FRDI :: BAIL US OUT OF BAIL IN

In the 4^th century BC, Dionysius II, king of Syracuse, let his fawning courtier, Damocles, sit on his throne for one day, but with a sword hanging over his head by the hair of a horse’s tail. After Damocles was thus enthroned, Dionysius asked “do you feel happy, now? “. Damocles wrote his name in history as the first man to beg to be ‘dethroned’. The bail in provision is just that, Damocles sword hanging over depositors’ head making him just as unhappy.

True, the sword had always been hanging. As unsecured creditors, depositors get just what little is left after paying off secured creditors of a bank under liquidation. But the aam aadmi wasn’t aware of it. Though some banks did run into trouble, RBI, by handholding weaklings till nursed to health, and in extreme cases merging or amalgamating it with stronger ones, saw to it that depositors never ran aground. And the thought of a failed PSB was akin to blasphemy.

But what bail in does is to drag the depositor out of this comfort zone. When push comes to shove, to enable a bank in existential throes to continue operations its depositors may be required to forgo some of their savings- in barbaric, nay, barber’s terms, a haircut. And the haircut may cost them much more than what they pay for one at a Javed Habib outfit. Why, it may even be a tonsure, a glistening pate but with no hair on it. Another possibility is that deposits maybe converted into instruments of capital for the bank, thus deferring depositors’ claim on it indefinitely. All of this is embedded in SEC 52 of the bill.

Sec 52 (3) A bail-in provision means any or a combination of the following: – (a) a provision cancelling a liability owed.; (b) a provision modifying, or changing the form of, a liability owed …(c) a provision that a contract or agreement under which a covered service provider has a liability is to have effect as if a specified right had been exercised under it.

FRDI, as it stands, arms regulators with statutory powers to cannibalise bank deposits in stressful situations.

The second rude shock that bail in delivers is to put public and private sector banks on the same pedestal. The veil of safety that government ownership of PSB offered is lifted. That cannot be comforting , most of all to senior citizens who live off interest income from their time deposits. The existing deposit insurance of Rs one lac will barely ensure his survival for a year if his deposits get immobilised or cancelled.

To be fair, FRDI springs from deliberations of G20 in London in April 2008 in the aftermath of 2008 global financial meltdown. It set up a Financial Stability Board that impels member countries to evolve structures designed to avert 2008 like systemic failures. India, a G20 member must follow suit. Presently, FSB is seeking to evolve ‘Principles for Bail in’. Obviously, bail in is destined to become a not uncommon operative tool for resolving distressed banks, its first application having been already recorded in Cyprus in 2013.

Financial regulations evolve in response to particular situations of distress within a given financial structure. The banking system in the West is predominantly privately owned. That presented a moral hazard to regulators confronted with 2008 crisis in which banks fell like ninepins, bursting the myth of ‘too big to fail’. Should taxpayer’s money be used to bail out greedy bank managements that had created the crisis. Bail in emerged as a response to this moral dilemma. A bailed in bank exposes its managements to the adverse consequences of its maladministration and avarice by extracting sacrifices from all stakeholders.

  

On the other hand, India’s banking system is structurally different. PSBs conduct 75% of banking business hence the rapacious quest for profits and fat bonuses that fuelled the 2008 crisis is absent. That helped Indian  banking to ride out the crisis with nonchalance.

Therefore, the imperative for FRDI is not averting systemic failure, for there has been none . But over Rs 10 lacs crs of loans by PSB are sour, which some experts hold is stymieing credit disbursal. For a government reluctant to go the whole hog to bail out affected PSBs, bail in looks an attractive resolution tool.

Properly speaking, if the west faced a moral hazard issue, bail in should pose an equivalent issue of equity to the state. How can the state, as owner, absolve itself of responsibility for mismanagement that led to pile up of NPAs in its backyard ?  Political parties may blame each other to score brownie points but that doesn’t change state’s culpability as owner. Moreover, depositors have no role in running their banks. Rather, banks which mismanage affairs betray their trust. Culling savings in any manner tantamounts to a double whammy, state instead of rescue delivers a left upper cut.   

My concern here is only with PSB whose profits have over the years flown into the Consolidated Fund of India by way of dividends. Therefore ,it is only fair to expect its owner to use his immense resources to bail out his troubled babies. Depositors have done their bit by putting in as much as 75% of total bank deposits in PSB. Leave them alone , to a vast majority of them bank savings may be a question of life and death, the mere thought of a loss of deposits is a nightmare to a senior citizen. Further can the nation afford to engender doubt and apprehension among this vast multitude of savers by retaining bail in?

Many reassuring voices from high pulpits in government, claim it enhances depositor protection without quite pointing out how. All that it ensures is any haircut on uninsured deposits (that is, amounts held beyond DICGC guaranteed Rs 1 lac in any account) would not be more severe than in the event of liquidation. Both protections, insured deposit of Rs 1 lac and a proportionate share in the liquidation proceeds already exist. Some say the bail in provision would be invoked only if expressly agreed to at the time of deposit acceptance. That would create a situation where banks to bolster their own safety refuse non-bail in deposits. A word of caution against the transparency induced by the bill. With bail in proviso in situ wouldn’t there be a premature run on a bank 'transparently' classified as ‘imminent’ or ‘critical’ in the resolution process ? An averment is made that occasions to invoke the provision would never arise and that resort to it is tantamount to political hara-kiri that no leadership would dare. Well then, why keep the Damocles sword hanging?

Notwithstanding all evangelic rhetoric the bail in proviso is in for its avowed intent. But its application to state owned banks has little legitimacy. FRDI must exclude PSB from bail in. It is but natural that the state sweep away the mess of its banks, but unnatural to use deposits as broomsticks to do the sweeping. No bail in, please.

Bullet train : A boon for nation,baron,ballot,helot,hubris- which?

If all goes well a technological marvel, bullet train ,with 750 passengers on board  will zoom out of Sabarmati station on 15th Aug 2022. And  Mr Narendra Modi would have kept his tryst with Indian history.

But not without a whiff of wry irony ! A hundred years ago, Bapu at this  very place wheeled a puny, stodgy charkha to spin  the yarn of freedom from  elegant cotton mills of  Manchester and  assert the infant  nation's sovereign rights in all political and economic spheres, a credo best encapsulated in the mantra 'Swadeshi'. In the 75th year of independence  would he go hung-ho  seeing bullet trains made with money and technology from a foreign nation whizzing past his backyard ? Likely,  no ! ; he refused to even celebrate Independence in 1947, as it had come at too high a price.

So, is the bullet trains coming at an affordable price? The issue has two dimensions-the financial one of commercial viability and economic feasibility, and secondly, the ethical one of social and moral equity. 

