Government matters

I wish to highlight this great op-ed by David Brooks:


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/13/opinion/brooks-sam-spade-at-starbucks.html?_r=2

The simple message - fixing public institutions and public / social structures for decision making, delivering law and order, etc., especially in places like Pakistan or Kenya ("failing states"), is essential.

It's hard for example for an American expat to do so in Kenya. But if one has any sort of national or regional ties in a "failing state", one absolutely has to dedicate oneself to changing the public system, rather than take it as a given, and try to work within its constraints in an NGO or Social Enterprise. Although both are great causes, I would argue strongly that one is much more important than the other. And too many talented young local individuals who wish to see social change, are often resigned to the fact that they cannot drive change in the public sector, and so end up in NGOs and Social Enterprises - good effort, but they could do better.

This is not about bottom-up versus top-down development; Bill Easterly versus Jeff Sachs; donor push versus need-based pull; large scale versus drop-in-the-ocean. It's about the simple fact that if the fundamental enabling environment isn't healthy, nothing will ever work.

Mobius Motors – Perspectives on “the car for Africa”

Almost all social problems are rooted in one cause – poverty. This is why broad based economic development, and enterprises or institutions which create or redistribute wealth or value are so important. This is not a new thought – the old adage, “teach a man to fish” is almost clichéd. I find great purpose in my work for a deep rural agricultural microfinance institution, because it creates and distributes wealth to the base of the pyramid.

But some problems require more immediate, direct and literal solutions. It is much easier for example, to eradicate diseases like polio with a few simple drops delivered directly by a state social program or NGOs, than to wait a couple of generations for society to be wealthy and functional enough to build out private infrastructure and institutions to deliver polio drops.

Where does access to transportation fall? Will transportation only become universal as poverty is alleviated, or does it require a more immediate and literal solution? The good folks at Mobius Motors, dubbed “the car for Africa”, belong to the later camp. Joel Jackson, the founder, suffered from the transportation problem first hand, waiting for hours and walking long distances to serve clients at Kamaza, a social enterprise which enables farmers to plant wealth creating eucalyptus trees along the Kenyan coast. Getting around in deep rural Kenya is tough – while I have been lucky not to have to walk for miles or wait for hours for unreliable public transport, I have had my fair share of adventures. Visiting loan groups for example, riding on the back of a “bota bota” or motorcycle taxi for an hour, clinging to the back frame for dear life on dirt roads so bumpy and terrain so hilly, I had to close my eyes and think good thoughts consciously to “enjoy the ride”.

Mobius hopes to change this. They already have a second prototype built out and have begun taking orders for their first batch of serial production, with 50 cars rolling out of the production workshop by the end of the year. The car is priced at USD 6,000. For some reason the first prototype reminds me of the Ford Model T (Exhibit A), whereas the second one looks like something in between an old Land Rover Defender and a new Range Rover (Exhibit B). I am told that the 50 units will be based on a third prototype which is yet to be produced, but will be narrower and sleeker.

The overarching design principle is simple and clever. Using a standard Toyota Corolla engine, which can be serviced and repaired easily almost anywhere on the African continent, they have built around it a body with a simple pipe frame covered with a thin metal sheet. The car is stripped of all frills including a solid roof, with some of the savings invested in greater ground clearance and a robust suspension to handle the bumpy roads. The design is thoughtfully tailored to the African market.

The car looks novel – we took it around Kibera, the largest slum in Nairobi, for a test drive and on lookers cheered us, with two separate groups even shouting “Al Shabbab”, the name of the Islamic rebel group fighting the Government and Kenyan security forces in Somalia. Who doesn’t like a new car, especially an indigenous car everyone can call “Kenyan”? Who doesn’t like building or investing in a new car company?

But beyond the novelty and fanfare, I want to think deeply and critically through what it will take to make the car succeed at solving the transportation problem in Africa. First of all, at USD 6,000 it is beyond the reach of the vast majority of the African population, with an average income of just USD 1,000 a year. Cars are fundamentally not cheap, whether they cost USD 12,000 and include airbags and power windows or are stripped of all the frills to slash the price by half. I at least think that broad based economic development and wealth creation will do more to solve Africa’s transportation problem than an immediate and literal solution in the form of an actual car.

