On Character

As a kid, one of the important lessons about life that was often taught to us was to build character. The word was never defined clearly and at best we were given examples from the Ramayana or the Aesop’s fables or fighters and martyrs of the freedom struggle to identify who a person of character was. I was never a smart kid and therefore such vague lessons in those days used to confuse me more. Had it not been for the interesting stories, the attempts of my school teachers would have gone down the drain because the stories left an everlasting impact on my impressionable mind that character is some sort of ideal state of mind to aim for.  

As an adolescent the word became more intriguing to me with regard to the vagaries of meanings and its spread in terms of permitted and not permitted behavioral norms. To tell a lie was still considered bad but a lie told with an intention to help another was accepted as good. To kill a man was also considered bad but to kill with an intention to save oneself or another was considered good. Overnight money became the focus of all activity which was never ever mentioned in our school texts. Most of my friends felt privileged to be admitted into an ordinary school but many parents were stressed about admission of their wards into privileged school which would ensure a bright i.e. rich future for them. Every previous acceptable behavior all of a sudden underwent subtle changes. Smartness and competitiveness was expected from every youngster because ominous signs were visible that the economic cake was not big enough for all to enjoy. Character was slowly getting merged into economics.

I too was bitten by the money bug and took up CA course without verifying my compatibility to the profession. The childhood imagination about character was literally murdered and a new meaning took its place as new fundas became acceptable to society. To dream big is good but the jury is still not decided on how much one can stoop to achieve the dreams. To make a strong impression on another is acceptable and there cannot be any boundaries for the means to such ends because then for that you have a concept called Caveat Emptor or Buyers Beware. To convince and convert another into ones line of thought is a legitimate economic exercise and one is permitted to use argument, quid-pro-quo, force or discriminatory policies to achieve the goal. Maybe it was my fertile imagination that privileges both positive and negative was meant to be based on merits and specific criteria because over a period of time they became economic tools in the hands of the powerful and wealthy to retain and amass more power and wealth. Greed, power, strong image and wealth have now become the new synonyms for character. Even where rules are enacted a modern person of character explores loop holes or bends them to an extent acceptable and possible so as to justify a certain image.  

The Maharaja

I was at Vadodara recently on an audit assignment and took time out to visit the Gaekwad palace built by Sayajirao Gaekwad III. It is called the Lakshmi Vilas Palace, construction of which took 12 years and completed in 1892. Moving through the palace precincts was an enchanting experience and it made a statement about the man who built it. Apparently a lot of personal and state wealth would have gone into its construction but one gets the feel that the man behind it always had his people in mind. The palace was built by Europeans architects and designers but the structure is a combination of Asian and Western motifs representing the major religions in India; Islam, Hindu and Christianity. Going through the Porch, Entrance, Reception Room, Weapons Room, Coronation Room, Durbar Hall, etc., I somehow became very curious about the personality of the Maharaja and searched about him on the net. Information that was thrown up told a fascinating story and which I shall try to keep short and simple.

 The Gaekwads were primarily Marathas from the Maharashtra region and the name meant people who herd cows for a living. Following the death of Sir Khanderao Gaekwad the popular Maharaja of Baroda, in 1870, his brother Malharrao who was a gross tyrant and cruel character and had been imprisoned earlier for conspiring to assassinate Khanderao was prevented from succeeding him. Khanderao's widow, Maharani Jamnabai was already pregnant with a posthumous child; the succession was delayed until the gender of the child could be proven. The child proved to be a daughter, and so Malharrao ascended the throne. However very soon Malharrao for his misdeeds was deposed by the Secretary of State for British India and exiled to Madras, where he died in obscurity. With the throne of Baroda now vacant, Maharani Jamnabai called on the heads of the extended branches of the Gaekwad dynasty to come to Baroda and present themselves and their sons in order to decide upon a successor.

Shri Sayajirao Gaekwad was born at Kavlana as Shrimant Gopalrao Gaekwad on the 10 March 1863. His branch of the Gaekwad dynasty was a cadet branch descended from a morganatic marriage of the first Raja of Baroda and so was not expected to succeed to the throne. His father Kashirao and his three sons presented themselves to Jamnabai where Gopalrao unhesitatingly stated "I have come here to rule". He was selected by the British Government as successor and was accordingly adopted by Maharani Jamnabai. He was also given a new name, Sayajirao. He was the Maharaja of Baroda State from 1875 to 1939. Young Sayaji was hardly 12 years old at that time and was groomed in administrative skills by Sir T. Madhava Rao and an English gentleman F. A. H. Elliot under whose able guidance he became a great statesman, educator, and ruler with foresight and with a will to provide welfare to his people and is notably remembered for reforming much of his state during his rule.

