E D I T O R I A L   P A G E

EDITORIALS

Of numbers and seats 
True to its word, the Centre has decided to postpone a national redrawing of both parliamentary and assembly constituencies for another 26 years. It first declared its intention in February last while releasing the population policy. By this an intractible problem has been shelved for a future government and system to grapple with.

Winds of change 
WINDS of change blowing in the telecom sector seem to be gathering gale force. After the opening of national long distance (NLD) telephone services to competition and drastic reduction in STD rates, the stage is set for the coporatisation of the Department of Telecom Services and the Department of Telecom Operations by the scheduled date of October 1.

Aggravating noise pollution
THE feeling of the people in general that religious places are contributing immensely to the problem of noise pollution has been echoed by the Supreme Court in a judgement delivered on Wednesday. 

OPINION

Research in Indian Varsities
Lacunae and challenges ahead
by Vikram Chadha
UNIVERSITIES are ubiquitously known as the springhead of profound knowledge and erudite wisdom. Continuous growth of knowledge lies at the very root of the evolution and refinement of societies and civilisations. In turn, the creation and expansion of knowledge is conditioned by the spontaneity and nature of research carried out in the universities. Thus universities, through their particular quality of research, mould and steer the destiny of nations and society.

The worrisome slide in the Army
by Pritam Bhullar
IN his article “Agenda for the new army chief”, in a national daily on August 8, Lt-Gen Hridaya Kaul (retd), who was GOC-in-C Western Command in 1985-86, has expressed deep concern and dissatisfaction about the functioning of the Army, especially, the top brass. In his concluding sentence, he has said: “The Chief will have to set a personal example in everything”.

MIDDLE

Delhi Telephones on the fast track!
by S. Raghunath
THE giant American telecommunications company AT and T has unveiled what it calls a “space phone” in the atrium of its New York headquarters. This is a futuristic concept in long-range communications and visitors will be encouraged to try it, free of cost and try and establish contact with extraterrestrial beings. It will also give people a rare chance to hear their own voices long after they are dead.

ON THE SPOT

The clutch of officialdom
By Tavleen Singh
YOU need to attend a government function in Delhi to understand just how second rate we have become as a country in our 50 years of socialism and how hard it is to change this. It is at these events that you see — in almost every tawdry detail — the unmistakable signs of a country that has yet to escape the clutches of officialdom. Personally, I avoid government functions because at the end of two hours of tedious speeches and dreary votes of thanks a feeling of deep gloom descends over me because I come away convinced that we will never change.

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

Of numbers and seats 

True to its word, the Centre has decided to postpone a national redrawing of both parliamentary and assembly constituencies for another 26 years. It first declared its intention in February last while releasing the population policy. By this an intractible problem has been shelved for a future government and system to grapple with. Actually, there is no way out since an honest demilitation would have shifted the centre of gravity of electoral politics decisively towards UP, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. Their gain will be mostly at the cost of the four southern states. There are two ways of delimitation.One is to keep intact the present number of Lok Sabha seats (543) and determine the size of the electorate by dividing the total population by this number. Another way is to first fix the optimum size of a parliamentary constituency, say 15 lakh, and then distribute the one billion population, say, among 660 constituencies. That will create evenly matched Lok Sabha and Assembly seats, not with the same number of voters but within a narrow band. In this way too the South will lose heavily. The Population Foundation of India projects a southern loss of 10 seats (out of 129) in 2001 and an additional six seats by 2026. Of this Tamil Nadu alone will have to give up eight constituencies and Kerala and Andra Pradesh four each. This reflects the decreasing population in these states, from 23.2 per cent of the nation’s total to 19.8 by 2026. The so-called Bimaru states will see their share of representation in the Lok Sabha go up from the present 204 to 229 in 26.years. UP alone will send 99 MPs, up from 85 now. The supporters of the status quo rely on one argument: the states contributing impressively to population control should not be punished but rewarded. As a corollary those with no family planning programme should not gain more numerical influence at the Centre.

