Fines work- lesson from impact of new MV Act. Why not for other civic offences too?

                    In just one week since enforcement of the new motor vehicle act, a perceptible change is visible on roads at least in cities where one could easily come across a traffic policeman anywhere. Three days back, I drove from Delhi to Gurugram and saw all two wheeler riders wearing helmets, traffic much better behaved at traffic lights, drivers more patients and fewer cars attempting to overtake my car that I was as always keeping within the speed limits. Insurance companies are reported to have done booming business in car insurance in the last week alone. All these have followed the hefty fines that were imposed on vehicle drivers in many parts of the country for multiple violations of rules under the new act.

The huge fines have also drawn protests from many quarters including some state governments irrespective of the party ruling them. Central government have maintained that such stiff penalty is required to bring back discipline and good behaviour on our roads where situation is most alarming with the country having the shameful distinction of recording most road deaths.

Those who oppose say, it is a huge burden on the poor. Two States have even reduced rates of fine. However, whether States are legally competent to change the rates already in the statute is not yet clear. But their reaction clearly brings out the rot in the governance. Votes are more important than loss of lives on roads. Having failed to meet the aspirations of the citizens for so many decades, government look the other way when laws are broken with impunity. In any case politicians seem to believe laws don’t apply to them and don’t seem to mind if others emulate them.

Many have felt that new fines would have an undesirable effect of corruption shooting up among already corrupt policemen because rates of bribe would also go up proportionally. To this some have replied somewhat cynically, that it is not ethics but economics - bigger bribe demanded by policemen would still remain a bigger deterrent to make erring drivers behave responsibly.

Despite the opposing voices however, no large widespread protests against the new law has been reported. This is perhaps an indication that most people have accepted the new provisions even if grudgingly.

The salutary effect in the initial days of introduction of hugely enhanced rates of fines on behaviour of drivers on roads may be a proof of the efficacy of financial penalty for commonly committed violations. The effectiveness of fines is not something new. In colonial times, British administrators of districts used it as an executive action to maintain law and order, though sometimes unfairly to Indians. During my childhood days in my village in the fifties, I found quite a few elders who were admirers of the colonial administration in respect of effectively maintaining law and order. What may have helped those administrators was also that they held both the administrative and judicial roles of the district.

A former chief minister of a North Indian state is said to have once joked that the best judicial system would be one that fines poor criminals and imposes jail sentences on rich criminals. His logic was- a poor man struggling every day for his daily bread may take up petty crimes and will actually find relief on being jailed with two free meals a day but a fine on him would be a real hardship.  For a rich people who go for bigger crimes, a fine would be no punishment. We see how the rich-businessmen, political leaders, put all their legal resources just to escape being arrested and put in jail.

The impact of recent motor vehicles fines delivers a big lesson that right financial penalty produces desired results to deter offences. Why then it should not be replicated in all other civil offences and may be even in case of small crimes.  Citizens particularly in cities and towns in most parts of the country suffer a lot of nuisance and harassments every day- encroached roads and footpaths by vehicles, traders and hawkers, running commercial business in residential housing societies, blaring music from cars or celebrations into late night, drinking alcohol in public places and creating noise and nuisance etc. Many complaints go to police or courts, orders issued but result remained inadequate. One offender may be hauled up but another ten comes up in no time. Provision of big fines would certainly provide not only an effective solution but reduce litigation, time of courts and police, their time and effort to gather and examine evidence etc. A camera or video recording of the offence taken by body camera of policemen should be considered sufficient evidence to impose the fine.

It is not that there are no provisions for fines for these offences under local government or municipal laws but they are diluted or ignored by agencies in absence of political will. Even in the case of the new Motor Vehicle Act, many local politicians would love to make it toothless which however they may not succeed, considering that it is an act made by the Parliament.

 Therefore in order to have the right sting and impact, these offences and the right amount of fines would have to be covered under a national act, say, “Civic conduct and offences Act’. If such an act is put in place, we may perhaps see better days in our neighbourhoods as well just like on roads after the new MV Act.

As I Hang my Boots Today

I have long been a foot soldier.

My feet have taken me places

where I left my footprints

though  not on the pages of history.

Because foot soldiers do not merit

even a foot note in history books.

                                          

I left my footprints on the sands

of hot deserts and beaches,

and on the rain soaked soft ground.

