Social Welfare - a case of perverse incentives and unintended consequences

The text of my letter to the Commissioner, Social Welfare, Government of Karnataka.
Dear Sir, 
This letter is to bring to your attention the misuse of free rations being provided to tribal households living around the periphery of the Bandipur National Park.  The tribal households here are extremely poor, suffer from severe malnutrition and chronic alcoholism and live in lamentable conditions. 
I understand that each such tribal household is provided every month with the following rations : toor dal, ragi, green gram or horse gram, jaggery, oil, eggs and, occasionally, ghee.    
I am deeply appreciative of the Government’s intent on improving the nutrition value of food consumed by the tribals, yet what I reliably learnt was that most of these provisions were being sold by the beneficiaries to middlemen, in exchange for cash and/or alcohol, or occasionally towards the repayment of loans.  These provisions therefore re-enter the market in various forms and are not having the impact that the scheme intends to achieve.  Indeed, as a result of the scheme, the increased purchasing power due to sale of free provisions is resulting in increased alcohol consumption and indebtedness – quite the opposite effect to what is intended and, hence, an unintended consequence. This diversion by the tribal population is estimated by some locals to be as much as 75% of the total supply of provisions to the area. 
After some study and discussions with local school teachers, I am therefore volunteering the following suggestion – rather than provide free rations, could the Government provide free meals to the tribals, keeping in mind
- Local food preferences around a pre-agreed simple menu
- Addition of nutritional supplements if necessary, and locally-grown vegetables ? 
This will significantly
a) reduce diversion
b)reduce the expenditure on alcohol
c)improve nutrition; and
d)provide nominal additional employment opportunities in the area 
This could be either directly done by the Government (as in the case of the mid-day meal scheme there) or in partnership with credible non-governmental organisations that have experience in this service. 
I look forward to hearing from you,

 

The Selfie Captain

There is much to learn from playing a team sport as a recent set of volleyball games that I played indicated. 

Volleyball is not my thing, honestly.  I started it late in life; I used to walk or run around the volleyball courts on weekend mornings earlier, but was persuaded by a friend who plays there to join in the game.  The rest, as they say, is history (of the forgettable kind).  My arms and the ball don’t quite seem to understand my intent – when I wish to pass it to a team mate, who could then go for the kill, the ball sails over the net, allowing the opposition to achieve what I set out to do.  When I try anything minutely out of the ordinary, my fingers hurt for the rest of the week or the muscle becomes a tomato-red for the day.  Over the last few months, I have improved though and can now get the ball over the net eight times out of ten (aided by a fervent prayer), which is a tad better than some who try to pummel a winning shot each time.   

This week, two teams faced each other off in a friendly set of six games – each team had six players.  Our team had one very good player, four average players and the lone downtrodden (my ego preventing any further acknowledgement).  The other team had precisely the same profile, with the sixth player being average, so you could expect a broadly even contest. 

A chap in our team – the very good player -  had assumed the responsibility of captain, which title  the others seem to acknowledge (I named him therefore the ‘selfie-captain’).   

He – the selfie-captain - chose to position himself in the centre of the court, directed us to our stations and decided that he had to plug the holes, fix the weak links as it were.  So there he was, involved in about every shot, particularly if the ball came in my direction,  lunging, leaping, shouting “Leave it for me”, springing back and front attempting to cover an area beyond his reach and seeking, in particular, to cover me, with the result that, even as he played very well and gave the game a hundred percent, he seemed to make the most errors and confuse others often.  For much of the six games, I was an interested spectator.  Once, when the ball came twice, in quick succession, in my direction (and I hit into the net once), he hinted darkly that the other team was ‘targeting’ - playing unfairly by picking on the weakest – and did not quite recognise my embarrassment at being singled out as such.  I was immediately moved to another position for which I was even less suited – at the net. 

