W’end Reading: Satyam, Madrasas and Modern Myths

Begin your weekend by reading Atanu Dey’s brilliant “The Truth about Satyam“.

Next read Tavleen Singh’s expose of Modern India’s modern myths (recommended)

and finally, why the proposed equivalence between Madrasa certificates and CBSE is not such a good idea.

As always, excerpts from all these articles, below.

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*** Excerpts from “The Truth About Satyam“ ***

…The evolving story about Satyam and its chairman Mr Ramalinga Raju is more interesting from a human interest point of view than merely from its commercial implications.

…I think I look at this whole sordid affair a bit more sympathetically than most others. I have the same capacity of behaving immorally and unethically, just like every human being. And while I admit that I have used that capacity at least a few times, I think the same is true of every one of us – present company not excepted. We are all flawed; the only difference is a matter of degree.

…I think it is fear more than sanctimony or financial loss that motivates the anger against Mr Raju. Of course there will be sanctimonious posturing and most of it will come from precisely those who are greater criminals. The most unpalatable of this will come from the greedy politicians – and more specifically of the communist variety. They cannot let this golden opportunity of pointing out the evils of big private businesses go untapped.

The amounts that politicians routinely steal from the public dwarfs the amount that Mr Raju cooked his company’s books with. The politicians regularly get away with it. But Raju will not get away. His actions have directly hurt his colleagues through the negative fallout on the whole IT industry. He will be made an example of because it must become clear to all that he is an exception and not the rule in corporate India.

Politicians get away with corruption primarily because of two reasons. First, the harm that they cause is diffuse. Even if the theft is $10 billion, it is just $10 per capita. The average voter has gotten used to theft and cannot afford to get worked up about it. Second, the corrupt politicians’ colleagues dare not get worked up because they are in precisely the same boat.

I feel for Mr Raju. He did create wealth by founding a company which had a significant impact on the economy. A lot has been lost as a result of his actions. They probably arose as a fatal combination of greed and poor judgement. To varying degrees we are all prone to the same human frailties. In his case, in keeping with his considerable accomplishments and his past successes, his failure is public. There but for the grace of my own modest position go I.

*** End of Excerpts ****

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*** Excerpts from Modern India’s modern myths ***

…As someone who loathes the self-loathing writers, historians, hacks and politicians who became such a noisy chorus in the international media after the attack on Mumbai, I want to have fun this week demolishing their myths about India. The first of these myths is that India itself is a myth. The Mahabharata and the Ramayana are myths that were written by men who lived in a place without geography or history. Sanskrit came from this same nebulous arena as did the Vedas and the mathematicians who invented the zero.

The idea of India did not exist until the British created it is the contention of India’s self-loathing ‘liberals’. In the words of a historian of recent celebrity, India is an ‘unnatural nation as well as an unlikely democracy’. He does not bother to explain what he means by ‘unnatural nation’ since the nation state itself did not exist till not very long ago. Long, long before that there was a country called Bharat whose borders were clearly defined and whose certainty continues to be perfectly understood by ordinary Indians across India.

When a pilgrim from Tamil Nadu or Karnataka sets off to attend the Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, he does not think that he is travelling to a foreign country. When a family from Bengal travels to Banaras or Mathura to drop off some inconvenient widow in one of the ashrams, there they do not think they are travelling abroad either. The only people who have a problem defining India are liberal, English-speaking ‘secular intellectuals’ who usually don’t speak even a single Indian language. They understand no more about the idea of India than those intellectual refugees from the West who make India their home and become ‘experts’ on all things Indian.

The second myth perpetrated by the self-loathers is that there is no such thing as Hindu India. There is a ‘composite’ culture that is Hindu and Muslim and that is that. Anyone who dares suggest that for many centuries before Islam came to our shores India was a Hindu country is instantly reviled as a rank ‘communalist’ of the Hindutva kind… The…premise that there was a country called Bharat that was entirely Hindu in ancient times is somehow offensive.

Modern India has given birth to modern myths. The most popular myth among ‘secular liberals’ in these times of Islamist terrorism is that the Indian state is so evil that the jihad is a valid response. It is our fault, they like saying, all our fault. If the Babri Masjid had not been demolished, if Narendra Modi had not allowed Muslims to be massacred in Gujarat, if Kashmir had not been so badly handled, if Muslims in India had not been kept destitute and poor, if there were more Muslims in the police and government, then none of this would be happening.

If you respond, as I like to, that none of the above mentioned causes had anything to do with 9/11, the bombings in London and Madrid or the attacks on nightclubs in Bali, other causes are instantly identified. Palestine, the war in Iraq and currently Israel’s bombing of Gaza.

You would not think that there could be an alliance between religious fanatics and those who believe they are intellectuals of liberal, left persuasion but in India there is. …They find themselves in this extraordinary role because nothing motivates them more than their passionate loathing of India. May I suggest a cure. It is time for them to spend an extended holiday in Pakistan or Bangladesh to discover what countries in which history is myth are really like.

*** End of Excerpts ***

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*** Excerpts from Join madrasa, why sit for tough CBSE board exam? ***

The UPA’s weird ideas on affirmative action to appease its vote bank have taken yet another absurd leap. The latest is to make madrasa certificates equivalent to CBSE.

According to news reports, the Union Human Resources Ministry is all set to grant madrasa certificates equal status with the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) so that it would help in mainstreaming the students coming out of these Islamic religious schools. It is not clear if the government is also planning either to downgrade the CBSE curricula or upgrade the madrasa menu to make the two certificates academically compatible. But there is no doubt that it is a crude joke on millions of hard-working students who burn their mid-night oil to clear the tough Board examinations.

…If mainstreaming is the real concern, better schools should have been established in Muslim localities and persuaded the Muslim children to get enrolled in them. Already the government has introduced a series of incentives to get the minorities more literate and enhance their competence to compete in the higher levels. Many of these incentives are denied to children of the majority community though they are equally under privileged both educationally and economically….The pampering of the minorities, in a manner as to discriminate citizens on religious lines against the tenets of the Constitution or affirmative social action has no legal sanction. But it has been proved to be politically rewarding for the ruling clique.

…The UPA claims that its anxiety is the result of the Prime Minister’s 15-point programme for minorities and that it is one of the key recommendations of Sachar Committee. Taking the Sachar cover the government is already making generous contribution to minority education. And they are highly discriminatory to Hindu students. For instance, Hindu students get education loans at a rate of 13 per cent whereas the minority students get it for just three per cent interest from National Minorities Development and Finance Corporation under Finance Ministry. To start a business a Hindu youth will get a loan at 15 to 18 per cent from banks after arranging 15 per cent margin money. But a Muslim youth has to arrange only five per cent of project cost from his private sources and will get the rest of 35 per cent of the loan from NMDFC at three per cent interest and the balance 60 per cent from commercial bank at two per cent.

To ensure Muslim students admission in the top institutions like IIMs, IITs and AIIMS the entire fees is being given by the government. To prepare them for this and other public service tests the entire coaching fee is given by the government. The students are also given a pocket money from the tax-payers’ kitty. The UPA has also announced lakhs of scholarships only for minority students. All these are denied to Hindu students. Now, the discrimination is total, with the centre making madrasa certificate equivalent with the hard-earned CBSE certificate. Should all the Hindu students leave government and public schools and join madrasas for a simple and cost-effective qualifying certificate?

*** End of Excerpts ***

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Bonus: A brilliant satire from Pakistan: Daddy, Are we going to have a war with India?

For more on Satyam, read RealityCheck’s Satyam past must be investigated and this thorough analysis (link alert courtesy RC)

Enjoy your weekend.