It will however serve the existing transport market, whether for middle class households looking for an affordable ride, or for transporters and service middlemen in urban and rural distribution. Right now, the households have to buy second hand reconditioned cars from Japan, and the transporters rely on existing bikes, tuk tuks, vans and trucks in the market.  Goods and people are actually moving around where there is population density and where people are prosperous enough to afford transportation services. Mobius will just add to the array of options in this already existing market – with a unique price point and utility combination which might be superior to some of the other offerings for some buyers. Our Toyota Hilux truck at my microfinance institution, set us back USD 30,000 but can perform wonders. We can, however, buy five Mobius cars for one Toyota Hilux truck. And even though the two are vastly different beasts, with the Mobius able to do less, I think five Mobius’ deliver far more value than one Toyota Hilux to our microfinance operations.

But the question is whether or not Mobius is in fact a unique car on the global market. I think there are plenty of contraptions in India, Pakistan and China which are very similar in design to the Mobius. If I think about just India, a market I know somewhat, between the Mahindras and the Tatas there are over a dozen low cost models which cover the full spectrum of price points and utility (Exhibit C). In Pakistan, the old Suzuki Ravi, Hyundai Shehzore, and Suzuki Bolan are competing for this space (Exhibit D). They are extremely low cost, 800 cc vans built on 1970s carburetor engines with robust suspensions. I have seen them successfully climb the steep hills of Muree and whisk through the bumpy dirt roads in the plains of Punjab. Modular in design, owners can build out seating and shade in the back, using them for passenger transport, or build out a cabin to transport goods. They perform well even though they are almost always overloaded with everything from passengers to freshly harvested sugar cane. Priced at USD 5,000 to USD 8,000, this is as affordable as transportation can get.

But even if the car already exists, there is no harm in building another one. Except that the product development process at a nascent institution lacks the capability, efficiency or rigor that a Tata is able to invest in building out the Nano for example at Italdesign, a specialized automobile design and engineering company based in Italy. Italdesign has designed and tested out everything from Lamborghinis to Volkswagen Beetles. I guess an automotive engineer and a few mechanics can get together in a garage and knock anything out. But if a product’s fundamental cost advantage is that it lacks the investment in man hours to develop it, then why doesn’t automotive production become a cottage industry? Why invest in thousands and thousands of hours of rigorous design and testing?

Also, with a two year product development cycle, nascent organizations can become very product centric. This is true not just in automobiles but also emerging products like solar solutions. “Build and they will sell” – but I suspect that it’s not that easy. Success lies in distribution. One always hears about the 3S in the automotive industry – sales, service and spare parts. Buyers are often reluctant to take the plunge until all three blocks are in place. And they want nationwide coverage – cars are after all moving from place to place. Sure we’re talking about a basic Toyota engine which can be serviced by any mechanic. But will buyers take the first leap? One example comes to mind of Adam Motors in Pakistan – similar idea of an indigenous and low cost car. They built three models (Exhibit E). Adam Zabardast, a super low cost pickup van built on a basic 1970s carburetor engine, Adam Revo a small low cost car comparable to the Tata Nano, and Adam Boltoro, a basic but highly rugged SUV. They sold thousands of cars – indeed many patriotic Pakistanis were excited about buying an indigenous Pakistani car. But within a couple of years they were out of business. Their products were breaking down frequently, and they did not build out the 3S infrastructure to service them. By the time they realized this, their reputation was tainted and it was too late to resurrect themselves.

Mobius is also sexy because it is sowing the seeds for the engineering industry in Kenya. Pakistan, for example treats engineering as a priority sector for development, and is already supplying automobiles to Kenya. In fact, many of the buses on Kenya’s Roads, including the infamous “Citi Hoppas” are built by Master Motors, a company based in Karachi. Pakistan’s engineering companies also supply low cost engineering goods to other emerging markets like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, where customers value cost and are not too demanding on quality. Pakistan has two things going for it – Government protectionism, with 100% plus tariffs on imports, the lifeline for many highly inefficient engineering companies. And we have a very large demand for motors and generally mechanical and ferromagnetic stuff – from the fans which our 180 million strong population require to brave our hot summers, to the pumps our farmers require for agriculture. Gujrat City, in the heart of all the demand in Punjab is an engineering and white goods (refrigerators, washing machines and other household appliances) hub – little kids learn how to weld before they can even walk. My vision is to turn it into a global champion for white good design and manufacturing, much like what Turkey is today.

