Pakistan's Army & ISI : A dangerous mix of humiliation & desperation

As usual, Sri B. Raman writes with clarity and precision.  His recent blog post - "Pakistan Army & ISI:  A dangerous mix of humiliation & desperation" (May 17, 2011) sums up the situation in Pakistan arising out of the US operation conducted inside Pakistan resulting in the death and capture of Osama Bin Laden alongwith material which might possibly give clues about links of the terrorists with members of the Pak defence establishment (including the ISI). 

Challenges for the future...

Some days back, I received a mail from a senior colleague forwarding an article written by Dr Farrukh Saleem (September 2007) under the series "Capital Suggestion".  This blog post is an outcome of our correspondence on that article. To start with, some excerpts from the article written by Dr Farrukh Saleem.

In 2004, India became the 3rd most attractive foreign direct investment destination. Pakistan wasn't even in the top 25 countries. In 2004, the United Nations, the representative body of 192 sovereign member states, had requested the Election Commission of India to assist the UN in the holding elections in Al Jumhuriyah al Iraqiyah and Dowlat-e Eslami-ye Afghanestan. Why the Election Commission of India and not the Election Commission of Pakistan? After all, Islamabad is closer to Kabul than is Delhi.

Imagine, 12 percent of all American scientists are of Indian origin; 38 percent of doctors in America are Indian; 36 percent of NASA scientists are Indians; 34 percent of Microsoft employees are Indians; and 28 percent of IBM employees are Indians.

Our culture, our traditions and our cuisine are all the same. We watch the same movies and sing the same songs. What is it that Indians have and we don't?

INDIANS ELECT THEIR LEADERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And also to mention: They think of Construction of own nation, unlike other nations who are just concerned with destruction of others...

Simple answer to why the Indians fare better than the Pakistanis - They don't focus on religion all the time and neither do they spend time and money in devising ways to kill their own and everyone else over religion.

To me it appeared to be written by a Pakistani who (probably) feels bad that his country is not growing as much as India.  It broadly highlights some of the positives about India in the recent past. Now, let me state my observations on this article.

India’s leap forward
In my own life time/living memory, we have moved from being a scarcity economy to a surplus economy.  This is a positive development. During the same time, Pakistan has been repeatedly called a failed state.  The failed states index ranks Pakistan as No.10 in their list.  The Economist calls Pakistan the world's most dangerous place.  Thus, from a common (rational) Pakistani perspective, India has galloped ahead - by concentrating on economics instead of religion.  Of course, there are some people who would like to group India too to the list of failed states.

Important challenges

While I agree that India has grown a lot, especially in comparison to Pakistan, I also feel there are some important negatives, which are crying for attention and which if unaddressed can derail the economic growth.  I will list some of them, as I have observed.

Widespread corruption

Widespread corruption is killing the ordinary people who need to interact with government machinery at every level. Every time I handle tax work, my blood boils at the brazenness with which men (and even women) demand money.  There is no shame either.  A few months back, one of the audit firm's articled clerk told about how her friends feel proud that their 'papa' comes home every day with money or things in kind (like new mobile phones etc).  Thus, not only the adults have lost their sense of shame - even children have lost it.  These are the same boys and girls who are going to rule the India of tomorrow.  Such people will not hesitate to even sell the motherland. 

Justice delayed

Winning (somehow) has become important.  End results are everything.  Means can be dumped in the Bay of Bengal.  This is today's India.  The legal system has become rotten.  There is endless wait for justice.  Justice delayed is justice denied.  But with lawyers becoming liars and seeking endless adjournments, the only people who make money out of the litigation are the legal fraternity.  I remember, even during my school days (1970s/80s) the first response of any God loving or God fearing lawyer would be to first find out what is the truth and then advise reconciliation instead of getting into a legal battle.  Today, the first response of a majority of the legal profession is not to find out what the truth is but how to make money – even if it is by cheating the opposite party – never mind if the opposing party is speaking the truth.  This situation has only reinforced my thoughts that even in the worst situation we should never enter courts. 

