I Support A Strong Lokpal

I went to Ramlila Maidan on Sunday. It was an amazing experience. There must have been at least 20,000 people in the ground, while another 5,000 would be outside, either waiting in line to get in, or just came out, or just shouting slogans, etc. But with this kind of crowd, everything was running so smoothly. Except for the 500 meter stretch from the New Delhi Metro Station to Ramlila Maidan, all other roads in the vicinity had regular traffic. I don't think anything of this type is possible when we have meetings organized by political parties.

A few random thoughts on the protest.

Let us recall that initially Delhi Police had tried to put all sorts of restrictions on the protest. There can't be more than 5,000 people otherwise there could be danger to law and order. Do they ever say that to political parties. There can't be more than 50 cars parked at the protest location. Do they say that to political parties. Rallies by political parties often bring a large part of the city to a standstill, and despite being banned by the courts, the bandhs continue to be common. What does Delhi Police do then.

India Against Corruption (IAC) is being charged that they don't have respect for the parliament since they are demanding that LokPal should be able to investigate corruption charges against MPs. Let us see what the two sides are saying. IAC is saying that a few MPs may some time take money for asking questions in the Parliament. They may some times take money for voting in a particular way. And these few MPs must be investigated quickly. Government is saying that if MPs can be investigated by LokPal then it will become difficult to run Parliament. I read these statements as IAC saying that there may be a few MPs who will indulge in an act of corruption occasionally and in those occasions, they must be investigated. On the Government seems to feel that so many of MPs are corrupt that it would be difficult to find quorum (which is 10 percent of the strength) in the house. Which side has respect for parliament and which side does not. You figure that out.

IAC is saying that Prime Minister should be investigated if there is a credible complaint against him/her. (By the way, I do not fully agree with that. There should be some safeguard and a single person or a small group should not decide that the complaint is credible or not.) But Government view is rather strange. It says that PM can be investigated only by an agency which is to be directly under the control of PM, and no other agency (and this agency is CBI). Either the Government should say that PM will not be investigated by anyone, or it should agree to PM being investigated by some independent agency (whether LokPal or not). But to argue that PM can only be investigated by an agency which directly reports to PM is so moronic.

It is being said by the Government and many intellectuals that having an independent statutory body can lead to stalemates. That there can not be bodies with too much independence. Hmm. The Constitution already provides for independent judiciary, and thank god for that. The judges of High Court and Supreme Court can only be impeached, and we are noticing only the first impeachment of independent India now. Today's politicians would not want anyone with too much independence. The constitution already provides for an independent Election Commission, whose Chief can only be impeached, and cannot be removed through an executive decision. An Election Commission which has largely remained independent (though politicians have tried interventions like enlarging the commission) is a major strength of Indian democracy today. The constitution already provides for an independent Comptroller and Auditor General, who can only be impeached, and cannot be removed through an executive decision. And this has certainly helped the nation in uncovering some corruption. Chief Vigilance Commission was supposed to be another independent authority, though the process to remove the Chief is somewhat simpler. One does not need impeachment proceedings, but a process involving Supreme Court has been defined. If all these independent bodies have not created problems for Indian democracy, and indeed strengthened it, an argument cannot be made that mere existence of an independent body is a threat to Indian democracy. (But still, I think I will prefer, if the LokPal can be removed not by Supreme Court, but by Parliament through impeachment proceedings. The accountability of independent commissions have to be to the Parliament - just like CEC and CAG.)

