Tuesday, January 28, 2014

The Challenge of Modernity

Modernity means transformation to a new way of leading life. New developments consistently bring changes to different aspects of the environment around us. This leads to change in the environment we are accustomed to live in. It has been observed that cumulative effect of such changes leads to a need for paradigm shift in well established structure of social values and cultural norms. And every society is forced to adapt to the changing dynamics of the environment, often to survive with the same relevance among contemporary societies. This tilts the orientation of existing structure of social values and cultural norms towards newer horizons. Those societies which, transit through the transformation in such a way that they get poised to take advantage of new opportunities unveiled by changed environment, are usually better placed to lead other societies.
In last 400 - 500 years most of the changes to the environment around us have been due to influence of events like industrial revolution, introduction of formal education, colonial rule and emergence of nation states, world wars, cold war regime and recent information technology revolution. 
Broadly, some prominent impacts of these events are listed as under:- 
1. Economic Scenario: A shift from ‘agriculture based economy’ to ‘industry based economy’, the evolution of ‘manufacturing sector’ and ‘service sector’ and broad acceptance of capitalist economy as best suited arrangement (in most parts of the world) brought about changes in the way people thought about money, savings and growth. Understanding dynamics of day to day business in context to changing micro-economical parameters and changing macro-economical parameters became critical for success of business and for prosperity of society. Challenges of Product and Service Innovations, Process Innovations, Standardization and Quality Consciousness, Management of Supply Chain in co-ordination with emergence of policy based legal framework for conducting business began to impact commercial world across the globe. With growing inter-connection in commercial world, changes in global perspective began to influence lives of people much more than ever before. 
2. Political Scenario and Governance Model: This period has seen shifting ambitions of states. There was a shift from interest in territorial gains to interest in colonial rule and eventually to interest in developing economic advantage. In this period, states learned to practice internal sovereignty through means of legitimizing their actions and to practice external sovereignty through diplomatic means. Such shifts may have been the result of learning from situational responses chosen by the dominant western powers to the historical developments in different parts of the world.

The period has seen emergence of nation states in the political order across the globe. Evolutionary process for establishment of a state may include state formation (an organized political community under one government and under one national identity), state consolidation (laying foundations for functioning institutions and building administrative capabilities) and state stabilization (attainment of maturity in governance and attainment of sovereignty). In natural course of evolution, institution of state is shaped in accordance with cultural hegemony and in accordance with prevailing socio-economic scenario. In the process an arrangement largely acceptable to all the stakeholders (in the state) usually comes into existence.
During pre-colonial period, the very concept of modern state (pluralist state system) evolved in Europe along with other developments in contemporary period like - development of social value system, cultural norms, economic models and developments in the area of science and technology. Moreover, rationality and jurisprudence of the modern society and modern state were based on core values of taken from European civilization. For most of the developing world, adopting pluralist state system (of Europe) as the framework of governance and developing supporting institutions was a very difficult proposition.
3. Social Scenario: By and large societies were following independent development path in isolation with each other. They were dealing in their own ways with slow pace of modernization and with very low level of interaction with the contemporary societies. When means of communications started to develop there was an unprecedented surge in inter-society interactions. Eventually this accelerated exchange of ideas across societies, which were developing in isolation to each other with different value system conforming to prevalent socio-economic conditions. These developments gave rise to an environment where association among societies for mutual benefits became important. It may be noted that during colonial era, European countries were termed successful and European social norms were looked upon with high regards by the rest of the world. Slowly, service industries started to develop in Europe in the area of Banking, Health Care, Post and Telegraph, Travels and Shipping. Maturing service sector and adoption of rights & duties based approach in public dealing in the back drop of capitalistic democratic set up led to shaping-up of egalitarian values and development of sense of individualism.   
4. Educational Scenario: The western education system was highly influenced by industrial revolution. Western education system became formal education system in the world and this system was in many ways quite different from the informal education gained by people through tacit learning in most of the societies across the globe. 
Thus, at the root of challenges of modernity has been 'Change'.  Most of the societies (in the developing world) lacked progressive social leadership to guide through the challenges of change management by putting the things in right perspective in front of masses (Top-Down Approach). These societies also did not have a sound mechanism to generate consensus among different sections of society on critical issues and therefore could not adequately address multi-dimensional apprehensions of up-coming social changes (Bottom-Up Approach - by involving masses in the processes of decision making). Therefore, coherent voice on change oriented approach to modernity could not get foot hold in these societies. Eventually these societies were driven to taking conservative route and they resorted to applying resistance to up-coming changes largely due to perceived apprehensions and perceived insecurities in the changed environment. Different forces within societies became proponent of different responses to challenges of modernity with varying degree of resistance. All this resulted in chaotic change management with different segments of society reacting to resist changes in different ways. This involved advocacy by institutions of different schools of thoughts for a world order favorable to their respective line of thinking. And in such situations political forces with diverse lineages tried to take advantage of conflicts in the society and tried to establish their legitimacy among masses.
Usually in social value systems, notion of rationality is related to notion of 'essence of life'. Therefore, those changes that challenge the deeply rooted sense of rationality (in the minds of people) are strongly resisted. In the similar lines, in almost all societies, religions play a key role in defining meaning of life and linking it to super natural powers. Therefore, religious institutions become a stakeholder in response of society to the challenges of modernity. However, it is widely believed, that it becomes much easier to generate support for implementation of change management in response to the challenge of modernity, when, it becomes possible to show that the outcome of the changes are helping public at large to get economic benefits.

