forever!". I would also say "A Person who admits the problem will have problem for few minutes. but the person who does not admit it, will have the problem forever!".

Finding the solution to a problem may take some time and one needs to have proper approach for this. But realising that there is 'problem with me/us' is a huge step forward.

I just hope admitting  a problem becomes easy for everybody including me :-)

Are We Running Together?

Last 6-8 months have been eventful for Indians.
We saw India conquering the world in our beloved sports, We saw some justice made after sending few VVIPs to tihar jail, We participated and showed our anger against corruption on the street.
I felt there are few signs that shows we are heading in right direction. Well, though we have not achieved fruitful results, there are lot many things to cheer about. We are economically developing nation and these signs should encourage and push us more!

Few moments after these encouraging thoughts, My mind posed few more questions with which we are not very comfortable. These questions raised by less interesting news than the news stated above. It asked the question "Are we really heading in right direction?" if yes, "Are we really running together?"

First let us look at the less interesting news:

• Four Indians among 50 richest people on the Planet
• India does not have an entry in 'Most Liveable' cities yet
• Our proposed Anti corruption laws are regressive

Though these news have less interconnection among them, if you wear right cynical glasses you can make few points out of these news:

• We have all the potential , We have capacity to make many more riches.
  We have more billionaires than Australia and Germany put together in top 50.
• We are growing, but we are yet to create a 'Liveable' atmosphere!.
  We donot have a single Liveable city in top 100, but Australia and Germany have more than 6 cities in top 25 liveable cities!.
  It is sad but it worries even more when you consider the criterias (Stability,Healthcare ,Culture and environment ,Education ,Infrastructure) on which Liveability of cities are rated.
• When you read the full interview of Arundhati Roy, Irrespective of whether you agree with the concern she raises or not , what we need to agree upon is 'Economical inequality'.
  As she says "The real issue is what is it that has created a society in which 830 million people live on less than Rs 20 a day and you have more people and all of the poor countries of Africa put together"

These facts pose many more questions. Why do we have this scenario? who is responsible and who needs to correct this? Have our System\Policies failed to create a real growth?

We are all running very fast for grabbing thousands of opportunities offered in the world today and rightly so. But maybe this is also the time for taking a little pause and asking the question to ourselves "Are we running together?".
Because One thing is sure, We are very proud of milestones achieved by Tendulkar,Dravid. But we are more happy about 'Team India's Win!' .

Hope we will not wait until another 'Anna' to make us run together :-).