But those stayed just till the soldier

behind me stepped on them

or heavy rains washed

or winds blew them away

 

I hang my boots today to go home

butI do not want to talk about the

battles I fought and won

nor those I lost and where I was

left wounded.

Nor shall I remember running

through the maze of incessantly

firing weapons around me

that I thought, was of the kind that 

Abhimanyu did not come out of

but I did.

 

Because I have seen far bigger

and more fierce battles fought

on the streets of cities every day,

battles that must be won.

My battles were too small and

no more than a child’s play

when many children resiliently

fought daily battles of adults.

 

At just twelve years –

the eldest of the orphans, 

their home under the fly-over,

hawks at traffic light so that

he could buy food for his siblings.

He hopes to send his brother

and sisters to school one day.

 

The frail ‘Kaamwali’ barely out of

childhood turns up for her

daily drudgery, at times with eyes

blood shot with fever.

she cannot afford to lose her job.

She must send her son

to an ‘Angreji’ school.

 

The boy on the crutch

who lost his limbs in an accident

pours over the alphabets

on the cold floor of January morning

at the Municipality school.

He must make himself worthy

of a government job.

 

Their battles too, do not make it

to the pages of history.

But I shall always think of them.

These are battles of hope and grit.

I will live my life happily being on their ringside.

 

(Note: I scribbled these lines on the day I retired in 2014)

Objectivity- not Political Correctness would Help Fight Terror

As per reports in an Indian newspaper quoting Israeli sources, post terror attacks in Paris, President Francois Hollande of France had asked Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu to stay away from participating in the Paris march against terrorism but Israeli PM eventually joined the march along with 40 other world leaders including President of Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas, who however raised no such reservation. According to the new paper the request was made- not because Israelis are not against the terror but apparently because Israel is seen as the bad guy in the Palestine conflict. Presumably, the Muslims and other politically correct liberals in France would take it as an affront. The incident displays French ‘political correctness’ expressed in full . Eventually as it appears good sense prevailed.

All liberal democracies practise ‘political correctness’ of different shades. Political Correctness is essentially treating people and communities equally and not hurting sentiments of a community by any action. But most people would not go into complexities of an issue and pass judgement on something or someone   as either only ‘black’ or ‘white’, Israel is bad because of its harsh treatment to Muslims and  the underdog Hamas is good- not withstanding their alleged terrorist methods. While politicians may be accused for practising political correctness for electoral reasons, people in liberal democracies do so plainly by their ‘black and white’ sense of good and bad.

Some liberal democracies such as France have however carried their ‘Political Correctness’ into a fine art as already shown. Recent terror attacks in Paris therefore raise some questions about the French political correctness that has allowed known terrorists to remain free to plan and carry out the attacks. What is surprising is that these terror perpetrators and their motives were already known to the authorities in France. They also figured in US terror database with a clear travel ban to USA. Yet France authorities took it easy. One of terrorists had already served a sentence and it was also known that he spent some time in Syria- quite obviously not for holidaying on the sea beach.

Till the time when such attacks were taking place only in poorer countries, particularly India (with state sponsored terrorists next door ready to strike)- the reactions were ambivalent  and indirectly fingers were many times pointed to victim countries with a presumption rightly or wrongly, of their politically incorrect approach and  unresponsive and dysfunctional and repressive state machinery suppressing legitimate grievances of people. The story of India’s side was generally ignored outside the country until 9/11 had happened. Naturally, countries that are lately becoming terror victims are confused- where and how they went wrong.

The Paris terrorists reportedly belonged to the sizeable section of people who have come from former French colonies and became citizens and their descendants. Therefore, these are clearly cases of home grown teror by people who obviously have had relatively a better life in France than they would in their country of origin. But that is only half the story. In France they are relatively, a disadvantaged and deprived section living in poor neighbourhood localities like north east suburbs of Paris (banlieue défavorisée) with overcrowding, huge unemployment and other attendant problems. These people do have a lot of grievances. For example, a large number of them do not qualify for jobs due to poor education and skills. Many of them take to petty crimes which are dealt as routine law and order issues.  They had also held violent agitations in the past.

