The Burden of Uttar Pradesh

When I turned the news on this morning, I saw an Agra gone berserk. A truck mowed 4 locals down in the darkness and the local population decided to take action themselves - burned down trucks, fire engines, police vans and so on. They pelted media and policemen alike. A couple of weeks back on the motorcycle ride from Agra to Delhi we ran into a crowded, busy mela (large gathering) bang on the national highway. I couldn't believe my eyes when I actually started noticing shops, cows, children, families filling up the highway out of nowhere and then it continued for miles - organized by the ruling Samajwadi party. This is NH2 - one of the most important highways in India. Driving with my mind preoccupied with these thoughts, I had screeched to halt to avoid a family crossing the highway - nah, rather going from one crowded mela shop on the highway to another. One mistake from my end and we would've been the source of a mini-riot ourselves and been beaten up enough by the locals. But the anger of the crowds is not really against the truck drivers - it is against the system itself.

Last week, Uttar Pradesh's (where Agra suffers) Chief Minister Mayawati announced that her government planned to shut down major retail stores - why? because "the law and order situation was out of control." Apparently, crowds rioted large retail stores (aka Walmart). More interestingly, the shutting down rule does not apply to retail stores within malls. Even more interestingly, Ms. Mayawati appointed a committee (common in Indian politics to handle any situation) to look into health, hygiene, lice and locational aspects of retail chains. Health and hygiene? Common, all they have to do is smell (not even look) at "Clean and Green" Agra and all the health and hygiene is apparent in its gory detail. Cities of Noida and Ghaziabad which benefit tremendously from their proximity to New Delhi will be most affected by the retail booboo. Whichever way one slices it, it's evident that there's an unhidden agenda in creating a riot and shutting down retail stores. It would be irritating to fight needless battles in running a business there.

All this is appalling but not surprising. Driving into an Agra with a lightless, newly crowned world #1 Taj Mahal - the state of the State was obvious. It doesn't take a government to realize this - a numb-mind would also do. I saw hope and aspirations and dreams on the faces of people in other states but I saw despair, anger, bitterness, mistrust, disappointment and tiredness on the faces of Uttar Pradesh. Parvez, our guide at the Taj Mahal summed it up, "Yahan ka attitude theek nahin hai - na government ka, na humara." The Taj itself drums up Rs.8 lakhs ($20,000) in cash (yes) everyday. After 350 years of its birth, the Taj still feeds the city but more importantly the pockets of government officials - but not enough to feed itself. However, Parvez complained - "What has Shah Jahan done for us? Because of the Taj, we don't have any industry." Oh well.

For India to take the next step - forget the next leap - it needs the muscle power to drag the burden of UP. People are fundamentally good and talented everywhere but I really can't see us hiring in UP. There's mistrust in the system - the government, the people, the unknowns, the law, the basics. "What can the government do? They can't take care of themselves." - I heard this line a million times amongst UP's people. So when a riot - like from this morning - happens - people are not rioting really against the incident in question - they are violent about everything that's been hurting them for a long, long time - from a befouled Yamuna to no drinking water to no current to pothole-ridden roads to senseless traffic jams to no-job opportunities to the burden of their own history to unreliable law to a sad government - it's no surprise that one incident is reason enough to uncork the bottle of hate. There's not much maya in Mayawati's kingdom.

3.5 days and 1,700km of Independent India

Today is India's 60th Independence Day. Driving on a motorcycle for 3.5 days from Mumbai to Delhi, I experienced a lot more of India this past weekend than I ever have on the eve of an Independence Day. The experiences don't hit you instantly but they are more likely to soak in and add up over a period of time.

The first thoughts that come to mind is that there's a lot of work ahead of us (who is us?) - a lot. It's just difficult to imagine the size of India and the scale of its opportunities and problems while staying in the cities and commuting between cities for meetings or commuting to India itself for family reunions. First of all, it's a big country and most of our population dwells in the villages and small towns than in the cities. This is not a new insight - of course we read a lot about it but it is quite something to actually keep seeing villages after villages after villages, to keep seeing farmers (men, women and children) doing their thing everywhere. They are preoccupied in their own day-to-day activities - most of it is very basic - food, clothing, shelter, security, education and healthcare. We in the cities are preoccupied too but our wants are many, many layers above these fundamental wants. I observed that our people are basically thin - nearly everywhere because they are involved in physical labor. Childhood obesity is a problem of the cities but in the villages I saw kids walking miles before they could get to their schools. People used a cell phone everywhere I went (the networks worked everywhere - little better than I've experienced in the US). My favorite sight was that of a man taking photographs of his buffaloes grazing, using his mobile phone.

There's vibrancy everywhere. The fact that India is young is obvious to anyone's eyes. A happy sight is seeing children going to school everywhere. It appears that everyone's figured out that education is key. I recall seeing more children in school uniforms than seeing them working. At one point in Rajasthan, it just hit me that there are a million business opportunities out there - from WiFi/ Internet connectivity everywhere to private school education to highway coffee shops and food courts to entertainment to rural retail stores to travel needs to healthcare access to English speaking skills to software education. Mobile phones is super successful example.

India is getting built everywhere. Riding through Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Delhi, you can easily separate the chaff - where it's working, where's it's not, where the government is interested, where's it's not, where people are eager, where they are disappointed. Often times, you'd see one part of the highway being repaired for miles together. NH8, the highway of Vajpayee's dreams is pretty good in most parts. The highway connecting Ajmer to Jaipur is much like the good parts of I-95. However, a lot more development is required in the internal parts of our country - mostly from an infrastructure standpoint (and that's also where new opportunities lie). Our people are ready and waiting. I didn't see a sense of disappointment among people (except in Agra) but I saw a sense of hope, energy and excitement. As customers, they are ready and waiting for solutions that meet their wants. If businesses create solutions (regardless of how sophisticated they are or not) that fit their needs, they will buy - you can really feel that they want to join the global marketplace. They have a good sense and awareness of it and really, really want it. The Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) model definitely will work - in fact, it is obvious to me as a logic that one can't even argue about. Analysis is something that we desperately try to put a control over something that we already sense - what I'm talking about is this sense part.

Somewhere on the borders of Rajasthan, a school boy in a checkered shirt was walking casually and listening to the evening news on an old transistor radio. His matter-of-fact responses to my queries on distances, the location of the village, his school and education and so on were very precise - so precise that I can easily see him fit into our line of work - quite easily. All that is missing in the puzzle is Internet bandwidth and language skills - the latter is becoming less important (not that it can't be taught). I recently heard that mimicking of American cartoon characters (particularly animal and bird sounds) is happening in India and a software okays the sound of someone chirping like a bird at a predetermined frequency - this type of work makes language altogether redundant!

The excitement of India's development and future is definitely felt in the insides - chiefly among its peoples but tangible development - not as yet. This gap in aspirations of the customers and lack of sufficient solutions presents a fundamental macroeconomic demand-supply opportunity. Businesses are bound to close this gap soon; the ones that lay the seeds now will take the first bites.