Take the financial one. The project cost is ₹1.08 lac crores ,of which ₹88000 cr will be funded by yen loan at 0.1% pa interest repayable in 50 years including an initial moratorium of 15 years. So, ( how sorely we miss the days of rupee trade with USSR) exchange rate that factors in inflation differentials must be accounted for. Presuming present differentials (Japan 0% ,India 3%), ₹ may depreciate at 3% pa vis a vis yen. Hence interest in ₹ terms would be 3.1% pa. Accordingly, a back of the envelop calculation puts total interest accrued at 36600 cr till the 15 th year and total liability at ₹124600 cr.

repayable over next 35 years. To make things simple,ignore everything else for the next 35 years. That makes for a repayment obligation of ₹ 3560 cr per annum. At utmost operational efficiency the bullet train is expected to ferry 36000 passengers daily, each paying ₹3000, generating an annual revenue of mere ₹3942 cr with which to meet operational and maintenance costs besides repayment of loan.

Obviously, the project is a potential financial hole, justifiable only on grounds of collateral benefits including intangibles and impoderables like skill and technology acquisition, savings in carbon footprints ( assuming airlines will cease flights on this route) and diplomacy imperatives. And for these supposed notional gains ,the well-off who 'bite the bullet' will be subsidised as fares can't ,conceivably, meet costs and repayments. Maybe routes with maximum traffic congestion like Delhi- Mumbai or Delhi -Kolkata would have been profitable. BJP's LS poll plank spoke of a 'Diamond Quadrilateral' of bullet trains connecting Delhi-Kolkata- Mumbai- Chennai. Somehow,Ahmedabad wriggled its way in, nudging out more deserving. 

That returns us to the second dimension of affordability- the ethical . The project cost of 1.10 lacs Crs is no chicken feed. That money would take care of the budget of a small state like Uttarakhand for three years running ; that amount spent over 5 years would fund expansion of rail network in the entire country or strengthen its safety and security; that amount could abate pollution and rejuvenate Maa Gange five times over......  Besides, derailments and accidents draw attention to the fact 40% of 
railway bridges are over 100 years old, and 19000 km of rail tracks are crying for modernisation. Can we afford to  ignore these more urgent social needs for a bullet train without which we haven't done too badly so far. Further, there is that moral distaste over subsidising the better off. 

With fares @ par with Ist AC , the poor will not be able to avail this hidden subsidy as they will never get on board. Bullet trains zooming past on elevated tracks will blow a whiff of elitism in a low middle income country. The bogie of elitism was raised when Rajdhani trains too were conceived. But this time it's a different story. Rajdhani was to run on existing tracks with indigenous technology, not needing dedicated corridors and foreign debt. The common man still travels on those very tracks ,albeit on trains with affordable fare. If smart cities in their pristine conception create gated spaces of 'Pompeii' splendour , raised tracks dedicated to bullet trains for deep pockets will do the same for rail travel. 

If not for affordability then what ? One cannot rule out hubris. India will join the elite group of 15 countries that have high speed trains running at 250 kmph or more, cause enough to rekindle our machismo, bare our 56" chest .

But what legitimate hubris accrues in wearing a lion's skin ? For a nation aspiring to regional power status, real lion paws add punch. Nehru bequeathed to future generations a plethora of research centres,laboratories,technical institutions, space and nuclear research centres that incubated indigenous technologies. With justifiable hubris today we preen over sending chandrayaan ,mangalayan, and multiple payloads hurtling into space at a fraction of the cost in advanced countries. 

Of late, though, we have taken to buying products off the shelf, be it Rafale jets, helicopters, F16 planes, submarines, missiles, even nuclear plants. This will only attenuate growth of indigenous cutting edge technologies and reduce us to the status of ' industrial coolies', the ones who make 'nuts and bolts' or assembly lines for manufactures with foreign technologies. Our bright young minds took early to the IT revolution but not as innovators but as operators of technologies developed in the West earning the sobriquet,'tech coolies' . As Mr Narayan Murthy observed we have sub-optimally utilised our large pool of technical personnel . Result, we never produced any earth-shaking innovations. If the second industrial renaissance is to take place now , scripting an 'industrial coolie' paradigm isn't the right way.

We are at a phase in human history where balance of nuclear terror gives nations uninterrupted opportunities for holistic development. If indeed there are imperatives beyond profitability to break the speed barrier of 160 kmph to 320 kmph in one quantum leap, why not invest in incubating innovations in  the field of high speed technology suited to Indian conditions. Yes , there will be a delay as technology incubation involves a  gestation  before its fruition ,but then  what is the tearing 
hurry? When it finally arrives it will put bullet trains on track at much lower costs. China developed its own technology that is said to cost the Wuhan- Guanzhow bullet train infra ₹104 cr per Km against the Mumbai-Ahmedabad one of ₹210 cr per km. If true ,it demonstrates starkly  that the gains of proprietary technology are enormous

That brings  me  to the final destination of this piece, is  ballot the prime mover ? Mr Modi is programmed to deliver painful kicks on shin just before the referee walks on the field. His brownie points are already  on board before  the model code of conduct kicks in leaving the opposition little time to remove  the crust on  the 'brownie'. For example, a surgical strike trumpeted  as one that sent terrorists squirreling in safe tunnels and Pak forces quaking in their boots,  followed by  PM electing to shoot  the Rambaan at Ravan that traditionally  marks the end of Dussehra not at Ramlila grounds in Delhi as his predecessors did , but in Lucknow. The symbolism of who represented Ravan and who Rama could scarce be missed. The coup de grace was demonetisation, scripted as Robinhood taking from the rich to give to the poor. The talk of rich losing sleep,  however fanciful, struck an emotional chord that windswept Yogi to power in UP.

Is  the tom-tomming of bullet train inauguration of  the same genre with Gujarat ballot in the backdrop? The first pointer is the timing and the hoopla surrounding it. The project feasibility report was accepted and Japan chosen in 2015, yet 'inauguration'  was deferred till now , 3 months before expected  calling  of Guj elections.  A bhoomi pujan  with required land acquisition of 825 hectares still in limbo shows undue haste. Social and environmental impact assessment, essential preliminaries to land acquisition, is still pending. Design & track alignments are yet to be finalised. Four sub-  groups to identify components and sub-systems for manufacture in India under joint ventures are taking only  their first baby steps. The rushed-through inauguration of an undercooked project certainly betrays ballot imperatives.

And if so, what electoral spin has been put on it -Cheapest ever loan,  PM put it " in a way free", one that 'only PM, Modi can do', 'interest free gift' from a friend. In some rhetorics 'interest' is muted, so most hear 'free gift'. Nothing can be farther from truth. No grant is forthcoming from Japan. 