However, the case for drawing afresh the constituencies is equally strong. Lakshadeep with an electorate of less than 40,000 sends an MP, which means 20,000 voters there have a representative in the Lok Sabha. In contrast, the member from Outer Delhi having more than 22 lakh voters should win the support of at least 10 lakh votes to enter the House. In plain mathematical terms, one Lakshadeep vote carries 50 times the electoral weight of the one from Outer Delhi. On the face of it, this is absurd and a violent attack on the spirit of electoral politics. The very idea of delimitation stems from the need to prevent gross distortion or to correct it periodically. Some time back the Supreme Court passionately plugged the one vote, one value line, quoting American jurists. Barring a few historical exceptions, ideally each representative of the people should enjoy the backing of approximately the same number of constituents. (One of the exception is Chandigarh itself; it is too small to be a Lok Sabha constituency but it cannot be arbitrarily included in one of the neighbouring states before the territorial issue is solved.) For this lofty principle to work, the present system of finding a winner should also change. In the first-past-the-post principle 30 per cent of the polled votes may be enough if the contest is crowded but certainly 51 per cent is needed if there is a direct fight. To complicate the matter, voting percentage varies wildly, enabling one to win an election with a certain number of votes with which he would have lost his security deposit in a neighbouring keenly contested seat. Given these irreconcilables, the Centre has decided to redraw the constituencies within each state, by maintaining the present number of seats but by redistributing the voters to evolve an average size. This is some movement, even in the process the nation will stay in the mess it is in. 

Winds of change 

WINDS of change blowing in the telecom sector seem to be gathering gale force. After the opening of national long distance (NLD) telephone services to competition and drastic reduction in STD rates, the stage is set for the coporatisation of the Department of Telecom Services and the Department of Telecom Operations by the scheduled date of October 1. The last hurdles were removed by the Union Cabinet on Thursday. What is noteworthy is that the proposed Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) is to be created under the Companies Act rather than through an Act of Parliament. This subtle difference will ensure that the corporate body will be a commercial undertaking with all the requisite structural flexibility. This kind of synergy is very essential because the telecom sector has been hemmed in by bureaucratic inertia all this while. The task for the BSNL is cut out and it is quite gigantic! India has an abysmally low teledensity which has to be brought to the level of that prevailing in developed countries if India has to so much as entertain hopes of getting rid of its poverty and backward tag. Right now, there are only three telephone per 100 persons. The number has to be increased to 16 per 100 persons. Even more urgent is the task of connecting all 2,32,886 villages by telephone by 2002. Technology is also at least a generation behind. Work in this direction has been going on at the bullock-cart speed whereas what is needed is rocket speed. Corporatisation may not bring about such a quantum change all of a sudden but considerable speeding up can be looked forwarded to. All such operations require huge funds, of the order of $78 billion by 2010. This cannot be forthcoming as long as telecommunication is there in its sarkari straitjacket.

Desirable that such changes are, all these are subject to the will and muscle power of the employees of the department. The 4.5 lakh employees are curently divided in two groups. The nine pro-CPM unions are against corporatisation per se and can be depended on to oppose it tooth and nail. The other group consists of three unions which take corporatisation as a fait accompli and are only fighting for their pay fixation, pension, retirement benefits and job security, etc. The government has gone out of its way to assure them that there will be no retrenchment. There will be an exponential expansion of the telecom network and each and every person would have his job assured. The commitments made by the government regarding the implementation of the national telecom policy-1999 will be fully honoured. Necessary funds will be found, either from a revenue sharing licensing fee or direct funding by the government to ensure the financial viability of the corporation. Apparently, the government is keen to come to an agreement with the three “reasonable” unions. The common man expects that a settlement will be hammered out before the strike deadline of September 6. He has suffered many a strike and has had to make do with an apology of telecom service. He has every right to demand at least reasonably good service and phone on demand. Since this has not come his way all these years, he does not mind giving the corporate entity a try. In fact, there is a large silent majority which feels that the salvation lies only through that route. 