Cooking books of accounts

We have examples of how Chartered Accountants (CAs) collude with promoters to cook up accounts.  Whether it is the Satyam issue which came out into the open with promoter taking the blame or the innumerable mini Satyams that are all lying dormant (with active collusion of the CA profession), the level to which CAs have fallen has to be seen to be believed.  They have mortgaged their souls, forgotten their commitments and forsaken the principles of morality to make money for themselves (and for the promoters whom they represent).  Today, the dharma for lawyers and CAs is not to stick to truth but to make their clients win (incidentally, lawyers and CAs make their money too in the process).

Will the cream of our society constitute Yama Loka

Mahatma Gandhi said that business without ethics would destroy us.  The so called cream of the society comprising politicians, bureaucrats, engineers, doctors, businessmen, lawyers, judges, chartered accountants, .... you name them - each one of them is proving to be rascals.  Our scriptures talk about hell.  Seeing the things that are happening, I often wonder whether the Yama Loka would comprise only the cream of India.

Damaging environment

I am not sure if the Indian development story is sustainable.   We are busy clogging the roads with more and more private vehicles.   I find it extremely difficult to cross the road.  The footpaths have either vanished or become smaller.  It is impossible to cross the highway.  I have seen road(s) suddenly become one-ways with never ending traffic - it is impossible for ordinary people to cross over to the other side.  Looks like roads are there only for cars and vehicles.  It gives an impression that we have forgotten that there are large numbers of people who don't own vehicles and they also have equal rights over public spaces.  Do we need this type of development which spoils the environment?  I am not too sure. 

Galloping health care costs & doctors as commission agents

Health care costs have galloped beyond measure.  How many people can afford today's costs?  Almost every doctor looks to me like Lord Yama's agent.  Gone are the days when out of sheer faith and trust we used to consume medicine given by family doctor.  Today the trust is gone and we go for 2nd and 3rd opinion. 

You go for any ailment, doctors will prescribe a series of tests to be done – never mind if tests were done very recently.  The relevance of these tests is also not clear.  Costly tests, irrelevant tests, repeated tests…. there is a sense of revulsion and also helplessness today.  I hear again and again from people who feel that doctors get commission for prescribing medicines – giving rise to a strong suspicion that doctors have sold their souls to the drug manufacturers.  .  Strangely, I have noticed that the medicines prescribed by a doctor would be available only in the pharmacy located near his/her clinic. 

I have noticed one more trend and that is doctors becoming members of agencies like Amway and prescribing these product(s) which are not only costly but also to be bought only from them.  There is a clear conflict of interest – but that is not disclosed.  I am not talking about quality of the products of Amway – they may genuinely be good – but the fact that doctors make extra money by selling them is something which they don’t disclose. 

There are instances where doctors act as agents for Hospital chains.  You go for some ailment – they will tell you to undergo some tests and then get you admitted to their preferred hospital and you will end up with some operations (by-pass is most common).  We can make a reasonable presumption that they are getting commission from the Hospital chain.  Commission need not be in money form – it can be in the form of gifts, foreign tours to exotic locations often disguised as international conference(s) etc. 

I remember in my childhood days, we had a family doctor – Dr P. Vadhiraja Rao.  He will charge from rich – but will give free medicines to the poor.  We ourselves were from a poor family and mostly he used to give away medicines free.  Once or twice a year he used to take money from us – whenever we could afford.  We had blind / total faith in him.  If I give you medicine, you simply take it – that’s what he used to tell us and we used to believe him.  Today, where are such doctors? 

If medical college seats are sold for Rs.20 or 30 or 40 lakh, and if students have to take loans to become a doctor, they need to recover / repay the loans.  Then they start charging exorbitant fees, prescribe unwanted medicines and get medical tests done – whether relevant or not… I wonder where the poor would go for treatment.  No wonder, people like Ramdev Baba are becoming increasingly popular – we cannot afford to get treatment in private hospitals – we are afraid of going to government hospitals as it is generally believed to offer a direct route to Yama Loka – so the only alternative is to look for ways and means to avoid getting sick (Yoga is helpful to some extent) and try out home medicines / traditional medicines as the first line of defense.