As  for the ' free'  rhetoric,  one need only  look at the  'zero interest' EMI schemes that pop up on festive occasions in consumer retail stores. They  attract just a few.  Even without interest,  loans need to be repaid. The question of affordability weighs heavy in any financial decision.

Truly speaking ,is Abe being generous. Current yield on Govt securities in Tokyo is 0.06%, so a 0.1% interest on yen loan assures Japanese banks a heathy risk premium, hence good returns. More often Japanese banks pay 0.1% interest for parking their surpluses with the central bank. If parked in the project it earns them effectively a 0.2% interest, a windfall .

Maybe WB, IDA funds are costlier but recipient countries get the freedom to shop for the best terms for their projects.  Who can say that the price is right in case of the proprietary technology that Japan has offered ? 

Further, are we really acquiring cutting edge technology?  The signalling and power systems, the technological backbone, will be made  in  Japan. So are we being inveigled into the 'industrial coolie ' paradigm. 

Will it lift the sagging new  jobs market ? Official data speaks of 4000 new direct operational jobs, 20000 construction jobs which will disappear on project completion and 20000 indirect jobs. Not too enthusing considering the scale of capital investment.Technology is not a wholly benign demi-god, it gives to the skilled and takes away from the unskilled , thereby widening   income disparities. Ask Thomas Picketty, he knows. 

In conclusion,  it does seem that ballot and hubris are greasing the Bullet train project for now ! 

In search of a Prime Ministerial candidate in cowland

Janta's United ,Modern & Liberal Awaaz, JUMLA , a national political party dedicated to making public life swacch and swatantra was in jitters. With 2019 Lok Sabha elections less than two years away, the party had not yet picked on a Prime Ministerial face to challenge the puissant, Narendra Damodardas Modi. Meanwhile, Mr Modi was using his redoubtable MA (entire political science) credentials to telling effect, voraciously hogging up national political space to pre-empt any challenge.

The party's Marg Darshak Mandali, MDM, was now in session, soul-searching. Fifty two pensive heads , the party's creme de la creme, brooding, brainstorming, belabouring for three hours had failed  to zero-in even on a clutch of likely names. Of what use a whole life-time spent scraping the bottom of an empty cask. The inevitable soon dawned on the grizzled veterans. There was none. Mr Modi stood leagues in front of any competition. 

Then Urja lifted the gloom !  It was a stroke of good fortune that this promising young neta from down under had been admitted into the group, almost all geriatrics. Urja was blunt, if we don't have one, let's hire one through a public tender. Not too outlandish an idea if one reckoned the rivulets of netas flowing into each others'  parties, one that broke into torrents in pre-poll times. Wasn't it much the same thing , without ,of course, the public tender stuff ?  Urja's Scheme was transparent ,not subterranean like the way Amit 
Shah went about recruiting to fill gaps in BJP's talent pool.

Finally, the party was sold on the idea. A committee headed by Urja was tasked to workout the modalities and come up with a potent prime ministerial face with utmost expedition. Urja was now a man possessed, within a week Notices inviting Expression of Interest ,EOI, from Indian passport holders with the following traits, a list not too long to seem prohibitive, appeared in all prominent dailies . 

Must qualifications

1. be bearded. The three dark horses ( IK Gujral, MM Singh and ND Modi ) who leapfrogged more illustrious party colleagues to political stardom, all had it. 
2. be endowed with that veritable political aphrodisiac- risen in life from an obscure humble origin. (It never fails to evoke instant sympathies of the multitude of poor in India and invests the   man effortlessly with a pro - poor halo. And that matters, the poor have numbers. ). Any 'poor' vocation like majdoor, khomchawala, paanwala ,doodhwala, peanutwala ( remember,  a 5-year old Jimmy carter, ex US Prez, sold boiled peanuts on streets)....... will do. (Not chaiwala though, it's already taken up)
3. be a powerful orator, capable of rabble-rousing audiences to sufficiently high emotional pitch, enough for faith to supplant their reason. Must be a consummate practitioner of the art of rhetoric, spin, bollywoodian innuendos and double entendres ( not pun , that is too suave ), subtle subterfuge.....and the art of 
4. exciting pathos by words, bodily gestures.
5. be able to cold-stare down one into meek submission. A visage with  no-nonsense, business-only signposts desirable, it adds aura. 
6. be nattily dressed, and at all times. With Mr Modi making fashion statements once too often, sporting Kurtas with holes in pockets is courting disaster. 

The response was a virtual deluge. After all ,governance of the most populous democracy, the fastest growing economy in the world was at stake. Evaluation would be a humongous affair, besides time consuming. The committee desperately needed a Newton idea . The ever resourceful Urja gave them one- an innovation on E-auction.

Applicants, whose EOI passed preliminary scrutiny, were to participate in an e-auction. At start, they will log into an auction website and key-in one measure they felt would endear them to the masses and lead to people gleefully voting them. Only the measure first keyed in would be recorded, others blocked off and erased. The next bidder would bid only if he agreed to do what the previous bidder promised AND his own distinctive measure . In a way the bids would be consolidative. The auction would proceed till no fresh measure is added. 

On the appointed date ,the auction opened  and bids came in thick and fast. 

The first bid : No beef , No goat and sheep meat too. Only horse 
meat will be allowed because Vedic rituals sanctify horse sacrifice in aswamedha yagna. 

Pat came the following bid : Policy making to be metamorphosed to a genuine,participative lok niti. People will decide the GDP growth they want. Once decided , CSO will make the necessary data adjustments, including change of base year, methodology, the extrapolation parameters used to account for material economic activities for which no data is collected etc etc etc. Even past data could be revised to align expert's forecasts with popular demands. Non achievement of GDP growth targets will be a thing of the past. 

Now things were really abuzz. 

Next bid : Ban all paper notes. Only bitcoins transactions to be legal contracts.

Next, next bid : All neighbourhood policing jobs including crowd
 control to be outsourced to vigilante groups. Cops only for crime investigation and providing A to Z security cover for politicians , corporate and Hindu religious honchos.

Next.1.Next bid : Ensure a corruption free India. No Lok Pal , no FIRs against govt officials, politicians unless approved, unanimously, by the Anti-corruption Crime Heads Authority, ACCHA.  that included  the PM and held  office at his pleasure. 

Next.2.Next bid : RPA to be amended to permit MLAs, MPs not belonging to the ruling party at Centre to freely migrate to it without incurring disqualifications. 

Next.3.Next bid : A new Ministry of Truth to be set up. It will recall print and electronic versions of all Indian history texts  ever written for scrutiny. All 'untrue' texts will either be deleted or  altered by educationists in the ministry to reflect ' truth' . Falsehoods like Akbar the Great ,  instead of Maharana Pratap  the Great , won't be tolerated any longer. After such redactions the books  will  be reissued as the original texts  of the authors. Those objecting will be sent to Pakistan .