Building the first serious automotive engineering company in Kenya must be a challenge. From building out supply chains, to ensuring goods clear Mombasa’s port smoothly, to building local production know how. The journey to building out a Gujrat City in Kenya has to begin with a single step. But if the fundamental problem in Kenya and across Africa is that the right car is not being delivered to these markets by foreign automakers, and if the demand and market already exists, then why don’t the likes of Toyota design something similar and build it efficiently in one of their global factories, ultimately building assembly plants out in places like Kenya? They already have the design teams, the production know-how, local sales, service and spare parts. Why go through all this hassle? The answer might be that the likes of Toyota are “sleeping on the wheel” – thus the need for Mobius. A solid exit option might be to sell the Mobius idea and franchise to a major global automaker. If Mobius can open their eyes and show them that this market exists, the 3 to 5 years of toil in the workshop and building 3S all over Kenya might be well worth it.

All the best team Mobius!

PTI - The hope and optimism sweeping Pakistan

Friends –

Two days ago Imran Khan held a huge rally in Lahore, at Minto Park, the same location where the Pakistan resolution was passed by the Muslim League back in 1940, calling for an independent Muslim majority state in British India. Imran Khan’s rally could be just as historic an event as the one back in 1940. Whilst the rally was well publicized using social media, and was expected to be big, it exceeded all expectations. Estimates run from between 60,000 to 400,000 in attendance. Independent estimates seem to run towards the middle of this range, which is a massive figure for a city of around 8 million. By all accounts it has been the largest political gathering in Lahore since 1986, the year I was born. And no, they were not gathering to cheer my birth back in 1986, but rather to cheer Benazir Bhutto, who returned to Pakistan from exile.


But in addition to attracting sheer numbers, the rally was peaceful and well organized. No security incidents. Young boys and girls were both present in large numbers, and according to one newspaper report, there was no eve teasing – if you have been anywhere near Pakistan, let’s say even if you’ve been to India, you would understand how big an accomplishment this is for everyone involved. Imran Khan did not use bullet proof glass, as has become necessary in all other large rallies around the country. Major Pakistani bands performed, galvanizing the youth in support of Imran Khan, and also providing a much needed open air party in a tough security environment (Imran Khan subscribes to a few “right wing” ideas, such as ending US drone strikes over Pakistani territory, which is probably why he is able to keep the radicals at a safe distance).

Imran Khan, the captain of Pakistan’s 1992 Cricket World Cup winning team, formed the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI), or Pakistan Justice Movement, in 1996, after he successfully completed fund raising for a cancer hospital, built in memory of his mother. He stood from seven constituencies in the 1997 elections and was unsuccessful in each one. This was a huge shock at the time, especially considering that he was such a popular national figure – rural, feudal and uneducated Pakistan just didn’t seem to care about his reformist agenda. In 2002, Khan managed to get elected from his home constituency of Mianwali, but only after some very heavy engagement with the community. He was the only candidate from of his party to be elected to the National Assembly, which consisted of 272 elected members. This was also a disappointing result. The party was all but written off as a one man show, with the one man being an ego-maniac and political amateur, who could only manage to win his own seat and that too after some very concentrated effort. In 2008, he boycotted the elections, which made him look like a bad sport.

All along this period, however, he has attracted more than his fair share of attention from the media, and has always been considered a national leader, especially by the educated urban middle class. His ideas, however, are often hawkish – thus his reputation for being a political amateur. He was a key pro-democracy figure through the late Musharraf years, even though he had initially supported Musharraf. He was one of the key media figures in the 2008 long march against Musharraf. There has always been a raging debate in the middle class about whether one should support Imran Khan. He seems to be decent policy-wise and holds impeccable integrity in a field, and even in a country, where integrity seems to be turning into an extremely rare quality. But if he doesn’t have what it takes to move the masses, then one’s vote on him might be wasted. He and especially other members of his party might be too far above the electorate which might not be used to dealing with leaders who are not tribal or feudal - or just simply playing the political game by spewing out empty, uneducated political rhetoric.


But the Lahore rally has shown us that this is no longer the case - Imran Khan's and the PTI's fortunes are finally taking a sharp turn. Urbanization, education and a large youth demographic, coupled with new tools such as mobile phones and social media seem to be working in Imran Khan’s and the wider PTI’s favor. 40% of the constituencies in the National Assembly are now considered to be urban. It is expected that his party’s candidates will give the large traditional parties, the PPP and PML-N, a very tough time across the country in these urban constituencies, especially in the largest province of Punjab. In this province, which contitutes 50% of the country, the population is disillusioned with the performance of both the PPP (leading the Federal Government), and the PML-N (leading the Punjab Government). PTI’s candidates have already done well in a few by-elections, and the youth really seem to be becoming politicized again, after a generation or so of complete disillusionment with the political system.