Unaffordable housing costs

Housing has simply become unaffordable to a vast majority of the people.  Today is it possible for anyone to get a decent 2 BHK flat in Mumbai for anything less than Rs.50 lakh?  Even for this we have to go to the outskirts of the city.  How many can afford to have flats?  The end result is that we end up borrowing to the maximum extent to buy a roof under which we think we can live safely.  But can we build castles on debt?  I am not sure. 

Changing attitudes – right to live… somehow?

Around 2 months back while travelling in an auto rickshaw back to home, looking at a high rise building which we were crossing the auto driver said that when there is an earthquake, this building will fall.  I could see a “glee” in his face – as if he “wants” the high rise building to fall.  This is not an opinion on the quality of the construction – rather there is an expectation that this building should fall.  I could sense from his conversation that he clearly feels “they are rich” and “we are poor”.  While he may be law abiding today, whether he will remain law abiding in future – if he gets an opportunity is something we can’t tell.

Today there is some hope that with some serious hard work, people can make some money.  Whether they are rich or poor, people want to give some decent education to their children.  But the exorbitant price rise is stretching the limits/patience of people.  Around 6-8 months back, I found that one of the regular auto rickshaws used by me was consistently charging higher auto fares than those charged by other autos.  When I asked him, the auto driver said – “Sir, we have families and we also have a right to live”.  He did not dispute the fact that his auto meter is tampered. 

In olden days, people used to restrict their expenses within their incomes.  Today, expenses are taken as fixed, and income is to be increased, if required, by foul means.  This can have serious consequences for the future.  If people, who want to make money legally, feel they are deprived of the same or they don’t get enough opportunities etc., then it is bound to create resentment vis-à-vis those whom they perceive as rich.

Large middle class and conspicuous consumption

In the 1970s/80s we had a very marginal rich class and a huge chunk of the population was part of the scarcity economy.  Thus, almost everyone was alike – we were all struggling together to make a living.  Thus, resentment, if any was only towards the political class.  Today, what we find is that while the liberalization has changed the position a bit better for a decent size of the population (which is now classified as middle class) around 200 to 300 million people are still struggling for their livelihood issues.  The inflation which is raging is killing them.  My worry is that the disparities are much higher now and much more visible today than it was in the past.  This can lead to resentment and anger.

Can we have islands of prosperity in an ocean of misery? 

An entire generation (or two) of people are coming up who have never experienced what is suffering.  Can they sustain a serious economic downturn?  I am not sure. 

From being a country which was frugal, humble and which cared for the poor and downtrodden, we are changing to the other extreme. 

I find serious 'insensitivity' of the ruling class to sufferings of the poor and poor governance issues (incl serious Maoist insurgency across large areas of the country and widespread infiltration by Bangladeshis). 

The huge population can be a blessing and also a curse (if not properly handled).  While India is ahead in the growth curve vis-à-vis Pakistan, we are definitely much behind China and many other countries, in almost all indicators.  And that is a cause of serious worry.

Given all these challenges including linguistic chauvinism, regionalism, unequal economic development leading to migration from rural to urban centres and from centres of low economic growth/opportunity to centres which are doing well economically etc (South and West are doing much better vis-à-vis East and pockets of North like UP/Bihar), I often wonder whether this country will remain united - 50 years down the line?  I am not sure. 

Our rulers (irrespective of parties), unfortunately don't inspire confidence.  It is a mystery, how we are growing, inspite of numerous hurdles.  Sorry for sounding negative.  Sensex @ 18k or 20k doesn't excite me.  Can we have islands of prosperity in an ocean of misery?  When the inequality dramatically goes up, it would lead to riots on the streets. 

Tears of the poor worry me

How long will the meek remain meek?  Tears of the poor worry me.  Today what we see is predominantly tears of the poor and downtrodden who don’t have voice.  But, think for a moment, how much time does it take for resentment to turn into a wave of anger and hatred?  It can wipe out decades of hard work and India can very easily get clubbed with Pakistan as a failed state. 