Next.4.Next bid: Special treaty with Pakistan for interchange of ' inconvenient citizens.'  For  example,  those who can't live without beef in India to be exported to Pak and those  who can't live without eating pork to be imported from Pakistan.

Next.5.Next bid: A new Ministry of Love to channel love  in right directions- increasing Hindu fecundity,  suppressing that of other communities to restore proper 'demographic'  balance.  'Errant'  Love  to be 'discouraged' .

Next.6.Next bid : The ' grammar of silence ' for victims of domestic atrocities  and 'idiom of heartbreaks' for victims  of ethnic terror abroad  approach  to  be reversed to ' idiom of heartbreaks' for domestic victims,  a 'grammar of silence' for victims abroad. After all ,the latter is the  responsibility of respective states .

Next.7.Next bid: Acronyms will be made the official lingo of government. A wing in the Dept of comm.  , GYAN  ( get your acronym now) , will engage full time in churning out real  catchy ones.  For example,  an officer approving a project would sign off as GAGA -Government Approves Go Ahead.  If not , he may  write NADA  -Not Approved Do Again. Measures to aid poor would be called SOPS - stamping out poverty schemes and sops to promote business would be called GIFTS , government incentives for trade schemes ......stuff like that . So scintillating !

Next. 8. Next: Dairying will be made a national endeavour, MUD , aimed at boosting national production of Milk, Urine  (gau-mutra) and Dung  (gobar).  Every  employee,  serving or retired, in govt, PSU, or  institutions receiving govt support/funds/grants to maintain a cow. Milk cooperatives to specially monitor  quantities of MUD received daily from these privileged  people so  that there are no  defaults.   

And there were no more bids.

The party heaved a  sigh of relief. At last they had found their Man Friday. The winner ,  an Indian passport holder from Wembley area of London, name withheld for obvious reasons, was asked to rush to Delhi.  It wasn't a beaming winner  ,though,  that met  the jubilant plenum members. Looking forlorn, morose he wailed, "my name has been struck off the voters list". He knows not why . 

A huge shock . The special plenary session convened to make the grand public announcement lay in ruins. But not the irrepressible Urja ! 

" We haven't  lost but gained much  from the auction. Let's have one more. This time the minimal required  standards from applicants would include all the promises made in the last  auction. " ,he said 

Last heard , auction notice was due within the next few  days .

Kashmir: more the things change, the more they stay the same !

While days lengthen in rest of India, nights keep getting longer in Kashmir -more home-grown separatists, more 'pebbles vs pellets' casualties, more vacuous 'moohtod jawab' and surgical strike rhetoric, more curfews, more internet and TV channel bans, nocturnal raids and what not ! A lame duck Chief Minister cocooned in secure ,cordoned off VIP areas of Srinagar darkens the nights further and adds to Delhi's nightmare.

One expected better from a new political dispensation of the same genre at Centre and State, at least a refreshingly different approach to bear on the dystopia. One sees little evidence of it. Past regimes at different times twiddled with one or more of three approaches without much success- diplomatic engagement with Pakistan, the alma mater of terror groups operating in Kashmir, taking out the militant leadership, and political dialogue with home stakeholders. Modi sarkar treads the same old beaten path. Only, each approach is being tried in isolation by turns, not in simultaneity.  

First it tried honeymooning with Pak. Not easy for a regime riding to power outraging 'weak Manmohan', ' one head for ten' and promising good use of its '56" ka chhati’. To its credit, it did. Against its grains it invited Nawaz Sharif to its swearing in, Mr Modi 'airdropped unannounced' to Lahore for Nawaz's birthday, and the two did well publicised photo ops and ‘optical’ hand waves under international gaze. Nawaz was condoned for Pak’s Kargil misadventure. Some say Kargil was Musarraf’s doing which begs the question, why then invest political goodwill on Nawaz?

Then the Pathankot shock. Still ,PM gave Pak a long rope, allowing for the first time, Pak intelligence to do investigations inside our air base without seeking reciprocity of investigations by Indian cops in Pak territory. Uri was the last straw on camel’s back leading to an avenging surgical strike by Indian army across the LOC that inflicted undisclosed damages on terror havens within Pak. 2014 status quo ante stood restored. Recent beheading of two Indian jawans by Pak will bring back echoes of Mr Modi words spoken in 2013 “The soldiers of our nation are beheaded and after a few days the Prime Minister of that nation is treated with chicken biryani,". Another shot at detente looks pretty remote. 

Though Indian good neighbourly overtures were so cruelly rebuffed by Pakistan, tragically, there was very worryingly no international condemnation of Pak perfidy. So, as before, we are stuck with a neighbour hell-bent on 'bleeding India through thousand   cuts'. Neither Pak nor terror groups took the underlying message in our surgical strike. Terror attacks and unrest at LOC continue at elevated levels, taking heavier toll of our valuable fighting assets and more unmitigated hardships for residents. Pak isolation as the 'mother ship of terrorism' is nowhere in evidence. The first beaten up vintage approach stays beaten.

As for Kashmir, it stepped into the millennium with the dreaded cordon and search operations, CASO, at doorsteps. In 2017, CASO is back, this time maybe in perpetuity as an operative part of army's on-going strategy. After burying engagement with Pak, the regime now is solely focused on eliminating militants.

Is this the way forward - effective area domination and patrolling of streets by armed forces or in 
other words brazen exhibition of muscularity to subdue Kashmiris into making the right choice between ' terror and tourism’ as the put it? isn’t this yet one more of the beaten paths? Further, one can legitimately ask, why the area domination stuff hasn’t already happened? The Armed Forces (J&K) Special Powers Act 1990 granted the armed forces in disturbed areas omnibus powers of search and seizure, arrest, and even to kill on mere suspicion with impunity. Considering the massive deployment of armed personnel, and making liberal allowances for difficult terrain and a hostile populace, twenty-seven years is a long enough time for the army to have done it. In recent times, it has been found wanting in warding off    sneaking terror  attacks inside its very  own campuses,  or to 
effectively sterilise areas en route its convoys. An India Today report listing major terror attacks shows that in 14 years from 1999-2013 there were just four attacks on army camps and one attack on its convoys whereas in two years and four month, 2014-2017(April) there were ten attacks on camps and three on convoys, a quantum jump, indeed. In itself, this is a telling evidence of growing alienation of kashmiris with rest of India.

And mind you, we have among the most professional armies in the world. So, it's not simply a matter of inefficiency. Armies are conditioned to take on enemies beyond its borders where its operations are not fettered by niceties of human rights or law. All is fair on enemy territory. But it can never have the same freedom in domestic operations. It may not shoot down but only shoo off stone-pelters. Armies win territories, quell unrest, but never keep domestic peace for indefinitely long periods. There is much evidence around to substantiate this plain truth.