Of course, the net result (pun aside) was that we lost the first few games, and lost badly.  This got him grumpy and even more meddlesome, and critical of team-mates when they missed, banging the ball on the ground.  We won a consolation game, but in the end, it was a no-contest. 

What struck me was that the other team was just average and, by letting go, trusting his people, encouraging them, communicating far more and allowing them space to work, he could have got a much better result…that other team won, not on its merit, but on our demerit.  The selfie-captain walked away from the court with hardly a bye, making no eye contact with his weakest link; this blogpost is no retribution though! 

….and then, I thought of Ian Botham.  The world’s finest cricketer in the 1980s, a great all-rounder whose skill and talent were unique.  He also happened to be a disaster as a captain, not just losing his matches but his cricket as well that was in utter disarray during his captaincy.  But - here’s the best part – when the captaincy was taken away and given to Mike Brearley, Botham bounced back to being what he was: world class.  Botham’s problem was the same as the selfie-captain’s: a superstar performer who takes on all the responsibility and everyone’s job and does not do his own.  

…and then the thoughts flowed: of the chief of a small company that I had consulted with last year, who is ironically a star volleyballer himself.  He is a superstar software manager, a terrific face of the company, most customer friendly and outstandingly competent.  His team is nowhere close.  The company has been ‘Botham-ed’: everyone is in awe of the chief, he is consulted on everything and he gets involved in everything, he is particularly critical of others’ decisions and the company is in perpetual ‘rush’ mode, yet has hardly grown over the years.  

…and then, many names of superstar captains flashed through my mind and, I realised (with surprise and a touch of consternation) today, that the underperformance of the superstar-selfie-captain is no exception; it is a malaise. 

…..and, finally, I thought of Virat Kohli and the underperformance of the Royal Challengers in the initial part of the IPL this year.  Right through the day today, an image of this guy’s aggression questioning an underperforming colleague in the field has flashed through the mind - a posture, a look, a gesticulation seemed to suggest that he would need to learn to not be the superstar-captain.

Another kind of pugilist

When a man of honourable ancestry, with a lineage of noblemen and rulers stood up to be a spokesman for a forest that was being felled, his voice echoed across the country after the Supreme Court passed a ruling.

The result, even by his modest admission, was stunning.

Godavarman Thirumalpad was born in the royal household of Nilambur Kovilakam in Kerala’s Malappuram district.  The household was the sole owner of the thousands of hectares of forests which stretched from the Mysore border to Calicut in Kerala and spread across Gudaloor.

In 1947, the then ruler, Manavedan Raja, requested the Madras government to take over the land, saying it was impossible to look after it.  The forest was taken over in 1949.

Thus began the problem: after the formation of Kerala, this forest was divided between the state and Tamil Nadu and, over the years, a systematic, rapid and egregiously destructive felling of trees thinned the forest cover down to a fraction of what it used to be.  These forests were rich with wildlife and an astonishing diversity of deciduous and evergreen trees yet, contractors and timber smugglers  who knew the price of everything but the value of nothing tore away at the verdant ecosystem.   The guardians entrusted with the job of conservation, the Forest Department, could do little,  even as some officers participated in the plunder with their passivity and corruption.  When Mr. Thirumalpad tried to persuade the tree-fellers, he was ignored, often treated with contempt. 

The Forest Conservation Act, passed in 1980, was hardly an impediment, followed more in its breach, the felling legitimised with notional fines that were ludicrous. In an interview with Down to Earth , Thirumalpad said: “The trees were being felled in violation of various legislations and rules.  Contractors who obtained permission for felling these trees remitted only Rs. 1000 to the district collector for 50 logs of rosewood.”

Dismayed and angry at the illegal felling of public forests that had belonged to his family, Thirumulpad filed a writ petition in 1995 asking for a stay on felling of trees in that forest.   He had to fight his way through: the dissuaders were many and the enticements were rich, even as the threats followed his persistence.