A few intellectuals and of course some politicians have criticized Anna's methods of putting pressure on the Government. They quote Gandhi who apparently said that breaking of law as a protest is an acceptable strategy only against a foreign rule, and not against your own government, and hence "Satyagraha" is not a desirable form of protest in independent India. Sorry, I don't get it. Which law is Anna breaking. He only threatened to violate the restrictions imposed through promulgation of section 144 by Delhi Police which states that not more than 5 persons can be together. Section 144 can be applied only under the circumstances where there is a reasonable fear of violence and threat to public safety. Despite repeated requests, Delhi Police has not been able to bring forth any evidence which shows that there was any fear of violence or threat to public safety. Also, again the point I made in the beginning, will Delhi Police ban all form of protests, all forms of rallies, all bandhs in future. (If they promise to ban all rallies and bandhs and anything else that inconvenience citizens of Delhi, then I wouldn't mind them stopping one of the most peaceful protests of our times. But to stop only the peaceful protest, and not others, that is not cricket.) The only difference between Team Anna and other rallies has been that Team Anna wanted to do things in legal ways. They sought permissions. Others don't bother to seek permission to burn buses, stop trains, block highways, and so on. And if someone does not seek permission, you can't deny permission. You can only deny permission to those who seek it.

Protesting and putting pressure on legislators and the Government is an integral part of democracy. it can't run without citizens having the right to put such pressure. You can't have a democracy where you only have one vote in five years and you have no rights in between.

Finally, why is it that the Government has been able to successfully ignore IAC despite the huge support that IAC has all over the country. It is willing to offer some face saving to IAC, but no more. In a mature democracy, any MP would be worried if so many people are protesting for the same cause.

The root cause for this is the Anti-Defection Law or the 51st Amendment to the Constitution of India, which banned change of parties by any legislator. This was passed in 1985. The act essentially says that we are not represented by an individual, but by a party. The party knows that I may try as much as I can to convince my MP or MLA about my view point, if party rejects that view point, this MP or MLA can do nothing. It does not have that final and most potent weapon - to vote on the basis of his own intelligence, views, and what will benefit his constituency. So we can all try convincing our local MP to support a stronger LokPal than the one this Government intends to create, but at the end of the day that MP is powerless, and is subservient to party. And given that there is no internal democracy in any party anyway, a few people will control the agenda of every party. And while the individual MPs may be jittery, the party knows better. It knows that the next election is 32 months away, and the Indian public will forget what ever is happening today. May be they will lose a couple of states in the next few months but they reckon that they were going to lose them anyway.

So, if you want to push your viewpoint, you have to push much harder. One crore people is not enough to convince the Government that they can lose elections 32 months away.. You need 10 crores, and IAC does not have 10 crores on the streets.

The Anti-Defection Law has brought in political stability which was very much needed in the 1980s (and I suspect that if we repeal that act today, the situation may once again go back to what was there in the 80s). But that political stability has come at a significant price. We have all been dis-enfranchised to some extent.

Should placement be a criteria for choosing your program of study

In the last one month, I would have received no less than a few hundred emails asking for all sorts of advice, sometimes complimenting me, and sometimes strongly disagreeing with my views. The strongest disagreement has been on the issue of placement.

I have always advised that students and parents should not look at the placement records of different colleges or programs before deciding their choices. And I get asked many times, don't I like money. Why do I want everyone to be a professor. Apparently, professors are satisfied with less money.

The truth is that I love money too. When 6th pay commission almost doubled my salary, I did not protest. And if 7th pay commission doubles it again, I will not be protesting at that time.

And I don't ever say you should not worry about money. I only say that you should not be bothered about placement information.

But this question has been raised so many times, that I thought I will write my views on it in some detail, though you will find parts of it in some of my earlier blog articles.

First of all, placement information is so unreliable, that in most cases it cannot be relied upon. Some colleges will tell you the top salary, which only one student would have got. If you know a bit of statistics, you would know that a single sample cannot be used to deduce a general principle (of ordering programs in this context). The most reliable barometer of the current employability and the economic value of a program, is the median salary of that program. But only if the program has large enough number of students, say at least 40-50, who are interested in taking up a job, and indeed get one. Hardly any institute will give you median salaries. And a large number of programs have much fewer students graduating, or having an interest in placement. If colleges give you median income, they will not tell you how many people did not even get a job. Sometimes, they will remove weak students from the list, and then give you placement statistics. Sometimes, they will tell you the number of jobs and number of students, but will count two jobs to a student as two - so you can't figure out how many people don't have jobs. In top places, sometimes students would not go for placement but for higher studies. That is not captured by the placement statistics. Then there is a huge fudge factor that both companies and colleges introduce in terms of what constitutes salary - is it take home income, is it pre-tax salary, is it the cost-to-company, etc.