- Santosh Behar

Monday, January 20, 2014

Questions your Educational Letter of Intent Must Answer

During the application process most of the schools/academic institutions insist applicants  to submit Educational Letter of Intent (E-LOI). Wide range of programs are offered by numerous academic institutions across the world. And students with diverse background apply for admission to these programs. Therefore, it is very difficult to suggest generic points one should consider while writing E-LOI. 

In my opinion, following points should be addressed in clear and concise way in any E-LOI written by an applicant:-

1) What value addition your profile is going to bring to the class?

2) What are your endeavors? What factors have contributed towards shaping your endeavors? What difference are you going to make by achieving your endeavors? and How committed are you towards achieving your endeavors? 

3) What role the course/program/further studies is going to play for you to enable achieve your endeavors?

4) What are the key challenges on the way to achievement of excellence in your field of studies and how you feel you can overcome those challenges in highly competitive environment?

5) How your efforts have so far contributed towards making society a much better place and how you propose to shape your future to serve society at large?



- Santosh Behar

Sunday, January 5, 2014

What were possibilities for exploration of Governance Model to be adopted by India after Independence?

In my opinion, the very concept of modern state (pluralist democratic state system) evolved in Europe along with other developments in contemporary period like - development of social value system, cultural norms, economic models and developments in the area of science and technology. Moreover, rationality and jurisprudence of the modern state were based on core values taken from European civilization.

From the perspective of country like India (with rich cultural diversity), which was British colony for long time until its independence in 1947, adopting pluralist democratic state system as the framework of governance and developing supporting institutions was a very difficult proposition. A much elaborate and comprehensive effort for constituting an indigenous state system much closer to locally prevalent cultural norms could have been tried out by the Indian leadership post independence.

Evolutionary process for establishment of a state may include state formation (an organized political community under one government and under one national identity), state consolidation (laying foundations for functioning institutions and building administrative capabilities) and state stabilization (attainment of maturity in governance and attainment of sovereignty). In natural course of evolution, institution of state is shaped in accordance with cultural hegemony and in accordance with prevailing socio-economic scenario. In the process an arrangement largely acceptable to all the stakeholders (in the state) usually comes into existence.

In context of Indian Independence, it may be noted that Western Democratic Model has been successful for India but may not be called a successful model for Pakistan (a country carved out of British India).

A chance to form a new state brings scope for experimentation of innovative ways to assess what best suits to the masses (so that state is aligned in the best possible way with the expectations of its citizens). Had India not been influenced with the pre-existing administrative set-up established by the UK, a much fair consideration could have been given to alternative ways. In regards to the possible alternative ways, a few options that comes to my mind are -

- Socialist Democracy VS Capitalist Democracy VS Elective Constitutional Monarchy (like Malaysia) VS Communist Model (Communism was a popular alternative at that time and Chinese Model of Communism has worked well for them),

- A Federal structure with tightly coupled Central Government and State Governments VS More autonomous state governments with Central government just controlling military and foreign affairs,

- At the district level delivery of public services through bureaucratic set-up (primarly structured for collection of revenue in British India) VS delivery of public services through locally elected body (like Mayor of Municipal Corporations),

- Design of standardized legal and justice system VS jury like arrangement with more flexibility to local courts

- Constitution of a central agency to manage the challenge of modernity across different entities

...... or probably many other options could have been explored. Each of the options could have been accepted/rejected with comprehensive and convincing reasoning. If required, some sort of surveys or pilot implementations on the probable options may have been carried out before final acceptance.

However, it can be a topic of academic debate whether the arrangement adopted by India is the best possible one or other alternatives could have yielded better results.


—  Santosh Behar


SOME INTERESTING DATA



"1700 AD through 1950 AD per capita GDP of United Kingdom and India during the Colonial Era" by M Tracy Hunter - Own work. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1700_AD_through_1950_AD_per_capita_GDP_of_United_Kingdom_and_India_during_the_Colonial_Era.png#mediaviewer/File:1700_AD_through_1950_AD_per_capita_GDP_of_United_Kingdom_and_India_during_the_Colonial_Era.png