So I am really excited for and optimistic about Pakistan’s future and strongly support the PTI. Even if Imran Khan does not win an outright majority, he is expected to become a large and powerful part of opposition in parliament. He can play a really constructive role in opposition and wait for momentum to further shift in his direction till the 2018 elections. I urge you to support him as well – you can start by registering as a member of the PTI on http://www.insaf.pk – the website is not very good, so please be patient and bear with it. I hope the PTI is able to attract some great volunteer talent between now and the 2013 elections to fix things like its website, and its social media operations, and generate that extra bit of support which can make all the difference. I would be happy to volunteer during the summers of 2012 and 2013.

On QR Codes - The future is here

 
Friends –



I am seriously impressed with QR Code technology. QR codes are sets of black and white pixels, typically measuring 1.5 cm by 1.5 cm, which can hold lots of rich data. They're similar to barcodes, which hold only numeric data, more specifically a set of 11 digits, which can be used to identify any product in the world. In fact, the Universal Product Code, which maps the numeric data represented by barcodes onto product information that can be used for example by supermarkets, was developed by McKinsey & Company, who were hired by the US National Association of Food Chains (NAFC) back in the 1970s.



30 to 40 years later, we are taking the next big leap in technology. Compared to barcodes, QR codes can hold thousands of rich alphanumeric, even Kanji (Japanese script) characters. They hold enormous potential for condensifying, standardizing and ultimately simplifying data capture across multiple types of interactions - business to business (B2B), business to consumer (B2C) and consumer to consumer (C2C). Originally developed as a B2B tool for supply chains and production lines, I have personally seen QR codes in action now on three different fronts, and that too sitting here in Nairobi (I guess that's why they call it Silicon Savannah).



One very obvious use is to very quickly and easily digitize a long, complicated, tedious and/or seemingly meaningless analogue text string. For example, some commercial advertisements in the Economist now contain QR codes, which are links to long and complicated URLs. You like something you saw in the magazine - instead of typing in the URL, which might be a tedious task, simply scan the QR code and go straight to the product website. Up to 4,000 characters can be stored in that tiny 1.5 cm by 1.5 cm space. QR codes are now being placed on flyers, pamphlets, brochures, business cards - or anywhere one might want to place or replace a URL.



At our Juhudi regional managers' meeting recently, we used QR codes to simplify the process of installing a new smartphone application, which we have developed and are rolling out to streamline some of Juhudi's operations. As we were training our regional managers to install this new application, we felt like agents from the future, in some sort of sci-fi movie - and even though in this particular case, even a long complicated text URL sent by e-mail might have worked (the tedious stuff needed to be digitized only once, and then could be shared easily in simple digital text format), not all our regional managers access their e-mail on their phones (which someone should seriously train them to do). Setting up mobile e-mail access for those who don't already have it would have been quite complicated (would have brought up issues of passwords, privacy, etc.), so the QR codes simplified our lives.



Finally, a friend here in Nairobi has co-founded NikoHapa, a mobile based loyalty tracking and social networking program for retail outlets and retail customers. It's similar to Subway stamps, from back in the day. You received a stamp for each visit to Subway, which you could paste onto a card. Once all 10 stamps on the card were complete, you could turn the card in to receive a free foot-long sandwich. I also recall from back in the day that some Subway outlets had discontinued the scheme due to rampant forgery and fraud. A friend of mine, who became very loyal to Subway because of the scheme (legend has it that he didn't eat anywhere else), was not very happy when he found out that his 7 or so left over stamps were no longer in use. Just overnight, loyalty turned into a massive boycott.



NikoHapa is fully digitized and linked to a phone account, which presumably helps prevent or minimize fraud - but there is also a social networking element to it, which cuts across multiple chains and outlets - your friends can see all the places you have visited (or 'stamps' that you have collected). What's more is that NikoHapa uses QR code stickers as 'stamps' to simplify the process of capturing a visit. There's also an SMS alternative, where one has to type in a code and send it across to a short-code number - obviously much more tedious. So I wonder if many NikoHapa users are using the QR coded stickers. As the use of smartphones becomes more widespread and people familiarize themselves with these codes, everyone should be using them and SMS should become redundant.