Aggravating noise pollution

THE feeling of the people in general that religious places are contributing immensely to the problem of noise pollution has been echoed by the Supreme Court in a judgement delivered on Wednesday. It will be worthwhile indeed for those closely associated with any faith to do some introspection as noise pollution is a major threat to our physical and mental health today. It is immaterial to know who brought the issue before the apex court or who were the defendants. The court’s observations convey a simple but clear message: religious activities should be carried on in a manner so that these do not become a source of agony for the people living in the vicinity. It has been often found that the decibel level of noise coming from places of worship, whether after the use of loudspeakers or otherwise, is so high that it adversely affects the physical condition of a patient in the neighbourhood or it comes in the way of a student preparing for his examination the next morning. And this disturbance continues for hours together on certain occasions. A practice has also been noticed that sometimes those employed to look after religious places use recorded sermons and keep their loudspeakers at full volume, caring little for the serenity of the morning hours.

The words of the two Supreme Court judges who constituted the Bench that dealt with the sensitive case appear to have come from the core of their hearts. They rightly feel: “It should not be forgotten that young babies in the neighbourhood are also entitled to enjoy their natural right of sleeping in a peaceful atmosphere. A student preparing for his examination is entitled to concentrate on his studies ....” As we are living in a civilised society, we have to be extremely careful about our rights and responsibilities as a citizen vis-a-vis others. In this, respect the judges said: “In our view, in a civilised society, in the name of religion, the activities which disturb old or infirm persons, students or children ... cannot be permitted.” In the area of faith, however, laws cannot be as effective as a social movement involving people of all religions to ensure that religious activities do not become a source of disturbance to others. This will also promote an atmosphere of tolerance and increased respect for all faiths. One hopes the people associated with our religious places will give a serious thought to the problem.

Research in Indian Varsities
Lacunae and challenges ahead
by Vikram Chadha

UNIVERSITIES are ubiquitously known as the springhead of profound knowledge and erudite wisdom. Continuous growth of knowledge lies at the very root of the evolution and refinement of societies and civilisations. In turn, the creation and expansion of knowledge is conditioned by the spontaneity and nature of research carried out in the universities. Thus universities, through their particular quality of research, mould and steer the destiny of nations and society.

Universities are commonly expected to delve in theoretical and fundamental research and be confined to the task of interpreting, refining and creating new concepts, theories and principles, which are typically associated with the fundamentals of knowledge. The Research and Development (R & D) laboratories, on the other hand, are considered to be the refractors of practical and applied knowledge required by the productive sectors of society. Even the famous Abid Hussain Committee of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) of 1986 visualised the role of universities to be mainly straitjacketed into the realm of fundamental research.

However, in the transformed economic context of the 90s, spewing numerous economic exigencies for the sustainability of formal institutions of excellence, the perception of universities as mere creators of basic knowledge must undergo a change. The universities, like other R & D labs, must generate their own internal resources (as visualised by the Abid Hussain Committee) through their academic and research activities, so that the burgeoning financial commitments characterising modern universities could be easily matched. For this, the research in universities has to be reoriented with the practical requirements of the productive sectors and the market around them.

In order to surmount their resource crunch, the universities have found an easy ploy in indiscriminately inflating the tuition fees and other charges, which has naturally invited the ire of the student community. Instead, a more plausible method to plug the resource gap in the universities would be to induce the corporate community to enter into pecuniary research contracts with the university. The universities must institute R&D-industry linkage cells on the pattern of American universities, and the university researchers should be goaded to diligently work to generate cost effective utilitarian technologies and processes for industry. This would not only generate much wanted funds for the universities, but would also enable the researchers to justify their relevance to academics as well as to society.

Nevertheless, the pity is that, some of the universities did have the vision to foster such mechanisms. But in the absence of a concerted planning and a well meaning strategy, these R&D-industry technology transfer cells have more or less remained inert and devoid of dynamism.