The list of his exceptional economic and social contribution is very long and a few can only be highlighted here. Sayajirao was the first Indian ruler to introduce, in 1906, compulsory and free primary education in his state, placing his territory far in advance of contemporary British India. His economic development initiatives included playing a key role in the development of Baroda's textile industry, founding of the Bank of Baroda which still exists and is one of India's leading banks.  During his reign a large narrow gauge railway network was set up in Baroda State with Dabhoi at its focal point. Sayajirao envisioned a water supply scheme for Baroda in 1892 at Ajwa that would use gravity to supply drinking water to the people of Baroda and is still in use to this day. The large public park originally called Kamati Baug and now called Sayaji Baug was his gift to the City of Baroda. On the occasion of the Diamond Jubilee of his accession to the throne, he set apart large funds out of his personal as well as of the state funds for setting up a University in Baroda for the benefit of students from the rural areas of his state. He recognised talent from among his people and supported education and training of persons who in his opinion would shine in life. Those persons whom he patronised included Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, Dadabhai Naoroji, and Sri Aurobindo.  The Maharaja was a noted patron of the arts. During his reign, Baroda became a hub for artists and scholars. The celebrated painter, Raja Ravi Varma, was among those who spent substantial periods of time at his court. Sayajirao was also a patron of Indian classical music. Ustad Moula Bux founded the Academy of Indian Music under his patronage. This Academy is now the Faculty of Performing Arts of the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Vadodara. Apart from Ustad Moula Bux, Sayajirao’s court boasted great artistes like Ustad Inayat Khan and Ustad Faiyyaz Khan. In 1914, the first All India Music Conference was held in Baroda. He built a rich public library, banned child marriage, worked on removal of untouchability and introduced legislation on divorce. He identified himself with the people and shaped their cosmopolitan attitude and progressive, reformist zeal.

Sayajirao was a man of wisdom and foresight coupled with wealth and power. He was an exceptional soul who understood the meaning of his own life and worked tirelessly for the betterment of his subjects. Knowing that he got his status through the benevolence of the British he refrained from entering the freedom struggle inspite of the fact that he was urged to do so by many.  On a personal front Sayajirao initially married Chimnabai of Tanjore (Chimnabai I) on 6 January 1880, his first wife who died young from tuberculosis, and he remarried on 28 December 1885 another Maratha lady from Dewas, Shrimant Lakshmibai Mohite, who became Chimnabai II. Children from both his wives have maintained the dignity of the man and his legacy. After a long and eventful reign of 63 years, Sayajirao Gaekwad III died on 6 February 1939, one month shy of 76.

PERPETUAL UNCERTAINTY

We humans have made our lives a constant struggle against every form of change. Every activity that we undertake is some sort of counter to the natural and daunting presence of uncertainties of change in every sphere of life. It’s a fight against the inevitable and so one-sided. Let us take a simple example of our fight against ageing. All of us would love to remain young forever; our youth is likened to vibrant hair, flawless skin, spring in our steps, confident laugh, positive thoughts and a general absence of pain and regret. We know that if and when we have enjoyed a certain phase of life with some or all the above experiences, it was never meant to last forever. Yet we pine to prolong the experience of youth as much as we can. People use the science of chemistry to convert chemicals into beauty products as well as medicines. While the latter can surely be attributed to relieving pain and disease the former is only a scam to appear beautiful against the natural forces. Undoubtedly they support the fearful mind up like crutches simply because we are unwilling to accept that we are really sick in the head. Moving further, instead of accepting and enjoying the moment as it comes to us we adopt a lot of dodging tactics and even stressful behavior which does more harm than the original event. Even a minor failure is unacceptable what do we talk of major ones, loss of money or face in unbearable, an affront whether unintentional is also unacceptable, a small discomfort is hated, any natural event which becomes a cause for unhappiness is treated with disdain and alarm bells ring for unfolding circuitous circumventions. We understand very well that the good has to coexist with the bad, a fall follows a raise, profit and loss are two sides of the same coin, that these are very natural and cannot be avoided. Yet we leave no stone unturned to try and skirt away from the bad events. We can lie, we can kill, we can run away, we can project an illusion, we can do so many things to perpetuate the best events and try and avoid the worst ones. Well, the only outcome that happens is we lose our health and peace of mind on one hand and the unavoidable also happens. We spend so much of our energies on such futile thought and behavior that we successfully accentuate the anxiety and it is this stress that does us harm. Let us accept that life is constant change in its original basic structure. There is nothing which can be called permanent. Everything is in a state of flux, everything around us is continuously changing. When the natural things change, the unnatural man made things are bound to change. Growth will be followed by destruction and then again there will be growth.  Uncertainty of change is a part and parcel of every individual even if it be a saint or a multi-billionaire or a beggar. None can avoid this and every common / uncommon act in that direction is bound to fail. Life would be simpler and happier if this fact can be accepted.   