Immigrants anywhere may feel somewhat marginalised but large scale unemployment particularly among their second generation (who have not seen the difference in their parents’ countries of origin), blows up their feeling of victimhood. It is the frustrations with their lot in their very own country that pull them towards anything available be it crime or terrorism. For many it is the easiest thing to identify themselves with their ethnic or religious roots to become foot soldiers of criminal or terrorist enterprises. Terror outfits borne out of extremist religious ideas have a bigger appeal to them without any pressure of guilt or qualms because they are told they would be fighting on God’s side.

The answer to the issues of their unemployment and crime should be appropriate government programmes for guiding and providing more opportunities for education and skill building so that they get jobs. But the answer is certainly not looking the other way when they are being inspired by extremist religious ideas because there is every chance of it growing into violence and terror attempts. The authorities in France perhaps in their concern for not deviating from political correctness of tolerance and not restricting individual of right to express and follow their faith, spared even those  spreading terror message/ propaganda and in the process perhaps have actually allowed or at least made it easy for the terrorist acts by some fringe elements to happen.

It would of course be easy to blame democratic and liberal laws in rich countries with too much of political correctness is built in. Some would say the Chinese and Russians have better handled such situations because they are not encumbered by any notion of political correctness.  China and Russia already restrict many freedoms and therefore any chance that terrorists could take does not exist. Yet they too had suffered terrorist attacks.

However, the best example of a country successfully containing terror attacks in recent times has been the second largest democracy- USA. Being itself a country of immigrants, the country has been providing equal opportunities to all its residents, immigrants or otherwise. They have not scaled down their professed friendship with Israel but continued to provide equal opportunities to Palestinian immigrants to achieve success in their adopted country.

While the 9/11 attack- the only big terrorist attack in USA was a rude shock to Americans as they never expected it, there has been no significant case of home grown terror at any time.  Post the 9/11 attack, USA have not significantly curtailed the freedom of their citizens except may be snooping on suspect private telecommunications.  But what they have done after the attack has been largely to strengthen their security apparatus, intelligence gathering, creating databases and sharing them with other potential target countries (as is now revealed in the case of the terrorists of Paris attacks). They took some wrong steps while initially trying to get their act together such as, excesses at Guantanamo Bay prison, CIA’s interrogation methods in third countries, use of torture like water boarding etc. But these appear to have stopped subsequently and yet they have been able to foil several potential terror attacks, nab or eliminate terrorists in time or stop them from reaching American shores. 

Has then US discarded their political correctness? At New York some years back, I was pleasantly surprised when informed that ‘Deepavali’ is one of the festivals celebrated at the White House. It continues to be celebrated and also ‘Eid’ was added to list festivals for celebration at the President’s residence.  Clearly political correctness (as seen at the highest seat of power) is retained and practiced. But it is just not permitted to override objectivity.

 The fact that France left the terrorists loose in the country to plan and execute attacks despite receiving clear intelligence from USA perhaps imply- they were more concerned about their political correctness. Lessons from France’s unfortunate experience are not only for France to draw but for other countries including India as well. 

Why plastic ban has not worked in India?

                        I read a story of an interesting legal case in the US press. A few years ago, three young businessmen in California who were importing   tiger tails- a marine life product from Honduras to USA, were awarded a jail sentence of 8 years each for use of plastic packaging material by their suppliers. They were charged under what is called ‘Lacey Act’- an US act for wild life protection that sought to penalise American citizens for violating wild life protection laws of foreign countries.  The businessmen were held guilty of collaborating with their Honduran partners of illegally packing tiger tails in plastic wraps while Honduran Wild Life laws mandated paper wraps for Tiger Tails.

The three businessmen were most shocked when they were arrested and charged. All along they never felt they had broken any law in running their business or otherwise. Equally shocked were the Honduran suppliers who did not even know that such a law existed and  it was not only them but all their competitors were using plastic bags without any exception.

The judge however, had all the facts that he needed with him and no one contested the fact that packaging material used was plastic. He had to only make sure that the Honduran law existed in the statute and he found it did. He had no choice but to send the accused businessmen to prison with minimum mandated sentence of 8 years (California law mandated minimum tenure of sentence). Many Honduran citizens themselves came to know of the law only when they read of the case in press.  The most likely scenario might have been-   initially when the law was notified, people tried to cope and used paper but paper used for a product coming from sea waters may have become wet and messy and so they decided to ignore the law and continue with plastic and eventually forgot the law.