Kashmir needs out of box thinking. One such could be gradual 'ulsterisation'. An army that speaks in tones like ' ......displaying flags of IS and Pakistan, then we will treat them as anti-national elements and go helter-skelter for them’ or 'those who obstruct our operations during encounters and aren’t supportive will be treated as over-ground workers of terrorists' comes across more as an army of occupation than an 'Indian' army. Ulsterisation will lead to gradual replacement of it by army units raised from carefully selected local recruits. These units may be more acceptable hence more likely to get local support. Besides, it would gainfully employ the youth who are now getting brainwashed into terrorism to take off from where Paki mujahideen of yesteryears left. Already J&K has the highest unemployment rate in the country. As many as 27K govt vacancies lie unfilled.

But not the least, it would reduce casualties of army personnel from rest of India. The bodybags arriving from theatres in the valley are inflaming puerile hatred against valley Kashmiris and those Kashmiris, particularly, students living outside the state. Whipping up hysteria merely complicates reconciliation.

Building domestic peace is the realm of politics. This is even truer in the scenario of a hostile populace egged on by a nasty neighbour with emotional and religious ties to it, and one waging a relentless war 'by other means'. Our Northeast hold a valuable lesson. It too is in much the same boat. But it has relative peace largely due to political breakthroughs  with separatists. Rajiv Gandhi's Mizo accord settled Mizo insurgency without any loss of sovereignty. A new Mizoram state with the insurgent chief Laldenga as CM brought peace. In a like manner, Rajiv-Longowal accord suffocated Khalistan cries once and for all. Of course, in both cases, the army chipped in by doing what it knows best - 'softening up’ the opposition.

On its own the army can do little to bring lasting peace.  As long as Sheikh Abdullah, notwithstanding his oft flirtations with the 'independence’ idea, was around pro-India voices could be heard in the valley. Since then Kashmir has only been hemorrhaging goodwill for 'Hindustan'. Mainstream parties are increasingly feeling the disconnect with masses. Even PDP, once the voice of sympathy for the azadi cause in South Kashmir , finds its turf overrun  by home bred militants.North Kashmir seems no better as evidenced from people's  participation in the just concluded Srinagar LS bye- election- a record low of 7% .In 2014, the voting percentage for whole of Kashmir was 49%. The down slide is disconcertingly steep .Kashmir urgently needs a charm offensive to accompany the disarm offensive of the army. Mr Modi is committing a great folly by relying only on the latter ignoring the former. In this connection, the following words of Nehru, reproduced in the book ‘India after Gandhi’ by Ramachandra Guha sound truly prophetic,

“but however, much we may want this(Kashmir), it cannot be done ultimately except through the goodwill of the mass of the population. Even if military forces held Kashmir for a while, a later consequence might be a strong reaction against this.”

There is no alternative , TINA  , to reconciliation and statesmanship in cutting the Kashmir knot. 

One last thought on history of the imbroglio. The India Independence Act lifted Crown's suzerainty over princely states and lapsed  all obligation to it . It did not, however, require them to join one or the other of the new dominion. So staying independent was an option, however  unviable. Maharaja Hari Singh chose to be  an independent ruler from 15.08.47 to 27.10. 1947, the day Lord Mountbatten accepted his instrument of accession with a remark, “it is my Government's wish that as soon as law and order have been restored in Jammu and Kashmir and her soil cleared of the invader the question of the State's accession should be settled by a reference to the people.” Those who calumniate Pandit Nehru for agreeing to a plebiscite in UN miss the point, plebiscite was a fait accompli. It will be naive to believe that a Governor General, that too a British, of the dominion (India was still a dominion ) would not have had his say in this and the decision to refer  the matter to UN. For Nehru, too it was a case of TINA, there is no alternative! 

One more, One less may make world of a difference !

Who wouldn't like to live life ONCE more or be rid of the ONE pesky neighbour next door or get ONE more like to one's  FB   post or that the dinner bill at Hotel Taj have ONE zero less, or wish one weren't just ONE day late in paying credit card bills or home loan EMI ,or arrive ONE second before the traffic lights turn red , or that ONE and ONE  make eleven ,not two, or that the party host doesn't grudge ONE for the road .....the wish list is endless. Life is all about hits and misses, some agonisingly close ,just a matter of  ONE more or ONE less ! 

This 'one' thing in no frivolity. Don't believe it ,then read on . It has had profound impact , changing courses of history or destinies of men and nations. In fact , it has determined our very existence.

Yes ! our very existence ! Indisputably now, the universe began with a Big Bang. An Infinitesimal point at an infinite temperature some 13.7 billion years ago exploded creating, space and time. All matter too emerged out of it. So did anti-matter that sought out matter for a deathly embrace and mutual annihilation, leaving just mass-less energy in its wake . Had it not been for a quantum quirk ( the quantum roost of the micro-world of elementary particles has many idiosyncratic strands like certainty of 'uncertainty', reality of 'virtual' particles.....) that for every billion of anti-matter , the Big Bang produced one billion and ONE of matter. That extra ONE survived to give substance to the stars, the universe and the cellular fabric of which we are made. Otherwise, the universe would have just been an ever expanding expanse of desolate, matter less ,lifeless dark void.

By God's design ,we survived this one and another by a whisker. If the percentage of Oxygen in total matter in the universe had been ONE percent less, earth would have been as sterile as Mars. Why ? There would have been no oxygen at all, for one percent is all there is. .

Well, our existence as a human too owes much to this 'ONE' fortuity. But for ONE chromosome ,we would have been  Chimpanzees living on trees ,sporting a tail. We would be having the same 24 chromosomes. One good thing would have happened, the rape of our eco-system would have been avoided.

Never mind , we as humans moved on, setting up distinctive civilisations in different geographies and climes, among them our own Vedic culture. At a self destruct moment in the evolution of Indian civilisation, Duryodhana refused to give ONE village to each Pandava ,triggering  a  fratricidal war , Mahabharata, as bloody as WW I . That surely shaved off  Bharata's civilisational gains by a couple of centuries at the least . What if Duryodhana had not committed the epic folly of choosing the Yadava legions over the ONE man army, Lord Krishna ? Would he have won the war ? Evil that he was, would  Bharata have seen a rule of the devil ? My heart just missed ONE beat ! 

Let's take an episode from a more recent period of history. In 1452, Orban,an arms seller, made a cannon for the Byzantium army. The emperor ,however, had no money to buy it ,so Orban sold it to the Ottoman Sultan. Next year the Sultan made good use of the cannon to blast a hole in the defensive wall of Constantinople ,the capital of Byzantium, through which the Turks poured in to pillage and erase Byzantine from the pages of history. But for ONE cannon Byzantium may have lived on  ! 