In December 1996, the Supreme Court - the bench comprising Justice JS Verma and Justice BN Kirpal - passed its order: no trees, it said, would be felled in any forest in India, a landmark, sweeping, incredibly perspicuous judgement by the only Institution in India that has stood by the environment.  The court ordered all non-forest activity like sawmills and mining to be suspended.

Overnight, the entire plywood industry in the country which had grown on the back of surreptitious supply from North-East India shut down.  There was an immediate, significant drop in illegal felling in all States, the transportation of timber from forest areas to urban India came to a halt, the operation of saw mills across the country that had relied on the nexus between forest contractors and the Forest Service ceased at once. (With revised rules, the wood business resumed later, but the plunder had been halted.) 

The Supreme Court took over the status of being the law-maker, administrator and enforcer.  It kept the Godavarman case open using the device of a “continuing mandamus” and, over the years and has heard hundreds of matters related to the implementation of the Forest Conservation Act. The ruling excluded the lower courts from admitting such application, leaving the Supreme Court the sole administrator of the law when it came to forest matters.  

Those who care for India’s forests and wildlife are used to bad news; it’s there in the papers every day.  Yet, it’s important to look at another view: the even-worse case scenario of what could have happened, and then derive the strength that optimism provides. 

The result of the Supreme Court’s judgement in this case has been marvellous: thousands of hectares of forest have been saved from diversion to non-forest purposes, in consequence and over the next two decades, a number of judgements on forest conservation have been passed, a vast number quoting this landmark case as a referral point in protection.    To our generation of wildlifers and foresters, Godavarman Thirumalpad is a legend and will remain so for decades to come.

On June 1^{st 2016,} a few days before World Environment Day, he passed away at the age of 86, followed a few days later by another fighter, Muhammad Ali. 

History will judge which one of them was the greatest.

Notes:

'Continuing mandamus' : which means that the Courts, rather than passing final judgements, keeps passing orders and directions with a view to monitor the functioning of the executive.  

Earth Day

Eighteen years ago, I visited the little industrial town of Valsad on the Gujarat coast, with a prospective client.  He had a marvellous technology for pollution treatment and was talking to Atul Dyes, a large dyes producer, for installing a pilot plant.  As we walked around the ageing, partly decrepit factory, I asked a pending question to the factory employee who was taking us around, ‘You must be needing loads of water for the plant?’  He nodded and gave me a figure in millions of litres, adding  ‘It comes from the river nearby.’  I continued, ‘And what do you do with the liquid effluent from the factory – the equally large volumes of coloured waste water from the production process?’  He grimaced a bit and pointed to the sea. ‘Our pipe goes three kilometres out, along the seabed.’

I had never, till that moment, come face-to-face with such insanity: fresh water to factory –> factory converts fresh water to toxic effluent –> effluent to sea.  

And, just as the reality hit, another one did as well: that this chap saw nothing wrong with all of this, it was business as usual, another day at work. 

Today, April 22^nd, is Earth Day.  Across the World, particularly the ‘developed’ world, corporates organise the standard speech-conserve-plant-a-tree routine, partly out of sympathy for the poor planet, largely out of the positive messages that they send out to all concerned.  In India too, many of the larger companies do the same – the big boss gets a tree planted in his name, everyone cheers, there are lots of soft drinks and snacks passed around, a few banners (all of which create their own waste, of course) and the juggernaut moves on.  Perhaps a CEO or two will refer to the company’s work in reducing environmental impact by installing a scrubber here or a fuel-efficient generator there.  Perhaps, he will add that two per cent of profits are now being ploughed into corporate social responsibility, as per an amendment to Company Law.

The hypocrisy of it all is lamentable.