Drawing on the story of Honduran businessmen’s loss of memory of their wildlife law- would you therefore be surprised if five years later Delhiites forget about the ban on plastic in their very own city, where already a ban on plastic bags exists. Taking a cue from ban enforced in many developed countries- many Indian cities have already imposed a ban on plastic bags - foremost being Delhi. It is a highly laudable act. Nobody needs to remind us how plastic bags cause havoc to environment. But has the ban been enforced successfully?  I can tell you only about Delhi and being India’s first city- I presume it would be the story of all cities in the country. If you visit kirana stores or vegetable vendors in any part of Delhi you won’t believe there is a ban on plastic bags in force because everybody – all sellers and buyers are routinely using them.

Why and when do people in a very large number break a law with such impunity?  Well, they seem to do so when law adversely affect all or most of the people unlike in case of a law against stealing which is inconvenient only to thieves.  In developed countries plastic banning cities have brought in again brown paper bags paid for by the seller or cloth bags paid by the customer which are not a very expensive substitute for them, considering that  average incomes in rich countries are much higher than in developed country. For tiny kirana stores, wayside vegetable vendors in India and their customers however- these are not very attractive substitute not only because of the cost but also from the point of convenience.

 Shoppers in developed countries usually buy pre packed groceries and vegetables placed by retailers in brown paper bags in a super market and carry the shopping cart right up to the car in the parking lot. They do not miss the plastic bag so much. Not so for developing countries like India. Plastic bags are a huge convenience to carry groceries and vegetables while walking home or taking a bus from the bazaar compared to old days when raddi news paper bags were used. Newspaper bags become soggy when meat, fish or wet vegetables are placed in them. No wonder – plastic bags are hugely popular.

Besides the question of convenience as in the case of plastic ban, perhaps there is also a gap between the perceptions of law makers and those of people as to what is good for people.

The story of the three men I am sure would be summed up by many in the words of Charles Dickens as “Law is an ass”. Most people‘s reaction would be- the three poor guys were just not lucky.  So many people routinely and mindlessly break laws everyday and get away. Plastic ban apart- think of other laws which are routinely violated everywhere in the world. Prohibition whenever or wherever was imposed, invariably led to smuggling and bootlegging. Likewise, no country in the world has been able to eliminate prostitution completely even after heavily criminalising such activities. Despite best efforts to protect people from temptations of gambling by most countries, some form of gambling- official or otherwise always exists in a country, be it on horse race, dog race, cricket, football, elections or whatever.

The hopeful development is that more and more countries are now, becoming less conservative and more open to revisiting such laws. Slowly there appears to be a growing realisation that making laws exclusively and purely on moral, health or religious grounds may be counterproductive.

Drugs in small quantity are permitted to be sold in some European countries. Marijuana is slowing getting legalised at least for medical use in some American states. In most developed countries – alcohol is freely available except with a ban for those below a certain age. Most of Europe is relaxed about prostitution but has in place protective laws on advertising and against trafficking and exploitation of women.

The essential point in making a law should therefore be to ask- would this law be respected by most citizens in a country.  So, it should also be for legislations on environmental issues like plastic ban even if it may not meet the prevailing standards of correctness imposed by some other countries.

Isn’t there is a case for tweaking such laws in a way that people respect them and they become easily enforceable. Shouldn’t the powers that be consider removing the plastic ban because it just cannot be enforced and seriously look for commercial use of plastic waste?  I am told there are many possibilities with technologies already developed or being developed. Some that I came across in internet, talk about using it to make hydro carbon fuel or materials for road and building construction. If that happens, everybody would get busy trading waste plastics and not littering.  We can go on using plastic bags without any qualms.  How about a thought on that?

‘Banking Transaction Tax’ Deserves a Close Look

In the run up to the last Lok Sabha elections- a novel idea was floated by a  Pune based NGO- Arthakranti, for a radical change in our existing tax regime with a new ‘ Banking Transaction Tax (BTT)’ on all payment made by banks to replace all existing taxes such as income tax, excise duty, sales tax and all other taxes collected by both Central, state and local governments.

The idea of BTT is incredibly simple. Banks would collect a small tax (2%) on all payments made by them and deposit the share of different levels of Government- central, State and Local (say 0.7%, 0.6%, 0.35% respectively) in separate accounts.