ANNA HAZARE VERSUS POLITICIANS

The term democracy has taken on two meanings and both of them are disjointed and nowhere near each other. First meaning which is classical in its reach and impact, it is a system where representative are selected and elected from amongst the population who are segregated according to either geography or some type of classification, such that a bunch of representatives standing in for those who have elected them, guide to safeguard their common economics in a manner in which the life of the entire population improves and wherein their common voice is understood to be the voice of the majority numbers amongst the population. The other meaning more modern but narrow in its perception, winning election is more about number games, money, strategies and less about representing the will of the people because people have an inherent obligation to vote even if they can’t align with the will of the candidate, the body of such elected candidates is considered supreme in all decision making within the combined geography of the people that they are no more representative of the people but of themselves. It can be easily inferred that the latter is a crude misrepresentation of the former line of thought. Today in India we are living with the second and inferior form of democracy whether we like it or not. The optimists keep pointing at the fact that people can reject a candidate or its party in five years’ time and therefore they do have real power in their hands. This is a false perception because all political parties have accepted this as a fundamental fact that each party rules for five years at a time. Since elections are held in five years it is possible to fool the people for five years at a time but fear of losing an election is no reason to surrender the power of decision making to serve the good of the maximum. Mark that I have underlined the words rule and serve.

It is my understanding that democracy was never a philosophy that originated or prevailed in this land of India. It is a foreign concept which we have suddenly applied without a discussion and debate under the naïve assumption that it would be the best thing that could happen to us. When one looks at traditions happily or unhappily this land since the age of the Vedas has always been moving through phases of united or fragmented rule of powerful men and women, always a disorganized bunch of autocracies. We the people of this land have always aligned our will to the will of the most powerful person in the locality or region. One was born powerful and therefore power was to be retained or otherwise snatched. It is quite silly for the ordinary people to imagine that they can dictate their will on the most powerful person in the locality or region. Therefore whenever there was a good king who apart from being powerful also looked after the benefits of the weak people, such a king was considered great and remembered with awe, credited with representing a golden period in the time of the locality or region. A good king is praised in our scriptures; duties of a good king are laid down in the scriptures. That is the psyche of the average Indian. It is therefore not a surprise that today the politicians and the industrialists have assumed the mantle of the erstwhile kings, in charge of their small kingdom, controlling their subjects, working hard to expand and preserve their kingdom.

Anna Hazare is a man who is an absolute misfit in the circumstance; he is neither a king because he is without a kingdom and neither a modern leader as we now understand the term because he is sans the election route. That he is loved and accepted by the masses is a mystery to the politicians, they are numbed, unhappy and hurt and like a player against another who breaks the accepted rules, all they can call out is “Foul”. All that Anna Hazare is doing goes against the basic rules of politics and rules of kingdom-hood. For starters he is asking the elected representatives to align themselves with the will of the people who elected them. This however has never been the tradition of this land. Next he is asking the elected representatives to serve the people instead of filling their personal coffers. This again is against the traditions of this land. He says that people are the kings and the elected representatives are their servants, a potentially preposterous and evil thought. He is asking for laws to be enacted that will forever break the strangle hold that the corrupt and the inefficient have established over the governance system. Ludicrous - that will destroy all the apparent benefits of being a modern king. He wants laws that will prevent the moneyed and powerful people from having any nexus with the officials of governance. This man wants to kill all the powerful people in one stroke, why don’t people see through his game? Why do they love him so? Foul, Foul and more Foul.

Anna Harare’s appeal for a strong Lokpal bill has struck a strong cord with the people of this land. There are a few reasons for this. One, having experienced and understood the process of democracy and having seen the eye wash that politicians shell out in the name of democracy, people see him as an opportunity to project their assertiveness. By supporting him, people want to send a message to the rulers that better behavior is envisaged. Second, because of the free flow of information people have become aware of the difference in the standards of living in this country and in the west and the primary reason for that, they are also aware that China which was as good as us fifty years ago during our independence, is now streets ahead of us and that too only because of sensible governance. People see Anna Hazare as a harbinger for better times. People are aware that neither has China or the USA been able to do away with their kings or their modern avatar the Minister’s and the Prime Minister, but they do wish that if our Minister’s and Prime Minister can start applying themselves to their task like their counterparts, India will become a better place to live for everybody and not just the powerful. Our politicians need to wake up. The days of the wicked, irresponsible or inefficient kings are over. The king is now expected to look and learn from his peers in other advanced countries. Anna Hazare today has done enough to ignite a hunger for change. He has single handedly altered the political finger-prints of this land to such an extent that those now playing the game gasp at the change they are required to face.