While this was my broad response to the article forwarded, I got this response back which is quite interesting –

I am not so appalled by the state of the society though all the individual facts may be appalling. Perhaps I may not know or understand the nuances of sociology or building of a just society, but I accept the fact that society will always remain an imperfect one, no matter how much we advance. Good part is we deal not just with society but with individuals too, many of whom bring smile to our face, give meaning to our life and some sense of purpose.

Yes, we can not be at ease given the circumstances, but can we be at peace with ourselves as long as we spare some efforts for making a difference?

I think that's what our Pakistani journalist friend has tried to do.

Conclusion

There are serious challenges to India as a state.  There are serious challenges to families in our society – irrespective of community / region / class.  Joint families are breaking and these are leading to new sets of problems.  The mindset required to adjust to others is vanishing.  Tolerance for differing opinions/views is going down.  People are living longer, living alone but facing the challenges on account of inflation and high health care costs.  Today, apparently there is wealth creation.  Everyone seems to have money - if not everyone atleast a good chunk of the population is having money.  But unfortunately, even as I see glitter outside, I see hollowness inside the core.  The development and growth structure appears brittle and is based on weak foundations of poor governance.

In his article, Dr Farrukh Saleem is giving example about the Ambanis.  Should we emulate the Ambanis or the Tatas?  I for one would believe that following Tatas would be a more appropriate way and would be in line with our Indian value system - atleast the one that got us independence.  One or more or many or most or all things can go wrong or right depending upon our luck.  We all feel getting rich (somehow) is most important.  The ends are important - but the means to the end are also important, if we want to have an equitable and just society.  I agree it is impossible to have full equality.  But atleast the gap between the rich and poor can be bridged to some extent.  

It is difficult to even visualize a situation where the common man and woman of this country are going to actually have a voice where in they can be heard and some course correction is done by the rulers.  Till then, it appears that we have no choice but to be at peace with ourselves and also bring peace to people around us by sparing some efforts for making a difference to their lives.

The Black Swan and the bomb blasts in Bangalore & Ahmedabad

The Indian Context
Serial bomb blasts rock Bangalore, says NDTV quoting PTI. A woman was killed and at least six people were injured in a series of five low-intensity blasts carried out in eastern parts of the information technology capital this afternoon. The woman, who was waiting at a bus shelter in Madivala on the Bangalore-Hosur road, was killed in the blast and her husband and another person were seriously injured, police said. There were also blasts in other areas like Panthrapalya, Audugodi and Vittal Mallya Road within minutes of each other from the first blast at around 1330 hours. These blasts led to panic in Bangalore says Economic Times. Even as I came to grips with this deadly news, comes the serial blasts in Ahmedabad. NDTV's website says 16 co-ordinated serial blasts killed 30 people and injured over 100.

The serial blasts in Bangalore may bring back to focus the probe into three bomb explosions that rocked the Andhra Pradesh capital last year killing over 50 people. The investigators into the terror acts are yet to make any breakthrough, says sify. Investigating agencies could not go beyond blaming some terror groups based in Pakistan and Bangladesh for the Hyderabad terror acts and picking up a few suspects. They admitted that not a single terrorist directly involved in the blasts was arrested and they also could not file a charge sheet in the cases.

Thus, as usual, no progress has been made in either arresting the terrorists or their supporters, so far. And in the process, some more blasts occur. As usual, after every blast and loss of life and property, we hear news that the centre had forewarned that concerned State Government about possible terror attacks. We also hear brave statements from the Prime Minister, the Home Minister and the usual crowd of politicians about the fight against terror to be continued etc. The Home Ministry also sends some additional police / para military forces after every incident. (Watch) The fact is that terrorists are acting with impunity and are able to attack wherever they want - and no one is safe.