With the current level of technology- collection of the tax can start immediately with some minor changes in the computer software of banks. The collected tax can be tracked daily and there would be no need for complicated tax returns, thick books of tax compliance rules, huge multi layered tax bureaucracy, complex processes for tax compliance that intimidate tax payers and yet it is estimated that more tax than received now could be collected with much lower administrative cost because people with fear of complex tax compliance rules and procedures would feel free to transact through banks.  

Let us make a back-of-the-envelope calculation with the latest available figures to check Arthakranti’s claim. The total tax collected by central and state government during 2012-13 at Rs.17,51,123.51 Crore (Source: Statistics from Ministry of Finance website) is roughly  1.33% of the total value of payments (including transfers) made by India’s banking system in 2012-13 which was Rs.1,312,47,090 Crore (Source: Statistics from RBI’s website). In other words- a banking transaction tax (BTT) of 1.33% on all bank payments would generate tax revenue equal to revenue collected by current taxes of both central and state governments. Compare this low rate BTT of 1.33% with income tax rates (10 to 30%+cess), excise and sales taxes (up to 50%) that you pay on your purchases and freedom from filing returns. The potential benefits for salaried wage earners that make most of the country’s earning population, are hard to ignore.

Yet Arthakranti’s proposal while received some attention in the press but no serious consideration of government, as could be expected for any new idea. A new idea is unlikely to be accepted immediately.

The idea of the NGO however is hardly new. Exactly the same idea was proposed by an American economist Dr.Edgar Feige, Professor Emeritus of University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA in his October 2000 paper- “Taxation for the 21ST Century: the automated payment transaction (APT) tax”.

In fact, even prior to Dr. Feige, others well known economists had recommended a similar financial transaction tax to prevent volatile behaviour in financial markets that could land the economy in a financial crisis as we saw in 2008. They include J. M. Keynes (Securities Transaction Tax) and James Tobin (Currency Transaction Tax- also popularly called Tobin Tax). Most G-20 countries had at one time or the other have tried with some form of such taxes though not particularly being successful in terms of tax revenue collection perhaps because the rates have been extremely low. However post 2008- the idea received serious consideration of developed countries and several countries in the developed world are  reintroducing or reorganising such taxes on transactions in their financial markets to prevent any likely future crises.

While Dr. Feige has drawn the idea of transaction tax from Keynes and Tobin but his focus is not particularly financial markets- but introducing a low ‘Automatic Transaction Tax’ (APT) as an alternative to all existing taxes and to cover the entire economy including the parts left out by current tax regime and thereby collect as much tax revenue or even more. The foundations of APT according to Feige, ”involve  simplification, base broadening, reductions in marginal tax rates, the elimination of tax and information returns and the automatic assessment and collection of tax revenues at payment source.”

According to an estimate referred to by Arthakranti- 67% of India’s economy is cash economy that pays no tax. A simplified and low rate BTT regime is expected bring them under tax net by eliminating the need for complex compliance procedures.

BTT will make many winners and some losers. Winners will be salaried wage earners. Losers will be financial institutions and those engaged in high volume of transaction of financial assets- stocks, shares and those properties that are currently not taxed or minimally taxed. Naturally- the potential losers are expected to oppose such a tax tooth and nail.

The idea of ‘Transaction Tax’ and its experience in some South American countries have been examined in several organisations including World Bank, IMF etc. Arguments against BTT point to several weaknesses of the tax. One is that BTT will encourage cash economy. BTT supporters say- it is high rate of taxation and complex compliance procedure that encourage cash transaction. BTT would rather encourage cash economy to move to  the mainstream with its simplified tax regime and extremely low rate.

Cascading of taxes is another suspicion. For example- take a loaf of bread. There are several steps from growing of wheat to the final product- the bread. In the entire process- many transactions will take place and each will be taxed under BTT leading to piling up of all taxes in final product and thereby making it terribly expensive. True, say BTT lovers, but the tax rate is so small that cascading will not make it more expensive than now. Besides- current taxes treats different product differently. You pay up to 50% taxes (in case of petroleum products). By paying a uniformly low rate on every transaction, on the average you are much better off, they contend.

The secret of BTT’s high revenue is much larger tax base than of the existing taxes and therefore despite low rates it is expected to collect same revenue as by current taxes or even more.

