Re: Fwd: Fwd: [SAJA] Shortcut to Setting Things Right?

[Sanjeev Sabhlok <sabhlok@almaak.usc.edu>]

Dear Kush,

Thanks for the rather entertainingly written piece by Masud Akhtar on the
Ganguly incident.

Now, more to the point: I think we can argue about it ad-nauseum, but the
fact remains that each of these three South Asian models have adopted the
Fabian Socialiast model, through their actions, which are amazingly
similar: nationalization, government subsidies, huge bureaucracies handed
down from British times but not improved, etc. There are also major
commonalities in feudalism.

There are two systems that each nation has: one is the political and the
other economic. Pakistan and Indonesia both are islamic nations, but the
economic systems are quite different. I have no dispute with India's
political system (which I think is one of the best, perhaps); my dispute
is with its economic system.

I would also request you to look at the title of the book I am writing: It
reads: "How to become rich and powerful: A Primer for the Citizens of
Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh." I write so for a variety of reasons,
primarily, though, that each of these nations has a socialistic
underpinning of government control and command over business, and need to
eradicate this "Disease."

In my view the urge in these three nations to re-unite will become
insurmountable as soon as either Pakistan or India adopts the economic
model that leads to wealth creation. So far, we are not quite bothered if
the USA or Australia becomes rich, or even if Singapore becomes rich. But
let us see what happens to each common man of India if Pakistan becomes 20
times richer than India. There will be a complete transformation of the
polemic of Islamic-non-islamic, etc. We are brothers, and when one brother
finds the way to become rich (and hence powerful), the other brother will
join hands in a big way. It is only when brothers are poor that the kind
of bickering we see will go on. 

I repeat my fundamental argument: I see no evidence in the history of the
species called homo sapiens to see a mutation of genes that led to South
Asians becoming corrupt and to the Westerns becoming honest. There are
systemic causes (Kush and I agree on that, I think). What system? Clearly,
the system of government intervention in business and in individual
decision making. What do you call that system? 

Well, call it anything you like, and let us move on to more important
issues. I am not a mouth piece of capitalism. I am only using these black
and white terms to distinguish the fundamental features of the alternative
systems, but if you like, I can abandon all these words and move on.

Our people cannot be made rich by words, but by specific actions, and let
us focus on those actions, on which I see we mostly agree.

Sanjeev.
***************************************************************************

On Fri, 24 Apr 1998, Kush Khatri wrote:

> 
> I got the following from the South Asian Journalist Association (SAJA)
> discussion list.  Although the Pakistani journalist who wrote this
> does not mention  the name it is about S. Ganguly.  It directly
> relates to what was discussed on this list about this unique suicide. 
> I am not sure where this was published but I can certainly find out if
> someone needs that information.  I liked it because it is a frank
> admission as to how corruption is as rampant in this "Islamic" country
> as it is in "socialist" secular India.  In a way supports my point
> that corruption has nothing to do with ideology.   Kush Khatri
> 
> 
> > >Shortcut to Setting Things Right?
> > >
> > >by Masud Akhtar Shaikh
> 
> > >A young Indian engineer recently hanged himself in Calcutta as a
> protest against widespread corruption prevailing in his country. He
> took this desperate
> action after his failure to get his dead telephone restored without
> greasing the palms of the relevant Telephone and Telegraph Department
> officials. The poor 
> soul struggled for a full 20 days, trying to convince these officials
> that it was their duty to restore a subscriber's faulty telephone
> line, but they
> simply refused to oblige without the usual illegal gratification. In
> his suicide note, the man is reported to have written: "If we cannot
> fight corruption in society, it is better to die".
> > >
> > >While appreciating the spirit behind the young man's drastic
> action, one cannot resist passing a few unfavourable comments against
> him. Firstly, he must
> be an ultra-sensitive individual who went to the extent of taking his
> own life merely because of his bitter experience with just one of the
> government departments of his country. I wish he could come to
> Pakistan to see for himself how corruption has seeped deep into almost
> every government department, and how it has made even
> the most sensitive individuals utterly insensitive. Leave aside the
> illiterate common folks, even our intellectuals do not bother to take
> any notice of this
> omnipresent phenomenon. 
> > >
> It seems our long and bitter experience with corruption has taught us
> that it is in our own interest to co-exist with this evil. This is why
> nobody in
> Pakistan has ever committed suicide to protest against corruption. And
> we must thank God for that, because if we had not adopted this
> couldn't-care-less attitude, more than half of our people would have
> hanged themselves within half a century of our independent
> existence. 
> > >
> Secondly, the young Indian engineer must have been an extremely
> impatient person by nature. Apparently he did not have the endurance
> to wait for more than 20 days
> for his telephone line to be restored. Maybe the Indian T&T Department
> is so efficient that it normally does not test the patience of its
> subscribers beyond a few
> days. That would make 20 days appear to be a fairly long period for
> Indian telephone users to wait. 
> > >
> If that is the case, the Indian T&T Department is certainly pampering
> its subscribers. Let them send a high level delegation to Pakistan to
> study how long
> > >their counterparts in this part of the world make their subscribers
> wait before the faults in their telephone lines are rectified. If the
> Indian telephone
> officials go as slow as their Pakistani counterparts do, telephone
> subscribers on the other side of
> > >the Wagah border will also become accustomed to long waits. There
> will then be no more cases of suicide on account of delayed
> restoration of faulty telephone lines.
> > >
> Thirdly, the gentleman must have been eminently naive, if he believed
> that by taking his own life he could put the collective conscience of
> the Indian nation to
> shame, resulting in the launching of a nationwide campaign against
> corruption. To the best of our knowledge and belief, this is the first
> case of any
> individual committing suicide in India to protest against corruption.
> It is like the first drop of rain that by itself is never sufficient
> to soak the soil. 
> > >
> In a country inhabited by over half a billion souls, one man's life
> means nothing at all, particularly when he does not happen to be a
> person of extraordinary eminence or the brother-in-law of some VVIP.
> It would not be out of place to mention here that if a case of suicide
> of this nature had taken place in our own
> country, it would have definitely gone waste because the collective
> conscience of the Pakistani nation has long been dead. Also, we have
> been slaughtering our fellow countrymen so insensately, and in such
> large numbers, that we would hardly take any notice of
> a person hanging himself from the bough of a banyan tree, even if that
> happened right in the middle of the town.
> > >
> The Indian engineer seems to have been under the mistaken notion that
> his suicide was going to produce positive results as far as the
> elimination of
> corruption from the Indian society is concerned. It must be this
> self-assurance due to which he remained content with merely ending his
> own life, rather than taking some other measures as well, before
> hanging himself. 
> > >
> For instance, he could have exterminated a dozen or so corrupt
> officials of the department which had caused him all the mental
> torture that ultimately led him to
> take the extreme step of hanging himself. 
> > >
> Had he been wise enough to do that, he would have got some
> satisfaction for having rid the Indian society of at least those many
> corrupt individuals, before
> leaving this world forever. That would have been a good start as it
> would have acted as an effective deterrent for other corrupt elements.
> Also, all brave victims
> > >of corrupt practices in India would have got inspiration from this
> noble precedent and followed in the young engineer's footsteps. Thus,
> the ball would 
> > >have been set rolling, leading ultimately to the rooting out of the
> curse of corruption for all times to come.
> > >
> Does this unfortunate incident have any lessons for us in Pakistan? I
> have my doubts. For one, we are an Islamic state and Islam does not
> allow individuals to
> commit suicide. Secondly, We are lucky to have got a heavily mandated
> prime minister who is fully determined to rid the Pakistani society of
> the menace of corruption, despite his whole-time craze for motorways. 
> So determined is he to fulfil this mission that without taking any
> ostensible steps in that direction, he is already reported to have
> succeeded in eliminating
> corruption from the higher tiers of government. And since corruption
> always starts from the top, we can take it that nine tenths of the
> PM's mission has been
> accomplished already, within less than a year and a half. Isn't that a
> miracle in this age of science? For elimination of corruption at the
> lower levels, the fertile brain of the worthy PM has come up with the
> unique idea of Khidmat Committees.
> > >Simultaneously with their launching a few days back, these watchdog
> committees have started honing their weapons and sharpening their
> teeth in full earnest, to
> > >launch a massive operation against all corrupt officials working in
> the lower tiers of the government. 
> > >
> > >Except for a few cynics who have vowed to oppose every new idea put
> forward by Nawaz Sharif, everybody is confident that the Khidmat
> Committees will be able to work far bigger miracles than the Ehtesab
> Bureau, and that we will soon become a nation of pious bureaucrats,
> pious police officials, pious politicians,
> pious businessmen, and pious awam. Will there still be a need for
> somebody to commit suicide in Pakistan? Let us hope and pray that the
> prime minister does not
> countermand his own orders on the subject, under pressure from vested
> interests, as he has been doing ever since he took over the reins of
> government.
> > >
> 
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