Nobody really understands what CSR means.  Can I set up a cola factory by digging forty borewells in an area with average rainfall, and spend that 2% on providing drinking water to nearby villages (Coca Cola)?  Can I blow up a mountain for granite or alumina and set up a school for the tribal children with the 2% of the profits from the destruction of the mountain (Vedanta)?  Can we sell cigarettes for a living (and make every effort to sell more year after year), but harvest water for stakeholder villages (ITC)?  Can we contaminate an entire landscape and its watershed with mercury and then empower women self-help groups to sell our products (HUL)?  Can we set up an extra large port in a area where endangered turtles nest and then, quite separately, fund conservation research (Tata Group)?  Can we set up a destructive, Rs. 6400 crore hydro project in an ecological treasure in Arunachal Pradesh that is the last habitat of the black necked crane, and then provide drinking water to a few villages in Rajasthan (LNJ Bhilwara group)?  The litany – and litany it is – goes on…..

The two percent clause has given companies an easy way out to justify the unjustifiable, to throw money at the small picture in the hope that the big picture will be obfuscated, repositioned, concealed behind the convenient curtain of the word ‘development’ and the entirely chimerical notion of Gross Domestic Product growth.  GDP, as economic history and data informs us, is just a average.  Its recent history tells us that GDP means nothing other than more inequality, more concentration of wealth and natural resources, more agglomeration of power, influence and voice in the path of future material creation for the average human.  More GDP today has come to mean more destruction.

So, why is this - the power and cold hypocrisy of the corporate sector in general - important to understand?  In the year 2000, a study Sarah Anderson and John Cavanagh of  the Institute for Policy Studies revealed that 51 of the top economies of the World were corporations and 49 were countries.  General Motors, for example, was bigger than Denmark, while Walmart was bigger than Norway.

In the last fifteen years, this concentration of wealth has grown, not reduced, though the corporations in the top 100 have changed.   For instance, the GDP (Revenues) of Monsanto – a company with a particularly dodgy record of producing toxic pesticides like glyphosate - is over twice the GDP of Nepal, a poor country with 35% of its income coming from agriculture – can farmers’ collectives in small economies negotiate with the Monsanto’s of the world in a truly win-win way that gives them more control on their lives, their health and the future of their watersheds? 

There is enough data today to suggest that corporate power breeds irresponsibility (with few, very few, exceptions).  As urbanities and consumers, we have a big, big responsibility to counter this callousness because we are consumers.  Before we buy anything, we must make it a point to study more about the impact of our decisions on the planet.  If there is no need to buy something, do not buy it; perhaps it can be borrowed on mutual goodwill?  Simple as this sounds, it is the best that we can do for a deteriorating planet.  If, to this, we add the consumption of organic food or home-grown food and the careful, parsimonious usage of water, we would have done our bit. 

As an aside: after the visit to Atul Dyes, I came back to Bangalore convinced that the startup that we were looking at funding was critical, its technology was marvellous and we just had to do this deal, both for the financial returns that could ensue and for the environmental impact it would make.  My boss disagreed, his disagreement affecting our otherwise positive working relationship as well as my annual performance review.  I now believe that this was the tipping point, the moment when I decided to leave the VC business, indeed to give the corporate sector a go-by; it’s a decision I have never ever regretted.

Guddu's Day Out

The other day I was walking past Number 240, an old house that we had once stayed in, a house on what is now a busy arterial road, filled with people, traffic, shops and the perils of progress.  I stood in front and, looking across the road at the apartment that stood on a once-empty plot, remembered 1980.  I saw, in my mind’s eye, the house diagonally behind that plot, the little Sardar boy who lived there and the event that was to leave an indelible memory.

Odd, the human mind is, isn’t it? The way it makes connections…..   

But back to the story.  1980 was not just the birth of a decade, it was a momentous year that saw, among other things, “the longest and costliest conflict in the history of the public sector in India – the Bangalore Public Sector Strike” (as recounted by Dilip Subramaniam in EPW).  Our city was the epicentre, for it was here that the ‘thinking public sector’ existed – the BHELs, the BEMLs, the HALs and the BELs – Government-run organisations that employed engineers and managers, who aspired to stay there all their lives for job security and the occasional modicum of achievement that they could lay claim to within the constraints of a stifling bureaucracy (these organisations spawned an entire generation of entrepreneurs as a result, but that is another story for a brighter day).