Every year the University Grants Commission (UGC) funds a number of research projects in the universities. But how many patents for new technologies are generated out of these from the universities, puts a big question mark on the efficacy of such research projects. For example in 1997, the universities (including deemed universities) were allocated 1187 extramural R&D projects at an estimated cost of Rs 82 crore. But very few patents, new products, processes and designs emanated from universities. Only 293 patents sealed were from Indians, out of a total of 907 during 1997, out of which almost negligible were from the universities. Thus the university research output is not commensurate with the national financial allocations for such research.

The research in the universities has largely remained confined to theoretical and fundamental aspects. The researchers are mainly interested in the number of publications, or number of doctoral thesis submitted under their supervision, or number of research projects handled. None is too concerned with the practical outcome and the socio-economic relevance of their research work. Numbers and quantity of research pieces has taken precedence over the quality and content of such research. Thus the university research has not gone beyond what may be termed as intellectual tinkering.

This state of affairs, where a premium is attached to the quantity of research rather than its quality is also the outcome of a certain defective assessment criteria of the research output. In a system, where the promotion, and even in some cases, the grant of annual increment is attached with the publication of a certain number of research pieces by the incumbent, obviously the researcher would be in a hurry to belch out research papers without regard to their quality. Such “speedy” research is bound to be practically ill focused and theoretically untenable.

The research projects and proposals are decided more as an outcome of a grand abstraction and intuitive conjecture, rather than spontaneously emanating from the socio-economic needs or national priorities. The research themes are so generic and open-ended that they tend to overlook many a covertly intricate paradigms and elemental relationships involved in an otherwise sharply focussed research themes. The Research Degree Committees (RDCs) and Research Degree Boards (RDBs), instituted by the universities for carefully sifting and approving the appropriate and viable research projects only, deliberate so nonchalantly that sometimes they conjure up the impression of being redundant bodies.

Another area of the university research which has been grossly abused is interdisciplinary research. Interdisciplinary research does aim at fusing together the finer nuances of different academic fields so as to generate a holistic view of the phenomena, an objective more pertinent to research in social sciences and humanities. Nonetheless, the fact cannot be overlooked that for each discipline in the universities, a specific capacity and desirability exists for promoting research in each particular field separately, and specialists are accordingly recruited for carrying out research exclusively for each of these. Thus frequent dabbling by a researcher in other non-specific areas in the garb of interdisciplinary research may smack of concealing incompetence in the prime field of the researcher.

In the higher echelons of the research fraternity in the universities, a sort of inertia seems to have permeated. Whereas the university research should benefit the most from a vast and prolific experience of the peers and the seniors in the university research system, but in reality a sort of complacence seems to have gripped them. Perhaps they feel disinterested in research since they have already crossed through most of the promotion stages and evince more interest in committee and inspection work instead of serious research. Anyway, the research in the universities alone is at a disadvantage. A periodic assessment of the research accomplishments by the researchers in the universities after different rungs of promotion may be the solution as in many advanced countries.

In the contemporary phase of globalisation and privatisation, where we are already witnessing the pugmarks of a lurking ruthless global competition in the directly productive activity sectors of the developing countries, giving nightmares to various economic players, the same is imminent to occur in the services and the infrastructure sectors in the wake of the second and third generation economic reforms. As a matter of fact, the electricity, telecommunications, health and insurance sectors in India have already begun to feel the pinch of external opening up, where the employees are precariously faced with the prospects of retrenchments, or contractual service arrangements, or voluntary retirement schemes etc. in order to preen away the problems of overstaffing and inefficient functioning of these sectors. The day is not far when universities too will have to follow the same trail. To effectively enounter the inevitable hour of reckoning, the university research setup must gear itself up to prove its social and economic relevance.

The worrisome slide in the Army
by Pritam Bhullar

IN his article “Agenda for the new army chief”, in a national daily on August 8, Lt-Gen Hridaya Kaul (retd), who was GOC-in-C Western Command in 1985-86, has expressed deep concern and dissatisfaction about the functioning of the Army, especially, the top brass. In his concluding sentence, he has said: “The Chief will have to set a personal example in everything”.

Some of General Kaul’s pointers need to be mentioned briefly to drive home the concern and anguish of a General who, having served for 40 years in the Army, feels perturbed over its falling standards today.