Being a cricket enthusiast one miss I most rue - failure of Sir Donald Bradman to hit ONE boundary before calling it a day. With 6996 Test runs from 80 innings and 10 not outs that was what he needed for a career batting average of 100, no more no less. 

Finally the golden miss. Platinum must be disappointed that the starry cauldrons that created all elements failed to put one more proton in its nucleus, to make it golden. It needed one to add to its 78 to attain the atomic number of Gold. 

Negotiating the maze of rights

“What one thinks is right is not always the same as what others think is right; no one can be always right.” 

― Roy T. Bennett

 So very Right !!!

My father must have been much anxious that my life get right off to a right start right after emerging from my mother’s womb. So ,not one, two astrologers were  engaged to make my kundli . Surprisingly, both agreed that the disposition of my stars was just right. Rahu and Ketu wouldn’t cast their malevolent shadows on me as they were on the right side of my life journey.

However ,neither of them were around when someone right behind shoved me and my left arm went right through the glass of the refectory door. Bleeding profusely from a nasty gash on the wrist with little shards of glass ensconced in it, I was led to the school dispensary. Sister nurse picked off the shards and thought it right to sew it up instead of a simple dressing. So she draped a towel  over my head and proceeded right about the business of  sewing up . What didn't seem right was that she did it without  anaesthesia. She hadn't the  time to do the right thing. I still carry two scars from that accident, one on the wrist and the other in my heart which still rebels against the cruelty of the anonymous Sister nurse.

Time went by. I learnt the rights and wrongs of things and went right on to college. Till then Marx hadn't entered into my consciousness. So whatever I did was right. Then some bright hat said going right wasn't right . Left was the way to go . I thought that was right too. One always walked through the streets on its left , why not the same for the street of Life? So I became a rights activist on the left side of the political scale. That put my father, a right-minded soul, right out of his mind. He bristled with righteous indignation, how dare his right arm lean left ! After all ,right was ,by definition, right. For one with a heart in the right place ,rebelling against father didn't feel alright. I did the next right thing ,like a pendulum I sometimes swung right ,at other times left since nobody ever suggested staying centre.

That led to contretemps with both left and right over my being confused. They said you are either left brained or right brained . Being neither an organised or creative person, I deemed it right to remain scatterbrained. 

That's how I have muddled through life, met mr Bright, mr Wright ,mr Upright ,mr Forthright ,mr Spright, but never one only right. Except , perhaps ,Mr Bennet.  

The chrysalis period of retirement

 " NOW THAT YOU ARE RETIRED 

 YOU GET AN EVEN TOUGHER BOSS......YOUR WIFE "

I became one with a growing crowd of bank retirees a year and a half ago. At close of first decennial of the millennium, it wasn't a crowd, just a trickle. The numbers swelled phenomenally from retiree outflows across the entire PSB spectrum especially in the last five years with more in the wings. In fact, it’s a deluge quite reminiscent of the spectacular rise in child births in the west immediately following WW II, one that coined the term ‘baby-boomers’ for young couples. Our PSBs have gone to the other end of human life scale and turned ‘retiree -boomers’.

This unprecedented swell in retirees has put focus on our handling of senior citizens. For bank retirees the foremost issue is not so much financial as an issue of smooth transition from bread-earners status to one living off pensions or at best, part-time earners. More importantly, they need emotional succour to get over the feel of fish out of water after the final handshakes. 

The normative approach for enlightened managements is to put would-be retirees through workshops and counselling sessions covering the whole gamut of life style changes required to cope with challenges and threats of an retired existence - from aspects of financial security, time management , dietary habits, health care and medical security, to drop in self-esteem arising from loss of halo of an IP ( important person) on turning a PIP ( previously important person).In short, an attuning of mind to seek happiness ignoring the balding head at the top. 

By some fortuity or more likely, the prayers of well-wishers I had managed to acquire an executive tag, and an entitlement to participate, with spouse, in one such program before the ‘final’ adieu. It’s a formal structured program that the bank conducts for all its soon-to-superannuate executives to mentally prepare them for an existence outside its portals.

It was three days of quintessential learning, cogitation, self-exploration and emotional reorientation. From financial and wealth management in an inflationary world to desired behavioural readjustments in family and social relationships, to coping with ageing and mortality, a bouquet of knowledge gaps were plugged. In essence, we returned with a self-administered ‘wellness kit’ in our mental baggage, besides extravagant gifts of some great utilitarian retirement tips.

Our physical comforts too were well taken care of. We wallowed in luxury for its duration in 5-star accommodation, gormandized on multi-cuisine delicacies, exotic snacks, took sight-seeing trips, watched light and sound laser shows et al, all paid for plus some out-of-pocket allowance to boot. (the proverbial fattening of a sheep before the kill?) What more could one want!

Sadly, you can take a horse to water but can't make it drink. For instance, an early morning hour-long regimen of variously twisting one’s body and limbs and contorting of nostrils in asanas and pranayamas was highly recommended. Trainers saw to it that we got it right. But it was too big an ask for my badly abused body. Quite naturally, after a few frail attempts at flaying arms and legs I chickened out. Equally, quite naturally the trainers gave up on me early on and advised me to settle for an hour of daily brisk morning walk. And I didn't fail them, doing five rounds of the outer perimeter of Pataliputra Stadium every day without fail. Then in one of those quirky turn of events, the housemaid preponed her chore timing to early morning. Quite naturally, the duty of opening the gates and keeping vigil over her fell on me. The morning walk unobtrusively dropped out of daily itinerary. 

The dietician advised- just one regular meal in a day against the normal three. But that seemed to belittle my recent gastronomic sacrifices – abjuring non-veg food, mutton in particular that I loved, and cigarettes. Wasn't that sufficient abstinence, the mind rebelled. Besides, one doesn't forsake a new found love just like that – my new fondness for vegetarianism. Further, without being accused of hedonism, one can legitimately ask, what is the point of living if one can’t eat, drink and make merry at will ? Life in any case is ephemeral. So, its three meals as usual.

However, we came off rather well in matters relating to financial security, the forty years of grounding in taking 'risk-free’ risks came in handy. I already had my three buckets for financial comfort worked out- 'essentials' bucket for necessities of life, 'lifestyle' bucket for pursuit of dreams, and lastly, 'nest egg' bucket to provide for emergencies especially, medical ones.

But retirement is not only about retirement planning but also about retirement living. I learnt this truism, as they say, on the streets. The lessons came from dealing with the grey areas in the middle bucket, the dreams; in particular, the two prickly questions - 'why dream' and 'whose dreams'. 