So if you have an Android smartphone, download the free application called "Barcode Scanner" and get started. Find a QR code - any QR code. Scan it in. Experience the ease and simplicity of the process. The joy as green dots appear on the screen, showing successful capture. Prepare yourself for the future.



In case you're unable to find a QR code, here's the QR code for the Mambo Jambo Salama URL:

Efficiency at the Base of the Pyramid

Efficiency doesn’t come naturally to the Base of the Pyramid. Everyone needs to understand it. Someone needs to champion it. Our low income customers eventually benefit.

Let’s start by decoupling funding and operations. Operations are often treated like a black box – money goes in, and money (also let’s not forget social impact) comes out. Funding is often the focus – “Given my operating model, and my social mission and social impact, can you provide me with funding?” said the CFO to an impact investor – or even a grant funder. Some impact investors will turn around and say, “I think you need to tweak your operating model to become more efficient”. Time for the CFO to move on to the next investor or funder – according to one CFO in the sector, there’s a list of 300 investors they can approach, and basic funnel dynamics tell you that at least a handful can be converted, no matter what the underlying model looks like. Blame it on the ego of that particular impact investor – some of these conversations do tend to degenerate into pissing contests, and it takes incredible soft skills to manage some of the people in this otherwise well-meaning space. But it’s very easy for things get murky – and inefficient.

At a recent dinner conversation I heard the inside story of a ‘Social enterprise’ with USD 7 m in costs, and USD 500 k in revenues. It is a large and well respected organization, doing some terrific work and it has been around for 20 years. For each of these 20 years, costs have exceeded revenues by at least 4 times, and this gap has been plugged by grant funding. It sells an engineering product to deep rural customers. Deep rural distribution can be very costly, especially when it’s for a new innovative product, one which requires a large capital outlay on the part of the end user – not just soap, shampoo and SIM cards which are readily sold in standard mini bite sized chunks.

But the organization is engineering and technology centric, with a good, charismatic and well-connected fund raising team. They are able to excite grant funders year after year and keep the operating model going. The painful exercise of reviewing the operating model and bridging this enormous gap between costs and revenues requires an operations and business strategy centric ex-consultant (not that I am offering my services here) to come in, and make a few game changing changes. There has to be a lot of latent value which can be captured to bridge this gap – geographic footprint optimization, partnerships with other players e.g. MFIs (not that I am offering Juhudi’s support here), performance management systems, etc.

On this note – as an MFI we get many requests for partnerships. In fact we get so many, we are often a little under water. On a given day at least 2 people will walk into our offices and pitch their product or idea to us. On some days we get to do nothing but meet these social entrepreneurs and potential partners. They want both, access to our deep rural loan groups, and want us to administer the loans, which makes sense because as an MFI we have the systems and processes to do this very well. Many of these conversations have resulted in new products, some of which have been tremendously successful – a win-win for all.

But I often wonder why players try to over specialize in rural distribution at the base of the pyramid. It is just so inefficient – and emanates from an urban ‘complexity economics’ mindset, where greater complexity and specialization has been the key source of our collective expanding wealth.

In my view, sales and distribution across multiple players, products and functions has to be consolidated at the base of the pyramid, if we are to deliver efficiency to our low income customers. We have to learn to be good in two or three areas, if we want to realize our true potential. I like to use my cricket analogy. Traditionally, or even as recently as back in the 80s and 90s, a typical cricket player was either a good batsman or bowler or just a specialist a wicket-keeper. Fielding was never really considered a key skill until Jonty Rhodes from South Africa showed everyone in the late 90s just how much of a difference good fielding can make (and he could do nothing else but field). Over time the Aussies realized that if they could push every player to be good in at least two of these four disciplines, they could hold a very serious edge over any other team. They found many players, who were meeting these standards, and this set the new bar – they dominated cricket for the best part of a decade. Now every player in every good team, be it India, Sri Lanka, South Africa, England or even Pakistan has to meet this bar. Australia has finally been unseated – cricket has never been this exciting or competitive.

Similarly, we need to have organizations at the base of the pyramid which, for example, can both administer loans, and build rural value chains – often getting directly operationally involved in both areas. As social enterprises, we often don’t have a natural incentive to consider efficiency. But if we look at the for profit sector, there are plenty of examples of efficiency emerging naturally from the system. For example, it’s what the traditional seed and fertilizer input providers have realized holds enormous value. They have to go out and visit all these farmers anyway – why not finance their seed in addition to selling it to them as well?