I was in my early teens then.  Just behind our house was an empty ground on which a few of us played a sprightly game of cricket in earnest competitive spirit and with the minimal warranted safety attire.  Much of our time on the ground, of course, was spent in discussion, gossip and, when batting, in getting out of the way of the cork ball and keeping certain delicate parts of the anatomy well protected from its impact.  For a few months prior to the strike, we had been joined by a little sardar boy, Guddu Lamba, who was much younger and hence entirely ineligible to apply.  Under normal circumstances, we might have found ways to keep him out, yet the fellow was not just persistent but happened to be the son of a test pilot from the Air Force seconded to HAL (which, of course, did much to help his case in our star struck eyes).  Guddu was a gutsy little fellow, full of beans and fight, and we reciprocated with gentle bowling and batting against him with condescending disdain.

On the big day of the strike, Bangalore wore a deserted look.  Schools, of course, were shut, but I was not complaining, having just discovered Agatha Christie a few months earlier.  Around mid-morning, we heard that a large crowd had gathered down the road and was coming up in a procession, past our home.  Looking out of the gate, I saw – and I am not making this up – the largest collection of humanity I have ever seen (not having visited the Kumbh).  The crowd was in a bellicose mood, the noise raucous and the prudent thing to do was to lock the front door and stay in. 

Guddu stood on the wall of his house – the back wall was separated from the main road by an empty plot of land - watching the crowd, as hundreds of men walked slowly up the road, shouting slogans and jostling with each other.  As the strikers went past the empty plot, one fellow, seeing this little Sardar standing on the wall, apparently shouted out at him, perhaps mocking him with derision or insult (much as I try, what he is purported to have said escapes me). 

He had picked the wrong little boy. 

Guddu jumped down, picked a stone up and hurled it at the crowd.  The next thing we heard was a squeal from the victim and a roar of anger from the men.  After a momentary pause, a number of them, spitting abuse and rage, scampered onto the empty plot, making a beeline for Guddu but, of course, he beat them to it, bolting like a rabbit.

The men were not done.  They gathered about twenty feet away from the wall – a whole mass of them covering the wide empty plot - and began to growl with aggression and vehemence.  Watching now from the terrace, I could feel my pulse quicken, for the men wanted the little boy and his family to come out and face this mob and I could sense violence in the air.  The police presence was notional, and my dad, if I recall,  called up the police station immediately. 

Out of the front door of his home came Ajit Singh Lamba, Guddu’s father.  He was wearing a vest and the inner turban and in his right hand was a long-barrelled gun.  “Get back,” he shouted with firm intent and the crowd, particularly the leaders of the mob in front, retreated immediately, taking a few steps back to create a generous semi-circle of plot space between this one man and their army. 

“My son has made a mistake and I say ‘sorry’ on his behalf,” the Air Force man said, “now please go back.”

The crowd began to murmur and dissent, for a mob, never in its senses, is always overcome by the occasion and its misplaced sense of righteousness.  Lamba, a trim tall man in his early 40s, every inch the Services officer that he was, stood firmly in his driveway, and looking back at that hair-raising event, I wonder just what his inners were made of, for, if any emotion was visible on him, it was counter-aggression.  The men leading the crowd began to argue belligerently, asking for more, and much of their chaotic demands escaped the captive audience on our terrace (for more of our family had joined in by this time).

In this chaos, the mob moved forward again.  Lamba raised his gun at the sky.  “If you come closer, I will shoot.  Before I die, at least some of you will” he said, or words to that effect.

Was he bluffing or just foolish?  The crowd could not quite decide, for in the tense succeeding moments, there were shouts and murmurs from within its ranks, some urging attack, others throwing insults at him, still others provoking the inert middle who remained unprovoked. 