The program’s wellness kit spoke of pursuing one’s dreams in the abundance of leisure time occasioned by retirement but after we had settled in our nest and had a go at dreams, a doubt sprouted. If you haven't dreamt for the better part of your life why day-dream now? Does one have any chutzpah left in the kitty for flights of fancy? After much one-way debates the wellness kit prevailed and my wife affirmed that for a fulfilling retired life we do need to fill in on unfulfilled dreams. The epilogue of our life story has to be inked differently, not merely a corollary to earlier chapters; to put it figuratively, written in the language of 3 Ds-  Doughnut, Drinks and Dreams.

The 'Whose dreams' thing proves more intractable. The program had no time slot for this one. Yet the issue is as old as the hills. As Adam Smith in his classic 'Wealth of Nations' puts it with utmost economy of words, it’s really a question of ‘double coincidence of wants '. Let me explain. I have a lust for travel, my wife thinks it wasteful. She would rather spend money on the likes of Amitabh Bachan cavorting on the silver screen, I, contrastingly, on if-not-that-then-this basis, would prefer buying books. So, the money in the middle bucket lies unspent for want of ‘double coincidence of dreams’. That precisely is the 'whose dreams' problem, a knotty one of identifying shared dreams.

Come to think of it, a host of other post teething issues remain unresolved. Maybe someday I will share these too. But rest assured it would only strengthen the narrative that 'wellness kits' of transition programs, at best, plug knowledge gaps. Humans and their relationships are too complex to be encapsulated in a one size fits formulation for happily retired living. When one actually gets down to the grind of living a relatively secluded life on one’s own that mantras for happy living, so to say, evolve. And the mantras need to pass muster in the chrysalis phase, the first two years  of second innings. Otherwise, there is a real risk of inertia seeping in to perpetuate a less than happy state of existence. Waiting too long for things to work themselves out is really not a viable option, but a surrender.

So, we do wonder, why is our own taking so long? Was the process not well begun? So, let's go back in time. The pre-retiree training was held at Agra, the place that still echoes Shah Jahan's eternal love for Mumtaz Mahal. What I believe is the most beauteous monument in the world, Taj Mahal, still stands tall and erect in glorious testimony of it, an internationally acclaimed symbol of love. 

However, the obverse side of this romantic tale has two dark spots. When you are touching sixty, Cupid isn't the same hero that he was, say, 40 years earlier. Taj looks a lot less bewitching to retirees. Further, on the banks of Yamuna opposite the Taj Mahal is the cruel reminder of the tragic denouement of emperor's love - the fort where he was confined by his son, Aurangzeb, to spend the rest of his life gazing wistfully at Taj through jharokhas on the rooftop. Even by the less exacting standards of civil conduct of the age, the emperor wasn’t too happily retired. And to add to the negativity of the place is its mental asylum. God forbid anyone ever needing it.

My rites of passage to happy retirement may have to include shaking off the shadows of Agra. 

But let's end on a happy note - the moorabas of Agra. If I can think of one other reason why Mughals chose Agra as their capital, it must be moorabas. Soft, juicy with pulpy innards, not too sweet, all in all just heavenly. Agra is the place for the sweet toothed!  

Svaha - the Hindu magic word

A fortnight ago my sister moved into a new rented flat .And as is customary, a SatyaNarayan Katha recital was held to seek the graces of devas in her new environs. When the pandit was chanting mantras over the agnihotra ( sacrificial fire pit) during havan with the jajman exclaiming 'Svaha' after  ladling each pinch of 'homad',a combustible offering,into the pit at the end of each mantra ,I got bitten by the curiosity bug -why did each mantra end with intoning 'svaha' ? Was it a magic word like Om, Namah.....? 

Having expended the greater part of life in course of which I bellowed svaha countless number of times in hundreds of 'ahutis' to Agni and yet not to know the answer, feels a bit foolish. Worse still is the guilt-feel it engenders of not having kept faith with my own Faith in the sheer belief that a passage to Indralok on Mount Meru could be booked in the currency of one's good deeds entered in the diary of Chitragupta deva, notwithstanding  blips like 'svaha' ignorance. Not that I am a devout Hindu ,but at least the common magic words.....? 

But while a learned mind is disciplined , the idle one is prone to drifting into speculative nothingness. And a whetted curiosity keeps the idle mind unsettled till the curiosity is sated. One says Laxmi is 'chanchal' but the mind is even more . It had to look up 'svaha' 

Svaha is 'sva'-self and 'aha'- spoken, meaning self spoken. So the


 connect of the word to mantras extending invitation to gods to partake of the oblations made to Agni ,for that is what the mantra recital is all about, isn't at once obvious. 

The Satapatha Brahmana says Prajapati in his act of creating the universe first made Agni. Now Agni,a food eater,found nothing to eat,so turned to Prajapati himself. Terrified, Prajapati then rubbed his hands and milk flowed. But the milk was contaminated with hairs uprooted from the palms by  rubbing( that explains why palms have no hairs) hence unfit for oblation. So he rubbed again, this time pure milk issued and the self within counselled -'offer it'. Prajapati filled with joy exclaimed 'svaha', the self has spoken, while offering the milk to Agni. So following him, Hindu mortals intone Svaha at any oblation to Agni.

In the Mahabharata Svaha is said to be the wife of Agni. It relates the myth of Agni deva getting besotted with the beautiful wives of Sapatrishis, the seven mind-sons of Brahma. When the wives rebuffed his overtures Agni had to flee to the forests. Meanwhile, Svaha smarting under an  unrequited love for Agni decided to manipulate this infatuation for the seven wives to her advantage. She ,by turns, assumed the form of the wives of rishis and consummated Agni's sexual desires. A pleased Agni not only betrothed her but also gave the boon that no offerings to him would reach the gods  unless accompanied by utterance of her name.

Bhagwat Purana has yet another origination of the word. Brahma created the universe replete with gods and living beings. But gods felt aggrieved; there was food for all living beings ,none for them. So Brahma ordained that all offerings made in the sacrificial fire would be food for gods. Yet the offerings did not reach the gods for
 Agni was without energy. Brahma then supplicated Prakruti, the primordial energy, and from it arose Svaha, the goddess of fire energy. Brahma then conjoined  Svaha with Agni and decreed,that henceforth offerings in the sacrificial fire complete with utterance of her name would go straight to the gods. 

There are other myths too connected with the word. In fact in some texts the word itself is corrupted to Swaha, even Su_aha meaning good vani or well said. Myths and magical words are integral signposts of any religio-ethnic identity. The few like me who lack its awareness  arent apostate by any means. But a bit rootless ? maybe ! 

The Pursuit of Happiness

My neighbour, Mr Dright, loves to share a morning cup of tea with me once a week. Of my age, shortish, lean so much so that a plumb line drops straight from his neck to toe without kissing any other part of his anatomy, he is as fat-free as a scarecrow. Yet the wiry frame packs much ebullience and mental agility. And years of an unremitting daily hour-long regimen of yoga lend a pleasing sheen to an ageing but taut skin. 