General Kaul says in his article that the Army has been going through a crisis of confidence. “There is a widespread belief in the lower levels that the majority of top brass live in ivory towers and are out of touch with realities. The juniors also feel that the seniors’ main concern is personal advancement, no matter how high they have already reached”. The General says.

Another tendency that the new Chief will have to root out, according to General Kaul, is “the parochialism practised and sought to be practised at the highest levels”.

The morale of the Army officers, the General says, has been affected adversely by a number of liberties taken by some senior officers as well as some politicians with the established work ethos and principles of conduct. And in this, he gives one example each of the former Defence Minister, who got a Major-General promoted by throwing all the rules to the winds.

The other example is of a Lt-General who as head of a branch at Army Headquarters stooped so low in integrity that when, according to the laid down procedure, the computer result for a UN assignment was put up to him, he changed it and put the name of his son in it. The Colonel in-charge of the case, on showing reluctance to change the result, was posted out of the section and the “manipulator” Lt-General’s son went on the UN assignment. This news, General Kaul says, spread all over the Army.

General Kaul also mentions in his agenda that the decline in the quality of life in the Army is affecting the morale of the officers and jawans.

Have things in the Army deteriorated to such an extent as depicted by General Kaul? Some sections in the Army feel that he has been harsh in expressing his opinion. No doubt, opinion about any such issue is generally divided. But then, there is no denying the fact that the standards in our armed forces have been dropping for the past few decades and the slide is still continuing.

One can say that, having retired many years ago, General Kaul may not be so intimately in touch with realities as to depict a correct picture. Granting this to the arguer, one may turn to what a serving Army Chief said about the functioning of the Army.

In his letter to all officers on taking over as Chief of the Army Staff in 1986, the late General K. Sundarji said: “As a whole, the corps of officers has lost much of its self-esteem, pride and elan; it is becoming increasingly careerist, opportunist and sycophantic; standards of integrity have fallen and honour and patriotism are becoming unfashionable. I am very concerned about the increasing sycophancy towards seniors, which unless checked will corrode the entire system”.

What one finds is that “comradeship in arms” and the spirit of “service before self’ have been replaced by unconcern and selfishness.

We cannot have good officers unless we impress the youth by our personal example at the time of their selection for the Army and then during their training at the Indian Military Academy (IMA).

That a tendency of unconcern, as prevalent in other walks of life, is catching on fast in the Army even at the selection and training stages is evident from the following examples.

After his selection by a Services Selection Board (SSB), when a candidate was rejected in his medical examination for “knock knees”, he got himself examined by a few surgeons outside and then appealed for a review medical board, which was carried out at a command hospital. While giving his opinion as “there is no sign of knock knees”, the senior adviser in surgery asked the candidate: “Had the doctor at the SSB examined your knees”. Imagine the harassment caused to this candidate due to the carelessness of the doctor at the SSB. Incidentally, the candidate reported late at the IMA by 15 days because of this hassle.

A cadet at the IMA had won a silver medal in handball. Not only that, during his school days, he had gone to the national level in basketball and was also in the IMA basketball team. Yet his directing staff (DS) wrote in his report: “He needs to improve in games”.

“On being invited for the passing out parade of my son on June 24, when I along with my wife went to Dehra Dun, we were shocked at the standard of lunch served to us at the cadets’ mess for which the IMA is not spending anything as the cadets have to purchase coupons for their parents”, tells a retired Lt-Col from Jalandhar. “The parents were totally neglected at the IMA. Why invite them if they are to be shabbily treated there?” Quips this officer.

A number of suicide cases of cadets at the IMA have come to light in the past few years. The latest one was in the last week of July, in which, it is alleged that the cadet committed suicide within two days of his reporting for training at the IMA. Was it a case of suicide?

All said and done, there is a distinct slide from the traditional norms in the Army today which should not only be halted but all out efforts must also be made to regain the old standards. There is no use of blaming the government for everything that is wrong with the armed forces, for most of the grime has been originated from within the armed forces. 

