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Power
and the Vainglory UPSEB's Luddites-and an idea whose time has come
At its height, what the strike amounted to was one lakh Luddites holding to ransom an entire state and an idea whose time has come. If the Government had succumbed to such blackmail, it may as well have said goodbye to the future. Public-sector unions -- whether at bleeding coal companies or in clogged dockyards -- would have gone on the rampage. The world, the World Bank at any rate, would simply have walked away -- leaving India an autarkic swamp. The Government's job stops not just at breaking the strike. It has to ensure that the autonomy for the UPSEB's three successor corporations is foolproof, that they are manned by technocrats rather than babus who have little better to do. Revolutions don't happen; they are made to. Cricket on the Couch Forget Tendulkar, take a look at the entire Indian attitude to the game
To the English who invented it, cricket was not a game -- it was an institution. This status was not unique, being true of an overwhelmingly popular social pastime in any country. A game, in this situation, ceases to remain merely a game; it acquires a culture, a civilising mission. To Indians cricket is about victory and defeat, not about appreciating nuances or shaping sensibilities. Nor is it a medium to look within the national character. This explains the failure to recognise that a love for India -- as reflected in the belief that it must win every match it plays -- is not necessarily antithetical to cherishing the virtues of cricket. No wonder a drubbing of Kenya in the maddening heat of an Indian summer is preferable to losing to brilliant Australians away from home. This translates into zero pressure on the cricket board to modernise and overcome the system's inadequacies. As Sachin Tendulkar's battered squad flies back, it knows it needs just one victory against some cannon-fodder like opponent to be forgiven. That's the tragedy. |
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By taking a tough stand on the
strike called by the employees of the Uttar Pradesh State Electricity
Board (UPSEB) the state and Union governments have done a great service to
the reformist spirit and the quest for a genuine work culture. This is a
therapy required not just in Uttar Pradesh but across the country. The
UPSEB is a gigantic cash-guzzling machine. It spends over Rs 500 crore
every month in salaries and other establishment costs. Two of every five
units of power it generates are lost in transmission or distribution --
pilfered by non-paying consumers in collaboration with corrupt linesmen.
It is no surprise therefore that the UPSEB loses Rs 50 crore every week.
Its unbundling into separate professional corporations with specific tasks
-- generation or transmission, as the case may be -- is not a
philosophical indulgence. It is an economic imperative. Uttar Pradesh is
bankrupt, the Bangladesh of India as it were. The World Bank has promised
it $6 billion over five years for infrastructural development. This money
is contingent on a package of reforms. Rationalisation of the UPSEB is
only the first step.
Analyses of what's wrong with the Indian
cricket team are a dime a dozen. It may be more worthwhile to put the
entire Indian approach to cricket on the couch. National sport or not,
cricket is certainly a national obsession -- this past week, in a village
near Allahabad, a disputed run-out decision led to quarrel, gunfire and
the killing of two young men. Just days ago, in faraway Melbourne, Saurav
Ganguly's similarly marginal dismissal led to expatriate Indian spectators
pelting the ground with bottles. Such disruptions are, of course, quite
the norm in India. The infamous example of the Test against Pakistan in
Calcutta a year ago is there for all to remember.