And then, with some momentum from the rear, the crowd surged forward at the wall. 

Lamba pointed the gun up and fired into the air.

No crowd has ever set a dispersal pace as quickly as this one did; men were running in all directions, some seemed to simply evaporate out of fear and, in a trice, the plot was home again to Congress grass and no other species.  As the crowd re-assembled on the road in front of our home, the plucky Sardarji reloaded his gun and took his ready-for-battle stance on the driveway.  Standing on the terrace at 240 and watching this, we all marvelled at his astonishing fortitude that had, by now, pretty much won the battle.  There the two parties stood facing each other as minutes rolled by, each second  edged with anticipation, until the police arrived and moved the crowd ahead with some persuasion and a subdued use of lathi.  Subsequently, I suppose Lamba had some explaining to do, but he seemed none the worse for wear in the following days. 

Three and a half decades later, I learnt that Air Vice Marshal Ajit Singh Lamba had won the Vir Chakra while in service - no surprise, he had won much more in my Honours List-, was now 79 years old and in active retirement. 

And Guddu?  When he came on to bowl the next time, I made it a point of playing him with respect. 

There are some people you never mess with. 

Bar Bar Malabar

 

Across the length of (the one big) road in this curious State
That has no breadth to speak of (but that is a different debate)
You will see dhabas boldly named Hotel Malabar
Not Hotel Trichur, Shoranur or even a sprightly Munnar
No, not as often as you'd see a Hotel Malabar.

No Hotel Cochin, Kollam or even a Kasaragod
But a Hotel Malabar always lurks further down the road.

So, why the semantic pref you might ask with earnest will
Well...., these hotels only serve what doesn't quite stand still
Some beef and chicken and mutton, they all must verily combine
With a curry that burns the oesophagus and the small intestine
Garlic, ginger,pepper, chilli dropped for unquestionable taste
The final dish has complained at times about the undue haste..#

And Thekeveetathil Narayanan Krishnakumaran Namboodurry
Scans the menu with unease and the rapid serve of curry
Rushes out murmuring a forgiveness incantation
He has decided that he'll prefer the sane option: starvation.
"Food", I ask the waiter, "but please no bi or quadriped"
He nods his head and gets me tea and a Marie bisk-ed.

# based on heresay.  Never spoke to the final dish.

When You have a Right to be Angry

In mid-2014,  an intrepid report in Down to Earth documented the horrific plight of the tea garden workers in the Dooars region of West Bengal, the result of a decade of abuse, false promises and chicanery.

The story was reminiscent of the zamindari system of vicious apartheid: pathetically poor estate workers laid waste by starvation living in hideous labour lines; rich owners, most of whom had purchased gardens for the value of the large parcels of plantation land - a rich bet for their unaccounted wealth – living in Kolkata and elsewhere in pampered luxury.  Most of them cared little for their people, the environment or tea and postponed paying wages for months on end when times got rough.  When the costs exceeded revenues and continued to do so, they fled, leaving starving workers -  hundreds of whom have died over the years – and widespread malnutrition and disease.  The story was graphic and telling: a photograph of a woman – a bag of bones and rags - whose meal comprised two chapatis with a filling of tea leaves inside, as she could not afford anything else.  An image of a man on the brink of death, his ribs outlined against a shrivelled skin.  A child with little hope of survival, its eyes glazed.

And I saw these photographs that made my stomach churn, for this was inhumanity, avarice, callous premeditated murder.  

I petitioned the National Human Rights Commission which issued a show cause notice to the West Bengal government.  Who then replied with assurances of minimum food and a dole.  I was satisfied and even self-congratulatory.

I could not have been more wrong.  The story continues, for nothing in the realm of misery for the poor in India changes to their advantage.  What is different this time is that there is a villian who is big fish. 