My heart goes out to those who are injured / died. This is not the first blast, nor will it be the last, knowing the way the politicians / government / police / media, works in this country. This is not the first blast in Bangalore. Earlier a Delhi IIT Professor lost his life in a terrorist attack on the Indian Institute of Science complex. Similarly, this is not the first attack in Ahmedabad. Times of India lists a chronology of 12 major attacks in India since 2003, with hundreds of casualties. Rediff raises the pertinent point that the ease with which these attacks are being conducted only gives rise to one question -- Is terrorism becoming as common as a case of theft?

Looking at the numerous incidents of terror across the country, one could come to the conclusion that it's slowly becoming a part of our life. Political parties have been using terrorism as a weapon to get back at opponents. While the mudslinging continues, fact remains that almost all incidents of terror, which have taken place across the country in the last year, remain unsolved. Terrorists are never caught and if caught they are let off because of weak laws, human rights activists and media whose hearts beats more for terrorists than for the innocent common man and women (irrespective of community, caste, region) of this country and corrupt police force.

The Black Swan

It is in this context that I remembered "The Black Swan" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Black Swan signifies - rarity, extreme impact, and retrospective (though not prospective) predictability. Taleb says Black Swan logic makes what you don't know far more relevant than what you do know. To quote from Black Swan -

"Think of the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001: had the risk been reasonably conceivable on September 10, it would not have happened. If such a possibility were deemed worthy of attention, fighter planes would have circled the sky above the twin towers, airplanes would have had locked bulletproof doors, and the attack would not have taken place, period. Something else might have taken place. What? I don't know. Isn't it strange to see an event happening precisely because it was not supposed to happen? What kind of defense do we have against that? Whatever you come to know (that New York is an easy terrorist target, for instance) may become inconsequential if your enemy knows that you know it. It may be odd to realize that, in such a strategic game, what you know can be truly inconsequential...Consider the Pacific tsunami of December 2004. Had it been expected, it would not have caused the damage it did-the areas affected would have been less populated, an early warning system would have been put in place. What you know cannot really hurt you....

The inability to predict outliers implies the inability to predict the course of history, given the share of these events in the dynamics of events. But we act as though we are able to predict historical events, or, even wore, as if we are able to change the course of history.....What did people learn from the 9/11 episode? Did they learn that some events, owing to their dynamics, stand largely outside the realm of the predictable? No. Did they learn the built-in defect of conventional wisdom? No. What did they figure out? They learned precise rules for avoiding Islamic prototerrorists and tall buildings. Many keep reminding me that it is important for us to be practical and take tangible steps rather than to "theorize" about knowledge. The story of the Maginot Line shows how we are conditioned to be specific. The French, after the Great War, built a wall along the previous German invasion route to prevent reinvasion-Hitler just (almost) effortlessly went around it..."

Taleb asks us (in the context of 9/11 commission in USA) to learn to expect the unexpected, in an informative and thought provoking article on April 8, 2004 in NY Times. Some highlights from this article -

"A black swan is an outlier, an event that lies beyond the realm of normal expectations. Most people expect all swans to be white because that's what their experience tells them; a black swan is by definition a surprise. Nevertheless, people tend to concoct explanations for them after the fact, which makes them appear more predictable, and less random, than they are. Our minds are designed to retain, for efficient storage, past information that fits into a compressed narrative. This distortion, called the hindsight bias, prevents us from adequately learning from the past.

Black swans can have extreme effects: just a few explain almost everything, from the success of some ideas and religions to events in our personal lives. Moreover, their influence seems to have grown in the 20th century, while ordinary events — the ones we study and discuss and learn about in history or from the news — are becoming increasingly inconsequential.

Consider: How would an understanding of the world on June 27, 1914, have helped anyone guess what was to happen next? The rise of Hitler, the demise of the Soviet bloc, the spread of Islamic fundamentalism, the Internet bubble: not only were these events unpredictable, but anyone who correctly forecast any of them would have been deemed a lunatic (indeed, some were). This accusation of lunacy would have also applied to a correct prediction of the events of 9/11 — a black swan of the vicious variety.