Simple MFI is another beast. It’s an incredible innovation, and I am currently trying to catalyze its business development, so that the sector can benefit from it. It’s an Android smartphone application designed to transform Microfinance operations. Deployment of Simple MFI, along with a broader streamlining of systems and operations can shave 3 to 4 percentage points off the interest rate charged by MFIs to their clients – and at the same time reduce clutter, reporting errors, fraud, and other operational risks. Yet, it is a very hard sell. For some MFIs, it brings out too many legacy systems and operational issues – skeletons they would rather keep in their closets. For others, efficiency is just not a concern – especially when they are satisfied on the funding side, and the model is “sustainable”.  In fact “sustainability” is one of the most dangerous terms in social enterprise – I shall cover it in another blog post on another day.

In the meantime, I feel like a door to door salesman with my pitch pack and little IDEOS phone. I am sure it will take off eventually – buts lots of hard work is in store until then. And it was always going to be a challenge. Championing efficiency requires both leadership within an organization and also collaboration across organizations. I was recently reading a great, super insightful book by Antony Bugg-Levine and Jed Emerson, titled “Impact Investing”. According to the authors the social enterprise space is maturing, where the old charismatic cheerleaders are being replaced by people with hard and soft business skills, who will eventually bring things like efficiency to the sector. It adds a bit of clarity to the first part of my previous post on Social Enterprise and Impact Investment (http://mambojambosalama.blogspot.com/2011/09/on-social-enterprise-impact-investment.html). This is the start of the age of the less visible champions – but champions nevertheless. Keep championing.

On George Fulton, Dubai and Imran Khan

George Fulton is an interesting character. He’s big. He’s Caucasian. He’s Pakistani.

Here’s a picture:

George Fulton started out as a British national who came to Pakistan as a BBC World producer, looking to produce current affairs programming tailored for a Pakistani audience. Pakistan happens to be one of the few countries where people still watch BBC World.

Whilst in Pakistan, he got involved in a local reality TV show called “George ka Pakistan” (George’s Pakistan), as the lead character. The challenge for him was to travel around Pakistan, and become a Pakistani within 3 months, or 12 episodes. At the end of the show, viewers would judge through SMS voting, whether or not George had done enough to deserve to become a Pakistani.

He travelled all over the country – milked cows in the villages and raced donkey carts in the cities – but more so than just being captured on camera being part of some superficial shenanigans, he seemed to bring a very interesting sort of intellectual depth to the show, and really tried to understand the political, social and cultural fabric of the country, for all its breadth, richness and complexity – and as he often pointed out, its contradictions. He hung out with the elite business class in Karachi, drove around with politicians (feudal lords) in some of the villages; in addition to all the antics and cultural rituals that he took part in with a diverse set of common folk across the length and breadth of the country.

He has a great, very likeable personality, and was very comfortable on screen. Needless to say, he was extremely popular, and the audience voted overwhelmingly in favor of him becoming a Pakistani. Around the same time, he met a Pakistani girl from a typical educated upper middle class background called Kiran, and married her. I presume he also converted to Islam (even though I am not one to judge, I presume this was done in order to make the marriage acceptable to the bride’s side of the family – cross cultural marriages and the religious conversions around them are such messy business, but often essential for making things happen). I am not exactly sure how he obtained his Pakistani citizenship, but my guess is that the marriage paved the way for it. He now holds a Pakistani passport.

He stayed back in Pakistan with Kiran for several years, living in Karachi. Initially, he started a current affairs talk show on a local channel, but it was not particularly successful. Later, he paired up with Kiran and started a breakfast talk show, which was more successful, called “Kiran aur George” (Kiran and George) – the audience loved watching a white guy talk about anything and everything related to everyday life in Pakistan, especially his attempts at speaking Urdu – the on screen chemistry between this rather peculiar couple was really good, including his cheeky antics followed by Kiran’s playful slaps on his shoulder. That show ran for quite a bit, but has now stopped airing.

They have left Pakistan now, and settled back in the UK. He has still been writing regularly for the Pakistani press. In fact he has been writing for a while now, but I have only recently discovered some of his work. He writes extremely well.