Another weakness that was actually observed in Latin America was multiple endorsement of cheques to reduce bank transaction and avoid paying BTT. This however can be corrected by treating each endorsement as a transaction for tax purposes, say BTT supporters. Dr. Feige also foresees that there may be attempts to create private digital monetary systems to evade BTT and he feels such situations could dealt with legal provisions.

The argument of financial business community against BTT would be that such a tax would discourage trading activities and restricting their ability to generate capital for investment. For example, a trader of stocks would not be willing to sell his shares/ stocks if his profit after paying BTT is zero or negative (a loss). It may however be boon to the economy in general that BTT will discourage high volume trading of volatile nature triggered by a variation by a tiny fraction in prices. This is why since last financial crisis, several countries are now favourably disposed towards taxing financial transactions.

In any case, considering the benefits to most people in the country who are wage earners- BTT deserves a relook. Will Finance Minister do it?

Home- Right Here and Now

Thirty years ago, then as a recently arrived outsider in Delhi, I did a chore almost every week and sometimes more than once a week. Unlike all other chores that I was required to do, this was despite being a difficult one, was something that I really loved and eagerly looked forward to even though it meant getting up from bed at four in the morning, dressing up and taking the first bus to Old Delhi Railway station to receive someone coming from Assam. I would wait at the bus stop with just a roof  in the biting cold of January but  felt warm with the expectation of meeting someone from Assam- my home.

I did not have a phone and did not want to wake up my land lord to use his phone at such unearthly hours (I used his phone to receive calls and occasionally to make a call ) and therefore more often than not I would learn on arrival at the station that the train is delayed. Delays of Indian Railways trains particularly those coming from Assam were legion those days. I had no option but wait because commuting home and back again in an hour or two was meaningless. So what I would do? Buy myself a cup of coffee, later call my boss that I would be late for work. I ignored if his tone was not approving because I could not stop coming to receive my guests and knew that given the circumstances it was bound to happen again.

When my guests- usually a student applying for a college here or my relatives on on visit on government leave travel allowance, alight from the train, I would be overjoyed with fulfillment of the purpose of my efforts.  I would take the guests home to my one room residence or find a suitable hotel if my place was not right (if it was a lady or elderly relative or just more than one).  I was happy if it was someone I could bring home to stay with me because I could have more time to talk about things back home. As long as they stayed in Delhi I would be their guide after my work and on weekends for the entire waking hours. News would be extracted every moment when we would be together on everything from political scene, music, movies and personal news of every person we both knew. I would regale them with strange ways of the city that I have despite my not liking it, made my new home, things that my colleagues at work would hardly find interesting. Only an Assamese would understand our daily struggle on the city street with Delhi Hindi or Hindustani where every word was male or female and verbs, adjectives , possessive nouns- all changing by the gender of the subject of the sentence.  With internet, Satellite TV, it is not so strange anymore but back then we were horrified that in Hindi a lot of macho stuff  are like bus, government, police are actually feminine.

My visitors brought me a heart warming respite from the loneliness in what was then for me a friendless city. Contact with home was through letters that took more than a week either way. Long distance calls would cost a fortune and therefore ruled out. Frequent trips were just not affordable.

 

My guests wholeheartedly welcomed my attention that was a huge support for them in a big strange city. Most of them had come with very limited resources and were grateful for my finding an inexpensive place to stay and eat or my offer to accommodate them in my one room residence,  for giving them company in shopping, sightseeing and everywhere.  Finally, when I saw them off at the station how sad I was to miss them.

Other than this mobile society from home- the other option I made full use of was socializing with about 100 odd families from home  who were too widely scattered over the city to be in touch regularly but always met to celebrate Magh Bihu, Bohag Bihu, Sankardev Tithi, Id Milan- those then very close and informal gatherings organized by Assam Association.

  As time passed, I grew in my career and got more and more immersed in work. I married and raised a family. I found a few people whose company I enjoyed and we became close friends. Gradually though, I realised I had long stopped keeping track of who was coming from Assam. Actually many more people started coming from Assam and going back to come again on business, leisure or studies. More and more people came from everywhere in Assam to the city to work and settled down but I had very little to do with anyone of them except for those in my immediate family. I was gradually cut off from news from home (unless it was something big to be covered in national press), music and movies, personal tit bits about friends and relatives outside our immediate family. Being occupied with family  and work, trips home were short and less frequent. It was as if a dark curtain enveloped over whatever I yearned for as home.

