Author: Rajesh Jain

After almost exactly two years, it was the day when lots of votes get counted and political fortunes are decided. This time around, it was the four major states of West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Assam, along with Puducherry. All the national political parties had plenty to fight for – some more than the others.

That West Bengal would go the TMC way was a foregone conclusion. It was only a question of how much the Left would be destroyed after 34 years in power. The answer: almost completely. The hard work starts now, and Mamata Banerjee will need to show that she can run a state better than she ran the Railways. The Left still has 40% of the votes in the state.

Tamil Nadu also saw an annihilation that most pollsters had failed to foresee. Jayalalithaa’s AIADMK alliance notched up a 90% hit rate and destroyed the DMK-Congress combine across the state. Obviously, corruption matters and Jayalalithaa did a great job personalizing the impact of the scam on people.

Kerala ended up being much closer than was expected a few months ago. Here too, the corruption issue played a role in denting the final Congress-led UDF’s majority. Assam was a great win for the Congress, with Gogoi winning a third time. He was helped by peace and development, and also by the ineptness of the Opposition parties (AGP and BJP) to officially ally and take a positive message to the people.

So, what are the key lessons?

Tomorrow: The Lessons

A long series I wrote a year ago. Here is how I ended the first part:

Focus on the future of the country and our children. We are watching what is happening. If 10-15 years from now, your then grown-up child were to ask you, “You saw what was happening. Why didn’t you do something about it?” What will be your answer? That answer – and the action we take (or choose not to take) now – will determine the fate of this country.

This week’s links:

• Atoms, Not Apps, Will Power the Next-Gen Phones: by Christian Lindholm on GigaOm. “By “atoms,” I mean widgets, essentially, that provide contextually relevant links to service APIs. You may have an atom in the phone book for instance, which provides a contextual link to send a Facebook message right from a contact’s entry in the phone book.”
• IT Disruption: from WSJ. “Technology is bursting out from the shackles of its desk-bound past. It has the power to disrupt business like never before.”
• The Merits of a Liberal Education: by Arthur Dudney in Outlook. “India will be a fairer and more productive society if more students graduate with not only a set of specific skills but also a liberal arts-inspired capacity to acquire new ones.”
• Democracy, Elections and Voting: by Atanu Dey. “Let’s look around, at the very least, to see if other ways of implementing democracy have been figured out by others.”
• Why is Sonia Gandhi scared of Narendra Modi? by Francois Gautier in DNA. “Because, he seems to be the only alternative to her son Rahul Gandhi becoming prime minister in the next general elections.”

In a few hours, we will know the results of the five states that went to the polls and many questions will have answers:

• Will it be 5-0 for Congress? Or does Corruption matter to people in India?
• What will be Mamta’s margin in West Bengal?
•  Which way will Tamil Nadu vote?
• Is this the end of the road for the Communists?
• What will be Jagan’s victory margin in the Andhra by-poll?

With high voting percentages in all of the states, the results are eagerly awaited. Two years ago, I sat watching the Lok Sabha verdict. Today, I will watch which way the wind is blowing in the Assembly polls.

I wish the two national political parties in India would set themselves a goal of winning 300+ seats in the next Lok Sabha elections (2014, or when the UPA Chairperson decides).

Congress won 206 and BJP 116 in the last elections. BJP’s highest has been 182 in 1998 and 1989. No single party has won 300 seats since Rajiv Gandhi’s landslide in 1984.

The reason I mention this is that from a governance perspective, it would be a lot easier. India needs many tough decisions and big ideas to be converted into action. That doesn’t seem to be happening now. The approach to winning 175-200 and getting 25 more than the other national party puts parties on one approach path. If, however, they decide that they will aim to win 300 on their own, the approach will be very different. And that will set in motion a chain of events that can only work for the good of the country.

Francis Fukuyama’s new book “The Origins of Political Order” makes the point that the three components are:

• Strong and capable state
• The state’s sub-ordination to a rule of law
• A government that is accountable to its citizens

My take is that in India, what we are now seeing is a subversion of all three. Some examples:

• The state has been weakened, and we now find it paralysed when it comes to decision-making
• Those in power seem to be above the law – look at the chargesheets filed in various cases and see who all have been left out
• With off-constitutional mechanisms like NAC and Planning Commission’s huge budget, accountability is to no one

Is this a right/fair assessment?

Bit by bit, our freedoms are being taken away. I had two experiences in my company about random inquiries from the police which they had no business getting into. This is getting over-zealous or over-intrusive, whatever the case may be. And with the new Internet control rules giving powers to pretty much shut off any website under a broad range of clauses, we are in for trouble going ahead. First, the phone tapping rules. Now, this. What’s happening?

At times, I cannot help but think that we end up with the wrong solutions because we do not understand what the problem is. A classic unfolding scenario is with the Jan Lok Pal Bill to tackle corruption. Instead of addressing the root causes of corruption (monopoly, discretion, no accountability), we are trying to figure out what happens after the corruption has taken place by creating yet another SuperBody.

Sometimes, we don’t use our brains. Two examples from the flying experiences that I’ve had and which I am sure we will all relate to.

1. Every so often in a flight, they need to count the number of passengers on board. So, you see one of the airhostesses or stewards counting…41..42…43..82…83…and so on. Can this be done better? Answer below.

2. In the few instances that we can board by aerobridges in India, there is no sequence to the boarding. Why can’t be board by zones – starting with the back of the aircraft? This is what is done abroad, and a few seconds of thinking is all it takes to confirm that it will make boarding the aircraft faster. So, why don’t we do it here?

Answer to 1: Just count the number of empty seats rather than the filled ones.  Much easier and faster since most flights have a handful of empty seats. I tried telling that to the Counter once. Poor chap forgot where he was and had to re-start the counting of passengers again!

From a blog past a year ago, a simple point worth some thought:

Just because an idea didn’t work at a point in time does not mean it was a bad idea. There are multiple reasons for something failing – and one of them could be that the environment was just not right, and not that the idea itself was flawed.

This week’s links:

• Digital, Mobile and Social Media in India: A presentation.
• The future of advertising will be integrated: by Mark Suster
• WSJ Tech Report: includes the Tech 25, and many other articles.
• Using your sales force to jump-start growth: from McKinsey Quarterly. “Here are four innovative ways companies can use their sales reps to drive growth.”
• First Time Entrepreneurs vs Serial Entrepreneurs: by Fred Wilson.