His April 2010 piece on Dubai is a timeless classic.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/7950/at-least-we-are-not-dubai/

It echoes the sentiments shared by many but which I largely disagree with. It is still a very well written piece and an important thought provoking read.

His article in yesterday’s paper on Imran Khan was also interesting.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/257064/yes-we-khan/

Imran Khan is Pakistan’s former cricket captain turned politician, a national hero for winning the 1992 cricket World Cup against some serious odds, and later for building a cancer hospital in Lahore by mobilizing donations from the public. His political career and personal life have been less stellar though – he married Jemima Goldsmith, a British socialite, but she struggled to settle into life in Pakistan, so he had to separate from her and their two kids – his politics are controversial, and he hasn’t been able to gain much traction as a politician; he has strong right wing tendencies, a soft spot for the religious extremists, but more so than anything, very little popular appeal and a tendency to seriously flip flop on some important issues.

This time, I agree with most of what George Fulton has set out in his article. Imran Khan is an interesting character, and for all his faults, he is still the best option we have for 2013 (barring Musharraf and the Army, who for matters of principle will not be allowed to make a comeback, at least not yet – even though their political capital has slowly been replenishing, especially after 3 years of Zardari – sub pe bhari i.e. a burden on everyone – and a general sense of disillusionment with all the other available options).

Here’s an illustration of the political options we have for 2013, based on my classic and trademarked “3-cardinal-sins in public service” framework. Each sin is scored from 0% to 100%, with 100% being the worst place for a candidate to be in from our perspective (at my discretion scores can exceed 100% as well, but this is only when I am really trying to hammer through a point). The candidate with the lowest net score or the lowest number of “net evil points” wins:

The 3-cardinal-sins in public service	Sharifs	Zardari	Chaudhrys of Gujrat	Imran Khan	Musharraf (without Chaudhrys?)	Army
Apathy	50%	105%	60%	0%	0%	30%
Lack of integrity	80%	110%	80%	0%	0%	30%
Lack of competence	60%	80%	70%	80%	50%	50%
Net evil points	190%	295%	210%	80%	50%	110%

So with the two right most columns not an option, Imran Khan is perhaps our best option. He even comes quite close to Musharraf, who in my view shares Imran Khan’s genuine passion for the country, and strong integrity, but is quite a bit more skillful and competent.

But as George Fulton points out in his article, there are a few things Imran Khan needs to change.

First of all, politics is a game of maneuverability in a structurally constrained space, which often means compromise. As principled as he is, which ordinarily would be a great thing, he also seems to be unelectable – and clearly unacceptable to many of the key power players who wield influence over Pakistan. He has to show greater flexibility on some issues, and hold back on his rhetoric on others – at least for the sake of the greater good.

Secondly, he does hold a very serious “Messiah complex”. So far he has failed to build a movement around himself – he needs to change tack and focus on building it around the institution that he represents and around its ideas or key messages. We certainly require a bit of his personality to seed it, and to provide it with a foundation, but his persona alone, is not going to be enough.

On this, he is almost delusional – I heard him speak at the LSE a few years ago, back when I was a student there, where he drew parallels between himself and the Prophet Mohammad, and how the early years of the Prophet were also a struggle. The pronoun he uses needs to change. Less “I”, more “we”. He hasn’t received an official mandate from God (and cannot, given that Mohammad is the last prophet in Islam), so he needs to do something drastically different to turn his fortunes around.

There are many things he can get going for him – his biggest asset being a strong “latent” support base among young and educated urban voters, which is a very large and fast growing segment, thanks to our country’s demographics. They are largely disillusioned and disenfranchised by the country’s politics, and given that they feel so helpless about their country’s future, the only thing they care about is trying to find a way to immigrate to any other country.

He needs to find a way to mobilize them. His crazy talk show appearances, where he spews out strong inconsistent rhetoric against anyone and everyone, coupled with his delusional self-belief, are not going to get him their support – or anyone’s support for that matter. Something needs to change.

Can he start focusing on developing a base of consistent and focused key messages which will appeal to this core base, and also build a really kick-ass grass roots campaign machine focused around them? Surely he can mobilize all these students based on just their selfless (or collectively selfish) motivation to fix the country and defeat any political party, with their messy system of “karkuns” (political workers), built around a selfish and self-destructive system of patronage and rent distribution.

 Yes we Khan! Yes we Khan! Yes we Khan!