Second, the placement is only an indication of how a group was valued by those wanted to recruit that sort of talent. The individual differences are lost in the statistics. May be the guys who got good jobs are those who also had good soft skills, something that the program did nothing to add value to. I have no doubt that there is a difference in the market value of different academic programs. But that difference cannot be judged by placement figures, since they get biased by the presence or absence of certain categories of students. For example, if we assume that CS education adds more market value than Chemistry education, the degree of the difference cannot be judged by placement figures alone. The difference in median value of salaries offered will be partly due to CS versus Chemistry, but also partly due to the fact that CS program attracted much higher ranked individuals to begin with. So some difference is due to the set of individuals who are joining the program. (If you believe that 100 percent of the difference is because of the discipline, then essentially you are admitting that you bring no value as an individual to your recruiter. Your recruiters should be careful with that attitude.)

Third, placement data is for last year's batch. You will be graduating 4-5 years from now. What will be the market valuation of your discipline/program, we don't know. Things may change in the interim period. Need to take that into account as well.

Fourth, you are looking at last year's placement data because you want to be rich. Fair enough. But there is no study done looking at the correlation between the first month salary, and the career earnings. If you want to be rich (and why not), you should be looking at a decent living immediately after the graduation, but most importantly, a hefty salary after 30-40 years. Your work life is going to be 50 years. Too bad, but you will be working till the age of 75. (Even today most people retire between 65 and 70 years of age, and with the rapid advances in medical science and technologies, it would be at least 75 for you.) Today's placement data gives you absolutely no indication of what your salary will be 30-40 years from now. In fact, I just did a small informal check up on my batchmates. We entered IIT Kanpur about 30 years ago. I guessed the incomes of people by their designation/company/location, etc. For some people, I knew. And based on this very crude, unreliable, statistically insignificant experiment, I can still confidently say that the median income of Computer Science graduates of our batch is nothing to write home about compared to many other programs.

Fifth, the emails that I have been getting, they only ask for "scope" of two programs whose perceived economic value is very similar. Nobody has ever asked me for an opinion between English literature in Delhi University versus Computer Science at IIT Kanpur. The perceived economic value of the two programs are so vastly different, after all. And if you consider money in such a situation, you are being normal. Almost everyone will prefer 10 lakhs over 2 lakhs, even if one has to give up one's interest. But in India, we are worrying about very small amounts of money. I never get asked to compare Computer Science with Mining. I only get asked comparison between EE and CS, or between Mechanical and Chemical, etc. And the reason for all the confusion, all the stress is that between these two programs, the difference in the median salary last year would not be more than 5 percent, and people are really trying to figure out whether this difference of 5 percent will stay for 4-5 more years, and indeed 40-50 more years. When the difference is 50 percent, then people automatically assume that the difference may come down or go up, but it will never be erased. So they are sure in such circumstances which program they want to put ahead of the other.

Now, if the economic value of a degree program differs from the other one by only 5 percent, you should know that your interest and passion in a program can at least cover up that 5 percent difference. In fact, the interest and passion can often compensate very significantly in a job/career, much more than the 5 percent.

Across the length and breadth of this country, parents and students are not even attempting to know their interests, their passions, their aspirations, in the hope of getting that 5 percent extra money. Worse, many people will directly, shamelessly, tell me, that they are interested in one discipline, but will like to get admission in the other, because of a possibility (not even a guarantee) that they might get slightly better placement. And that bothers me.

And what I feel is that if so many of our youth at an age where they should be most idealistic are willing to give up their interest and passion for 5 percent, when they grow up and become less idealistic (and more "practical"), would they not be willing to give up a principle or two for 10 percent. Wouldn't such students in an academic institution be willing to do plagiarism, copy an assignment, and cheat in the exam.

And what would they be willing to do for 100 percent, just the imagination of it fills me with horror.

I don't think Anna Hazare will be successful.