Delhi Telephones on the fast track!
by S. Raghunath

THE giant American telecommunications company AT and T has unveiled what it calls a “space phone” in the atrium of its New York headquarters. This is a futuristic concept in long-range communications and visitors will be encouraged to try it, free of cost and try and establish contact with extraterrestrial beings. It will also give people a rare chance to hear their own voices long after they are dead.

I have been talking to a senior official of Delhi Telephones (DT) and I casually told him about the space phone.

“Oh, stuff and nonsense,” he snorted disdainfully, “what’s the big deal about it? We in Delhi Telephones have been operating space phones for so many years now that it’s all old hat to us. I’m sorry, but I’m not impressed.”

“You mean you’ve been operating space phones?” I asked incredulously.

“Look, dummy,” said the DT official impatiently, “what do you think I’ve been trying to tell you? You say that AT & T’s space phone can be used to establish contact with extraterrestrial beings? You are welcome to try our space phone on my desk over there right away. You just try dialling “Directory Enquiry” or “Trunk Booking” or “Time Service”. The operator at the other end won’t lift the receiver until the telephone has rung a minimum of 9188 times. Isn’t this as good as establishing contact with extrater- restrial beings a billion light years away? So what’s new about AT & T’s space phone? I tell you, to us in Delhi Telephones, the space phone is a mere bagatelle, but unlike AT & T, we don’t brag about it and hog cheap publicity.”

“It’s simply amazing what your space phone can do “I said, “but AT & T’s space phone can also be used to communicate with someone who can hear their own voices long after they are dead.”

“Oh, bosh,” said the DT official,” why are you so worked up? You try booking a lightning trunk call to a place like Gurgaon or Ghaziabad which are just a few dozen kilometres away from Delhi and the call will materialise, if at all it does, sometime during the latter half of the 27th century and by that time, you’ll surely be dead and when the operator calls you, you can hear your own voice, even though you’ve long been dead.”

“Your space phone is simply fantastic,” I said, “why, AT & T’s contraption is no patch on it, but their space phone can also be used to eavesdrop on communication among intelligent beings deep in outer space.”

“Look,” said the DT official, “for the first and last time, I’m telling you that our space phone can do what the space phone does and more,” you just try dialling any number in Kingsway Camp and Karol Bagh Exchange area and listen to crystal-clear conversations among subscribers connected to the Safdarjung Enclave Exchange. Isn’t this a greater technological feat than eavesdropping on communications in the galactic spaces like the Andromeda Milky Way?”

The clutch of officialdom
By Tavleen singh

YOU need to attend a government function in Delhi to understand just how second rate we have become as a country in our 50 years of socialism and how hard it is to change this. It is at these events that you see — in almost every tawdry detail — the unmistakable signs of a country that has yet to escape the clutches of officialdom. Personally, I avoid government functions because at the end of two hours of tedious speeches and dreary votes of thanks a feeling of deep gloom descends over me because I come away convinced that we will never change.

Last week I made an exception because I had rung our Minister of Small Scale Industries, Vasundhara Raje, about an editorial that appeared against her in one of the financial papers and she urged me to come to her conference at Vigyan Bhavan before I wrote anything. The Prime Minister was going to attend, she said, and I might find it useful to discover just how important a role small-scale industries played in the economic growth of India. The editorial had said the opposite. It pointed out that by next April when, as a result of our agreements with the WTO (World Trade Organisation), quantitative restrictions on certain imports would disappear the small-scale sector could collapse from an inability to compete in quality. It suggested that the government keep Indian industry in the race by lifting the reservations that the small-scale sector enjoys. If bigger companies were allowed to get into the manufacture of these reserved products, it argued, we would get better quality and not end up losing everything to foreign companies.