GP Goenka is not just another businessman.  He has, for many years now, owned Duncans, a tea company that owns a number of estates in the Dooars.  Duncans was, not so long ago, a profitable company, but Goenka made some bad decisions, using the money from tea (and a load of debt) to buy a fertilizer business.

He, though, is not paying the price. 

In 2015, thirteen workers in the Duncan estates died of starvation, for no wages were paid to them and there was no food to eat, the West Bengal Government having a non-functioning PDS.  Thousands of others are in the whimsical hands of Destiny and Empty Promise, as the malnutrition levels of workers and their children in the Duncan estates soar.  Reports speak of human trafficking, of immense agony that each of these families goes through as they have no options but to wait, borrow, wait again.... until there is no borrowing option anymore.  Which is when they resort to selling the only piece left: themselves. 

Why can’t they just move out of there, you ask?  Well, some have, most haven’t.  Because moving, you see, is not easy  for those who have been trod on, cast out, abused and starved.  No labour force can be that mobile for, if it were, the wages paid to labour in India’s cities would never have increased.

Goenka, of course, has his point of view, but, dammit, no perspective, no excuse, no disingenuous self-flagellation (albiet slight in his case) can condone such deliberate, negligent, callous egocentricity.  How can he and every one of his managers stand by silently watching these workers emaciate themselves to physical ruin?  Are they, these ‘tea barons’, not accessories to their deaths? How could any of their defensive actions  be an excuse for a ‘let-them-be-damned’ approach, when the certain consequence of such inaction would be their demise?  Why is this not premeditated murder, a phrase I use again?

There are times in life when excuses do not count.  This is one of them. 

In 2012, I had embarked with enthusiasm on a new book that would be a travelogue through tea country; a collection of stories and anecdotes from the Brits to the Twits (my term for Twitter users).  Travelling around Assam, I met planters.....and some workers.  The planters’ stories were quaint and olde-world and their anachronistic lifestyle was charming, but the workers’ labour lines – equally anachronistic, but in a very different way – were as appalling as they were putrid.  When one planter – an Assistant Visiting Agent (which is a senior designation) - referred to his labour as being ‘bull headed’, suggesting that they were unthinking enough to not be much better than vacuous-headed animals, I knew I was barking up the wrong tea bush.  I had no wish to meet any more of these wise men, so I abandoned the project.

Goenka is a bad guy for sure, but he must savour the company of rogues he is with.  An article in The Mint on January 22^nd 2016 by Sudeep Chakravarti details an investigation by BBC News and Radio 4 into the working and living conditions at the largest plantation companies in Assam, Mcleod Russel (India’s largest tea enterprise by area) and The Assam Company.  The findings were shocking: he quotes from the BBC report  “Images of workers’ toilets and accommodation at the McLeod Russel estates made facilities in Indian slums appear salubrious in comparison, accompanied by details of abject poverty, malnutrition and disease.”  And “Assam Company came in for criticism for not providing workers in an estate protective gear while spraying agrochemicals, and for employing child labour.” After pressure from international buyers, the article states,  Mcleod Russel is making some amends, but you will forgive my pessimism, for I have long abandoned the notion of business being a source of social good.

As if to prove me right, Mcleod Russel declared its financial results four days after this write up, on January 26^th, 2016: profits have dropped big time, one report lamented.  In the three months ended December 31^st, 2015, the company made profits after tax of about fifty seven crores, against about eighty crores from the earlier year’s comparable quarter. I could picture the Khaitans – the absentee Anglophile satrap-owners of Mcleod (with a 45% stake) – weeping at this drop and at the stock market’s phlegmatic view of the company: their own stake in the company was now worth a piffling seven hundred crores thereabouts.  One shivers at their sorry plight, the poor little rich boys of Mcleod Russel, a plight serious enough to make them forget the starvation of a thousand others.

There are times in life when excuses do not count.  This is, I insist, one of them.

Fifty seven crores of profit in a quarter is about seventy six lakhs of profit every working day.

Enough money, you will agree, to do the right thing.