Aid from India?

You may have seen in the news recently that India looks likely to set up a national Aid Agency to distribute overseas aid, with a budget of some $11 billion. Unsurprisingly, this is raising a few eyebrows, including my own. I'm all for a diversification of international development away from the domination of a few (Western) organisations and improved co-operation between developing countries. The field has been moving in this direction for some time anyway, and China already eclipses most rich countries in terms of the amount of aid it gives. But when DfID in the UK stands accused of giving away money that is needed at home (which, since the recession, it often is, though it's generally withstood this pressure admirably) the idea of India doing the same is extraordinary.

To put things into context: if India's poorer states were independent countries, they would rank alongside some of the least well-off and least developed countries in the world. And these are not small states: Bihar, the poorest Indian state, has over 100 million people, while an independent Uttar Pradesh would be the fifth biggest country in the world. The projected budget of India's aid agency amounts to around half of Bihar's entire GDP.

India may no longer be a poor country, but a lot of poor people live here. According to the World Bank, 28% of the rural population and 26% of the urban population subsist below the poverty line. That's around 350 million people for whom the emergence of India as an economic power has yet to bring anything close to a decent standard of living. I wonder what they make of the government's plans.

Of course, this is a hard line to tread. Those who object to the UK maintaining its levels of aid spending at a time of severe economic hardship do have a point: poverty and desperation are not unique to developing countries. But I've always found the arguments in favour of maintaining an active development programme - in terms of the moral imperative and enlightened self interest - convincing, and I think DfID's work brings tremendous benefit to the UK as well as to the recipients of it.

So why should I not think the same of India? It remains to be seen, after all, how India will use the new agency. It may, by focusing on its immediate neighbourhood, be able to use it to build a more stable and prosperous region for which we would all have reason to be grateful - not least the citizens of India who stand to benefit greatly. Bihar and Uttar Pradesh need development, but both would share in the results of a more normalised relationship between India and Pakistan, for instance.

But apart from the question of whether India should see to its own poor first, I have two niggling doubts. Firstly, I wonder what the motivation is behind setting up the agency. As India establishes itself as a superpower-in-waiting, it (like many other countries) has sought opportunities to launch the national brand to the global audience. The Commonwealth Games in Delhi last year is the obvious example, and one that remains controversial here (the billions, says my landlord Mr Mehandru, should have been spent on fixing Delhi's drainage system, not to mention building a decent waiting room at the city registration office). An international aid agency, by its nature, is something only the most successful countries can afford. I'm sure there is more to this initiative than a desire for a prestige project - but I suspect that desire is part of the picture. (Again, I run the risk of double standards here - it would be naive to suppose that this hasn't played a role in the setting up of aid agencies elsewhere.)

My other concern lies more in the theory of aid itself. With corruption and non-accountability prevalent in so much of the developing world, the effectiveness of aid has long been suspect. Many development agencies have switched their focus on to improving governance, to allow for better use of existing resources rather than ploughing more cash into wasteful or crooked systems. Apparently India itself has quite a bit of experience in this, as the country's bureaucrats have been involved in training their African counterparts for decades. But with the country's track record on corruption, which dominates the papers here and arouses enormous public ire, I do find it hard to see this being the new agency's focus. There really is a plank of wood to be seen to here before tackling Africa's motes of dust.

Going back to old models of aid would be counter-productive - and having been on the receiving end of a lot of it over the years, I'm sure the Indian government knows that very well. Alternatively the agency may focus on infrastructure development - but this tends to open up even more opportunities for corruption, as well as raising tricky questions about the fuzzy dividing line between aid and investment. So I wonder what approach the new agency will take. Perhaps we are due to see new models emerging as "South-South" cooperation becomes more common.

Anyway, I will be watching the developments around the mooted new agency with interest, particularly the strategies it decides to pursue. It will be enlightening to see how the Indian population reacts should it officially get off the ground - with pride at their country's rising influence, or with anger at possibly misplaced priorities?

In the long run, though, an outward-looking India can only be a good thing. The country's growing global stature remains fraught with contradictions and difficulties, but however it gets there you can't avoid feeling that it is moving towards its rightful place in the world.

Fingerprints, photos and forms

Running a country of 1.2 billion people is not an easy task. Running it as a democracy is even more complex. Managing the needs of so many citizens - citizens who have the vote so who can't easily be ignored or rolled over - would be a Herculean task even for a civil service made up entirely of Sir Humphrey Applebys (for non-Brits, apologies for the cultural reference). Little wonder then that Indian bureaucracy can be, shall we say, a wee bit challenging.