The blackout stayed for years. When not occupied I was depressed and asked myself- what worth was this life being so far away from home?  I shared my feelings in the passing with a colleague. He smiled and said in a mock conspiratorial tone, “You know, you are successful and you have prospered. If you get something, you lose something else.” He was thoughtful for a moment. “I’ll tell you something, social bonds are actually inversely proportional to prosperity.”  Hah, mathematical logic of my miserable feelings from a Maths honours graduate. He went on to explain. “It’s a trade off. If prosperity goes up, you are busier than before and you don’t get time to socialise. So, social bonds are not as strong unlike when you are a student or unemployed.” He said after having changed his tone to ‘matter-of-factly’ mode. You find many ‘matter-of-factly’ people like him in cities and cities seem to love them.

That was over two decades ago. Everything changed beyond recognition today. From about 100 odd families (mostly government employees) I am told the city today accommodates about 30,000 families from my home state and more if you count  all the suburbs. I do not know most of them and can’t have time for all of them. They are in all kind of professions you can imagine. Many of them own houses in the city, many drive high end cars. In contrast, most of us 30 years ago did not have a car and lived in rented accommodation without much hope of ever owning a house here. There was no room for doubt that after retirement we were to go back home.

I retired recently and have not gone home. But home gradually came to me here. Not just that I bought my apartment in the city. Assamese TV channels with news, soaps, talk shows, movies are all here received via satellite. All newspapers I did not get are online now. Airfares crashed with open sky policy. Three decades ago a return trip to Guwahati would cost me more than a month’s salary. When I retired it was less than one tenth or even less if you looked around online. From no telephone at home, we now have four mobile phones in addition to a fixed line and broad band. Daily long distance calls from each of these phones are now routine. I lived in New York for 3 years and returned  only five years ago and strangely though several thousand miles away while being there, I never felt like I did at Delhi 30 years ago.

I now rarely go to Railway station or airport anymore to receive someone. Visitors from home are substantially more informed and can easily find their way around with online help, google map and many more. They visit me sometimes but not for any support from me in the big strange city that is not strange anymore (as is not any other place in the world) but to have some good time together. There is nothing much ‘new’ that we could tell one another. Even without one to one contact in person, through phone or e mail- FaceBook keeps me informed about all- in words, pictures and video- who is doing what, what’s one eating, where is one going, who is one getting engaged to and marrying, babies delivered and more.

My cousin called me from Assam. He was sorry he could not find time to see me when he was here a few days ago. I smiled and understood- both of us are smug that we are in touch and didn’t feel like we are missing one another. I wondered how it would have played out 30 years ago.

It took me 30 years but I have got back my home. Right here in the big strange city that is strange no more.

The ‘50 Million’ Rule – An Urgent Need after Telengana

The creation of the new state of Telengana has lent a louder voice to demands for new states in several parts of the country.  However, after the bitter acrimony and heightened emotional reactions both in favour and against the creation of the new state that divided party loyalties and made or marred political fortunes of many in the last elections - no politician may like to touch the subject of creation of a new state. Yet- ignoring these demands is likely to leave the people more aggrieved with the impression that people of Telengana were favoured with one set of rules but others are now denied with another.

The fact however is that after the reorganisation of States on linguistic basis after independence, there have been no other rules for creation of a new State nor there is any complex constitutional process to create a new State (approval of simple majority in the Parliament is all required) .

In the context of Telengana, many have even questioned the validity of  language as a basis for reorganisation of states after independence. If the criterion of language was right- how could the same Telegu speaking people of  Telengana want a separation from Andhra?  Was the centrality of language in reorganisation of states was a bad idea? Or could there have been another basis for reorganisation of States?

To look into the question, let us start with the demand for new states. A list of States where demands for new states were voiced show that in 17 out of 36 States and Union Territories, there have been demands for new states (list below). It also means that people in the other 19 states and Union Territories (more than 50% of States) are happy with their linguistic identity or at least have no problem with it.