His only known vice, if you can call it one, is Politics with a capital P, It keeps growing on him and with it, his 'right'eousness'. Dright is as 'right' as I am 'wrong'. So any 'up'right political turn of events draws him to my doors with Yama’s noose ready to string me up for any ‘anti-Right, Libtard’ heresies. I am both a sounding board and a punching bag for his evangelism, a pond to slake his proselytising zeal. It's God's poetic justice that He bundles right neighbours with the wrong ones .

"Did you hear about MP government plans to measure happiness of its people. By 2018 the state will have a Happiness Index. For 70 long years Congressis only thought of their own happiness, did they ever think of people’s happiness. What do you say? ", with this outburst Dright set the agenda for this morning's  joust.

The Congress script in the preface was all too familiar, only that a couple of years earlier, the number of years were 60. It was his way of psyching himself for the kill ,like Shylock whetting his knife for Antonio's flesh.So, I ignored it.

"Oh, yes ' I said, ‘first heard of it a year ago." 

Dright updated me, "Since then a Department for Happiness is up and kicking, a committee is close to finalising parameters for the Index, one that will truly gauge Happiness and make MP a ‘Sukhi Rajya Sukhi Praja’. Marvellous isnt it ? The state is on its way to Ram Rajya."

Since his ardour was running far ahead of reality, it needed some cooling. 

"Not so fast, having a measure is only a baby step, surely there is more to happiness than a mere number. The ten most happy countries have remained the same for many years. So, social context and life circumstances too must be determining influences on happiness of people"  

The history of Happiness goes back to 1971 when Bhutan exorcised GDP as a definitive measure of national wellness and conceptualised a Gross National Happiness Index resting on four pillars of good governance, sustainable social and economic development, cultural preservation and environmental conservation. UN embraced the essence of Bhutanese ideation in creating a World Happiness Index (WHI) in 2012. The Index, though, makes India particularly unhappy, according a lowly rank of 122 out of 155 nations. All seven nations on our borders rank higher, even China. Worse, on a 10-point scale we have gradually lost 0.839 WHI index points since 2005-07.

So I  further added,

"Besides, we have already been singed by WHI ranking. What's the need for MP to dabble in yet another such index. Seems a bit impetuous, isn’t it?”

Dright defended, "WHI is more of Western Happiness Index, unsuited to oriental cultures, don’t make much of it. MP is doing the right thing, building an index correctly reflecting our values and ethos, in short, Happiness Indianized. Besides, a poor WHI score for a nation doesn't uniformly apply to all its constituent states. A part can be happier than the whole, hence its own HI."

Something didn't gel though. MP is a state very high on commonplace unhappiness statistics. For instance, MP is not among the TOP FIVE states on the Public Affairs Index on Good Governance ranking compiled by a group of prominent citizen.s But is very much among the TOP FIVE in NCRB 2015 crime statistics- crime rate, crimes against children, rapes, outraging modesty of women, crimes against SC/ST, kidnapping, farmer suicides…. It registers the highest number of complaints against cops-10089 (all India,41424) but the lowest conversion of complaints into criminal case- just 84. VYPAM remains a gory mystery of corruption and murder.

Its agricultural production remains stagnant--76.36 lac tons in 2009-10 and 77.34 in 2014-15; Per capita GDP in 2014-15 is ₹63323 against the national avg of ₹88533. It still remains unhappily BIMARU. All of it must be making the lives of its people somewhat unhappy.

“Isn’t it ironic that MP should be the first state to moot an esoteric Happiness Index despite its unenviable track record. A thought therefore strikes me, should not the state proceed the other way around, from unhappiness towards happiness? After all, what makes Madhya Bharat unhappy is easily spotted.”

To drive home my point conclusively, I further added,

"Isn't finding what makes people happy an arduous task? As Walt Disney said Happiness is just a state of mind. We pine for our dream houses and when it somehow materialises our hearts leap with joy. After a time, the house becomes all too familiar, and whoops! it no longer sends the same thrills through the body. On the other hand, one unhappy from a disease acquires life long immunity from this source of unhappiness once fully cured. 

Happiness is as fickle as human nature, happy this instant, unhappy the very next.  Therefore the 'via negativa' approach may be more efficacious. Happiness, it premises, is not being unhappy. Pin-pointing what makes people unhappy is much easier. Therefore locate and eliminate unhappy elements is via negativa's prescription for happiness. That makes an unhappiness, rather than a happiness, index more pertinent. "

Dright almost blew up ,

"that's your problem -a negative mindset. Like Shalya ,the charioteer of Karan ,continually belittling him on the Kurushetra battleground, you keep dropping only negatives. Why talk of unhappiness at all? Didn't Buddha say- what you think, you become. If people think of happiness, happy they will be.  Have you heard of PAINS ? "

"No, but experienced loads of it and never found it blissful, Buddha's preference for suffering notwithstanding " 

Dright: "No, No! PAIN is an acronym for Positive Attitude In Negative Situations. Best summed up as -If you can't change what you don't like, change the way you think about it. That's the secret of happiness."

"So, if people in MP don't get electricity in their homes, they should console themselves that less coal is being burned in power plants and therefore citizen are benefiting ecologically."

Dright thought for a moment, then conceded "Ah! well the line of thought is right though your illustration is pure humbuggery..A mind that values '99% fat-free' over '1% fat'  is truly PAINS compliant "

"Come on ! both are equally 'fatty'. PAINS seems to be a web of semantic pains"

A broad knowing smile lit up his face, "semantics is the very fount of political verbiage or as Amit Shah crudely put it ,the art of coining plausible Jumlas. It's all about sending out  positive vibes. What can be a happier vibe than Happiness Index? ."

I tried another line.

"Say, MP does conceive a Happiness Index (HI) and its score slips. Wont it creates avoidable unhappiness? " 

Dright: "Remember, it is a Happiness index. Less happiness doesn’t mean unhappiness. If you take away a few drops from the ocean its level doesn’t drop. In Ram Rajya every one was happy, that didn’t mean there were no ups and down in their lives. Happiness always reigned in the midst of unhappiness'

Humph! With sights for HI set so high, I had no business playing spoil sport. I made my peace.

"You are right. More than any state, MP needs a HI."

And so in 2018 MP is destined to be the only Happily Indexed state in the country. Its people will soon fill up questionnaires with responses to happiness drivers like 'do you have a friend to help you in troubled times ' rather than unhappiness posers like ' do you fear  for your life' to build the Index.Should the unhappiness elements be totally ignored? Maybe MP is better served by including 'absence of unhappiness',the via negativa elements, too in the  questionnaires for a more holistic measure of happiness.