A vicious black swan has an additional elusive property: its very unexpectedness helps create the conditions for it to occur. Had a terrorist attack been a conceivable risk on Sept. 10, 2001, it would likely not have happened. Jet fighters would have been on alert to intercept hijacked planes, airplanes would have had locks on their cockpit doors, airports would have carefully checked all passenger luggage. None of that happened, of course, until after 9/11.

Much of the research into humans' risk-avoidance machinery shows that it is antiquated and unfit for the modern world; it is made to counter repeatable attacks and learn from specifics. If someone narrowly escapes being eaten by a tiger in a certain cave, then he learns to avoid that cave. Yet vicious black swans by definition do not repeat themselves. We cannot learn from them easily.

All of which brings us to the 9/11 commission. America will not have another chance to hold a first inquiry into 9/11. With its flawed mandate, however, the commission is in jeopardy of squandering this opportunity.

The first flaw is the error of excessive and naïve specificity. By focusing on the details of the past event, we may be diverting attention from the question of how to prevent future tragedies, which are still abstract in our mind. To defend ourselves against black swans, general knowledge is a crucial first step.

The mandate is also a prime example of the phenomenon known as hindsight distortion. To paraphrase Kirkegaard, history runs forward but is seen backward. An investigation should avoid the mistake of overestimating cases of possible negligence, a chronic flaw of hindsight analyses. Unfortunately, the hearings show that the commission appears to be looking for precise and narrowly defined accountability.

Yet infinite vigilance is not possible. Negligence in any specific case needs to be compared with the normal rate of negligence for all possible events at the time of the tragedy — including those events that did not take place but could have. Before 9/11, the risk of terrorism was not as obvious as it seems today to a reasonable person in government (which is part of the reason 9/11 occurred). Therefore the government might have used its resources to protect against other risks — with invisible but perhaps effective results.

The third flaw is related. Our system of rewards is not adapted to black swans. We can set up rewards for activity that reduces the risk of certain measurable events, like cancer rates. But it is more difficult to reward the prevention (or even reduction) of a chain of bad events (war, for instance). Job-performance assessments in these matters are not just tricky, they may be biased in favor of measurable events. Sometimes, as any good manager knows, avoiding a certain outcome is an achievement.

The greatest flaw in the commission's mandate, regrettably, mirrors one of the greatest flaws in modern society: it does not understand risk. The focus of the investigation should not be on how to avoid any specific black swan, for we don't know where the next one is coming from. The focus should be on what general lessons can be learned from them. And the most important lesson may be that we should reward people, not ridicule them, for thinking the impossible. After a black swan like 9/11, we must look ahead, not in the rear-view mirror.

The Indian Context (conclusions)
In a situation where there is big demographic change happening in the Eastern parts of the country, where Pakistan has been continuously supporting terrorists, when large parts of the country are already in the midst of Naxalite menace, one important conclusion is that the laws need to be tightened. The second, would be to reward people who take extreme risk to eliminate terrorism. More importantly, there is an important need to protect police / para military / anti terrorist squad officials from witch hunting / summary trial & judgement by the print/visual media and from human rights activists (whose hearts normally beat for terrorists). Third, terrorists are to be treated as terrorists and exemplary and expeditious punishment through special courts would send the right signal. Fourth, and most important is not to confuse terrorism with secularism, as the Indian media and politicians have time and again done. Terror acts cannot be prevented, but can be made more difficult by being eternally alert and by not relaxing our guard. Prevention, even if costly and time consuming is worth the effort. Anti terror measures would definitely cause inconvenience to the common man - but that's any day worth than losing several thousand countrymen, year after year. Black Swan signifies rarity - yet, unfortunately, in the Indian context of terrorism, that rarity is gone and no one is safe anywhere in India.

Suggested reading

1. Numerous articles by Sri Arun Shourie in Indian Express.
2. Third-class governance can’t give first-class response to terrorism by Sri Arun Shourie in Indian Express (August 2, 2006).
3. National security through redefinition by Sri Arun Shourie in Indian Express (August 1, 2006).
4. Articles by Sri B. Raman in Rediff.