Religion to the extreme II

I have been reading a multi-part series of articles by Ajmal Kamal, published in the Express Tribune titled the “Development of the modern maulvi” (a maulvi is literally a pastor or a theologian, but more often a reference to a very religious person, often a religious radical). Part VI has been published in today’s paper. There seem to be more parts to this series, but the first 6 are already very interesting and already worth writing about.

Ajmal Kamal is one of the foremost scholars on this topic. I have heard him speak at Karachi’s T2F (The Second Floor – their mission is to “reduce intellectual poverty”, but they also serve great coffee), and also read some of his earlier work in the papers. What I have learnt from him informed much of my earlier post a couple of months back: Religion to the extreme (http://mambojambosalama.blogspot.com/2011/07/religion-to-extreme.html).

The articles in this particular set require quite a bit of knowledge of context and are a bit long and dry, and also tend to veer slightly off track – it takes some deep pools of interest in the topic to get through them. Let me try to briefly synthesize and tie them together for a universal audience:

i)                    POWER CREATED: In the middle part of the second millennium a stronghold on (Islamic) religious education and spirituality took root in the sub-continent – it was driven by a strong belief in the tradition of “apprenticeship” – teaching was reserved for “pirs” or “masters”, a highly spiritualized profession, which earned much patronage, and was passed on from generation to generation – education was exclusive; reserved for the “learned classes” – all this whilst my ancestors (from the “farmer” caste) structurally could not do much more than just plough their fields – no belief, no motivation, no infrastructure to provide means of transport, etc.

ii)                   POWER CONSOLIDATED: In fact, to preserve this stronghold (with its many social and economic benefits), several prejudices were created and perpetuated by the elite ruling educated class – mainly against non-Muslims, minority Shiites and lower-castes, but also cutting across other dimensions, e.g. gender – pluralism died (or was never really born) as we not only learnt to, but developed a habit of judging others, and accusing anyone and everyone of being a kafir (infidel) or at least believing without question that they were either destined for hell (the non-Muslims or Shiites in this case), or that they deserved their lower social status (the lower castes, such as my “farmer” ancestors, or women in this case)

iii)                 POWER SHAKEN-UP: Colonialism shook things up – old traditions were uprooted or were seriously threatened by rapid changes in the socio-economic dynamics of society; modern education, canal systems, new infrastructure and civil works, postal systems, civil service institutions, etc. provided unprecedented access to many more (such as my farmer family, which had by now become educated civil servants) and catalyzed the creation of the “Deoband” school (they fall just behind the Taliban on the extremism spectrum – in a very controversial way, a precursor to the Taliban). This was exacerbated by the identity politics or crisis faced by old school Muslims in the sub-continent – who for the first time in hundreds of years, were no longer in positions of privelege, power and control.

iv)                 RIVALRY & CONFLICT: The Deobandi School borrowed almost all of its ideology from the Wahhabis in Najd (present day Saudi Arabia – where women cannot drive, and men are castigated if they are idling around at prayer time). These were reformist ideas which were appealing or well suited to the times – on the other side of the spectrum to the more traditional “sufi”ish ideas. But there was a twist – the Deobandis cleverly, took over teaching and spiritualism from the old school (sufi-ish) guys, who as we know bequeathed them from their ancestors (by now known as the Barelvis – the Barelvi movement was started in the early 1800s as a reaction to the threat that their interests faced), thus ending their monopoly. As Ajmal Kamal points out in a story of Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi, an early and highly influential Deobandi, they cunningly preserved the old traditions of patronage of religious teachers and scholars.

His six parts sort of end on this note – but as we all know, what ensued was a bitter rivalry, and a tussle for this power, which eventually turned violent, and took on other political dimensions as well.

What this also teaches us, and what I also highlighted in my previous post on this topic, is that religious extremism was fait accompli or largely deterministic for Pakistan – rooted in hundreds of years of history – whilst both our political and military leaders have never been principled enough, if at all held any principles what so ever, or not had the spine to tackle this visible and dangerous trend, events such as the Lahore riots of the 1950s, or Bhutto’s declaration of Ahmedis as apostates, or his introduction of prohibition, or even Zia-ul-Haq’s super acceleration of the entire process, with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, were mere milestones in the continuous running process.

The slide continues – It’s not just religious violence now, but more so all the ethnic and other divides which define and drive the politics of our country today. Let’s hope we don’t splinter into a bunch of  theological and ethnic fiefdoms run by maulvis and warlords – or to put it simply – a state of anarchy.