In almost all small States the demands for new States are based on separate linguistic or cultural identity  (the cultural differences are mainly due to speaking a different language).  Garos in Meghalaya want Garoland, Bodos, Dimasas and Karbis  in Assam want Bodoland, Dimaraji and Kabi Anglong respectively. Gorkhas in West Bengal want Gorkhaland and Ladakhis want Ladakh State.  Each of these groups is a distinct linguistic group in their respective states. Whether such relatively small groups could qualify for new States is a matter of Economic viability but they certainly prove the point that mother tongue is a very strong identity, particularly where there is a concentration of people speaking the same tongue and therefore, is the strongest argument for reorganisation of  States and that our founding fathers were not wrong.

Both the facts above perhaps remove any doubt about validity of language as basis of States. But what about the demand for new States where language is no issue like Telengana?

Look at the list and the answer is clear- in those States where language is not an issue, demand for new States arises in most populous States- UP, Maharashtra, Bihar, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Gujarat. Most significantly- the threshold for such demands seems to gain strength at the point when population in a State crosses the 50 million mark.

Therefore while in small States – new States are demanded to protect linguistic identities- the reason in big States is distant and unreachable Administration although the agitators may find excuses in very minor differences in language, or caste etc. to push their demand. Proof that people suffer because the Administration cannot have an effective control in such big states, is not difficult to find. One look at the most unruly state of the country UP, irrespective of the party governing it and it would tell the story.

 In case of West Bengal, however- demand for Gorkhaland is on double count- both by the criteria of language and population.

In the ultimate analysis however- it is the distance between the people and state administration, whether due to speaking different languages or geographical distance and pressure of far too many people that motivates people to demand new State so that they can have an administration closer to them. Both types of distances are difficult to negotiate but language and cultural differences are easier to reduce with a sensitive approach and policies by the administration. The other type of distance cannot be bridged by policies. There may not be any other option than breaking them up into smaller states.

The demand for new states are therefore best dealt by a two pronged approach- ensure sensitive policies and administration to marginalised and aggrieved linguistic groups on one hand and firmly follow the population threshold of 50 million to create new states.

By the ‘50 million’ rule ,  four most populous states are long due for division into smaller states.

UP is an ideal candidate for conversion into 4 or 5 new States, Maharashtra, Bihar and West Bengal into two each. Similarly- making future plans for similar exercise in the next decade for Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Gujarat will save government a lot of troubles in future.

Sate	Language(s)	Population (Crore)	Demand for New States	If  Language and Culture Main Reason for Demand
Uttar Pradesh	Hindi	19.9	Harit Pradesh/Paschim Pradesh, Awadh, Purvanchal/ Bhojpur*, Bundelkhand**	No
Maharastra	Marathi, Konkani	11.2	Vidarbha	No
Bihar	Hindi	10.3	Purvanchal/ Bhojpur*,  Mithilanchal	No
West Bengal	Bengali, Nepali	9.13	Gorkhaland, Kamatapur***	Yes No
Andhra Pradesh  (+ Telengana)	Telegu	8.46	Telangana, Rayalseema, Coastal Andhra	No
Madhya Pradesh	Hindi	7.25	Vindhya Pradesh, Bundelkhand**	No
Tamil Nadu	Tamil	7.21	Kongu Nadu, Vanniyar Nadu:	No
Rajasthan	Hindi	6.86	Maru Pradesh	No
Karnataka	Kannada, Tulu	6.11	North Karnataka, Coorg, Tulu Nadu#	No Yes
Gujarat	Gujrati	6.03	Saurashtra	No
Orissa	Oriya, Tribal languages	4.19	Tribal state of Koshal	Yes
Kerala	Malayalam,Tulu	3.38	Tulu Nadu#	Yes
Jammu & Kashmir	Kashmiri, Dogri, Ladakhi	1.25	Ladakh, Jammu/Dogradesh	Yes
Assam	Assamese, Bengali, Bodo and  tribal dialects	3.11	Bodoland, Kamatapur***. Karbi Anglong, Dimasa State	Yes Yes
Meghalaya	Khasi, Garo and Jayantiya	0.29	Garoland	Yes
Manipur	Manipuri, Naga dialects	0.27	Kukiland	Yes
Nagaland	Several Naga dialects	0.19	Frontier Nagaland	Yes

* Bihar and UP;      **UP and MP      ;***West Bangal and Assam;         #Karnataka and Kerala