More about that later. First let me tell you what annoyed me about the inaugural function of the national conference on small scale industries and why I see it as a window into government functioning. First, let me tell you the good things. It’s shorter list. Vasundhara Raje looked wonderful in a Rajasthani chiffon sari of deepest blue and the stage was decorated elegantly in the colours of the national flag with the colour scheme carrying even to the flower arrangements. So, there were masses of tuberoses set against masses of orange African daisies with their green stems making up the third colour. Very tasteful, I thought, and imagined it to be a sign that this event was going to be unlike other government-issue ones. It was the appearance of the bilingual and very voluble master of ceremonies who gave me the first inkling that the event was going to be as Third World as ever. This compere fancied himself as an orator. As it is, you understand, there are enough speeches and votes of thanks at these events without needing any more talking but this young man was unstoppable. So, after a welcome address to the Prime Minister that dripped sycophancy he proceeded to inform us that “India is emerging from the 20th century in all her pristine glory”. When he was not expressing his irrelevant views on the state of the nation or throwing at us quotations from Vivekananda he was giving us a running commentary that was quite unnecessary for those of us who were not blind. The honourable Minister of State for Small Scale Industries will now hand a bouquet to the honourable Prime Minister, she will now make her speech, that kind of thing. Why did the event need a compere at all?

Then we were treated to a documentary on the glories of the small-scale sector and again it was as if some official had written the script. Not only was there more of India’s pristine glory type stuff but we were even told that “voyagers had always travelled the seven seas because of the quality of Indian products”. Ha! Ha!

If the film and the compere were not bad enough we also had a rendition of the Hindi film song ‘chhoti si asha’ altered to make it sound like an anthem for the small scale sector. Let me say, though, that if I saw all of this as a sign that we have still not shaken off our old government-issue ways everyone else seemed quite pleased. They liked the fact that the Prime Minister came and applauded him when he said: “I am happy to announce that in response to your requests, we are increasing the exemption limit from Rs 50 lakh to Rs 1 crore”. I never quite worked out why they were so pleased but clearly it is part of the fiscal incentives that small-scale businessmen enjoy.

They have much, though, to be unhappy about. Despite being responsible for 40 per cent of the total manufacturing industry in India they spend much of their time being harassed by inspectors. The average small-scale business deals with 37 inspectors and 116 forms just to carry on with its normal activities. Where big businessmen have recourse to big strings in Delhi, it pleased them that the Prime Minister promised that the laws that governed them would be re-examined within the next three months.

To return, though to the reservations that small-scale businessmen seem so dependent on. There are, according to the ministry, only 61 products still on the reserved list and these include toys, leather and textiles. These three items make up the bulk of the 35 per cent (of the national total) exports that the small-scale sector takes credit for. The reservations may seem wonderful from a small-scale businessman’s point of view but they have not been so good from an Indian viewpoint.

Indian toys, because they are manufactured mainly in small factories with inferior technology, are not in any demand abroad. And, anyone who has a child in India knows that foreign toys are very much in demand here.

The interesting thing is that when an Indian child gets an American toy he could, more likely than not, be getting a toy made in China. While we continued with our small-scale reservations policy China got so far ahead in the international toy market that most toys you buy in the toyshops of America are made in China. I conducted a private survey in America’s biggest toy store. Toys ‘R Us, and was astounded at how few American toys there were. At the end of an hour spent examining cars, dolls, games and toy guns I concluded that 90 per cent of the toys I had picked up were Chinese.

Toys are not the only inferior quality product that our small-scale industry produces protected as it is by reservations. Vasundhara Raje spoke at length about the need to improve quality and even mentioned that quantitative restrictions on imports being lifted needed to be thought carefully about. What she did not say was that the small-scale sector could disappear altogether if it is unable to compete, unable to survive without reservations. Meanwhile, though, the small-scale businessmen who gathered in Delhi seem perfectly happy with their ‘chhoti si asha’.

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

God created in us a divine holy spirit — the human spirit with its intellectual powers which are above the powers of nature. By this we enjoy the ecstasies of the spirit and see the world illumined .... This power distinguishes you above all other creatures, why do you devote it only to your material conditions? This is that which should be used for the acquisition and manifestation of the bounties of God, that ye may establish the kingdom of God among men and attain to happiness in both worlds, the visible and the invisible.

—New Beginnings (A Brahma Kumaris' publications)