Today I had my appointment to go and register the lease on my flat with the authorities. This required me, my landlord Mr Mehandru, a witness (Mr Mehandru's driver) and the agent who secured the flat for me to trundle down to the Delhi Registration Office in the south west of the city, armed with multiple copies of the lease (printed, as required, on special government paper), my passport (remembered it this time!), my landlord's passport, and sundry other bits and bobs. I was pre-warned that it would take some time so I had let my colleagues know not to expect me.

What I wasn't warned about, however, was that when it comes to the Registration Office, the term "office" is a bit grand. It is actually a squat, one story concrete building rather smaller than the average retirement bungalow, with a sort of blue plastic verandah roof stuck on the outside. This is the only protection against the weather for the hundreds of people crammed into the space around the two tiny windows separating them from the stamp-and-sign wallahs inside. There are no seats. The only refreshment is provided by an enterprising couple of young men who wander round with an ice bucket full of bottled drinks. The whole place is seething with people battling to get to the front of the queue and have their papers seen to. Most are caught beneath the glare of the sun for the majority of their waiting time.

I have to admit I didn't expect it to be like this. Slow, yes. Bureaucratic, yes. Frustrating, yes. But I at least thought I'd be inside, in something resembling a waiting room, especially since this is an office that is regularly used by all kinds of people, including the elderly and others who might have difficulty standing around for hours. Having spent yesterday evening in a beautiful auditorium equal to anything in the UK, the difference was stark.

Mr Mehandru was in an irascible mood. He grew up partly in the UK, which has given him that same critical eye of his own country that my time overseas has given me. The experience of living elsewhere tends to put the daily frustrations and irritations of one's home into sharper relief. Or, as he puts it, "I spent my formative years in your country. That was a mistake." Anyway, having been through this procedure several times before, he was clearly losing patience with the procedure and the conditions under which it is carried out. "Does the minister ever come down here?" he asked, rhetorically.

I wish I could tell you what the procedure is, but I have no idea. I was like a child who has been taken in to work by its parents for the day and is watching all these things happening without the first idea what they are all about. I just did what I was told. I handed over my passport, signed my name no fewer than 17 times, had my photo taken against the wall of the compound, and had my fingerprints taken. Yup, all five of my left hand finger prints are now on record with the Indian government (as are my landlord's), and one of my half-decent shirts has an ink smudge on it. This is just something you have to do to be able to rent a flat in India.

I didn't have to do this to get a mortgage with the RBS.

After the form signing, photos and printing were done, we had about a two hour wait, so Mr Mehandru and I took ourselves (and our matching inky fingers) off to a local cafe, where he put the world to rights and I nodded along and discreetly checked my work emails. When we finally got the call to come back, we fought our way to the front of the queue, when I was told by the agent in highly serious tones that when asked for my age, I should tell them my age.

They asked for my age.

I told them my age.

Whereupon I was escorted into a back office where all four of us had to stand against a red curtain to have some more photos taken, no doubt looking like some awkwardly posed studio shot from the 19th century (actually, there was a bit in between when they told us that the photo of the witness was "blurry" and that we'd have to wait another two hours, but the agent magically managed to get us past that. Somehow). Then there was one final signature, for luck. And that was finally it.

Job done, in just over a half a day. Now, I know there are reasons why the procedures are so difficult. India has a big problem with people overstaying their leases and effectively squatting in rented apartments, and the legal system is so slow landlords can end up with people staying in their homes for free for years. I know these things are just necessary sometimes, trying though they are.

But I have to admit I shared Mr Mehandru's view about the office itself. India is not a rich country, but if it can build modern urban rail systems and world class stadiums then it surely should be able to provide basic facilities at a public office used every day by hundreds of ordinary citizens. If they have to cover themselves in ink and give themselves form-induced RSI to be able to live somewhere, at least they should be able to do it indoors.

A brush with the law

If I made Haryana sound boring in my last post, I apologise for the misconception. My brief visit there ended up being one of the more eventful couple of days of my sojourn in India so far. Not really in a good way.

To begin with: this was pretty much my fault. I'm aware that it's a good idea to have your passport on you when travelling anywhere in India that involves staying overnight. I'm aware that a state close to the border with Pakistan has particular reason to be tight on security regulations. And I'm aware that things are particularly edgy at the moment given recent events in Mumbai.

However, despite being aware of all these things, I managed to leave my passport in my flat when we set out for Sirsa.

When we first arrived at the hotel in Hisar and I was asked for my passport and visa, I thought it would be nothing more than a minor inconvenience. After explaining that it was in Delhi, and being vouched for by the people I was travelling with (mostly Indian, all of highly respectable professional organisations), I left my contact details and promised to send my visa and passport numbers as soon as I was back in Delhi so they could fill in the forms. Feeling a bit silly for the oversight, I had a light dinner and headed up to my room to write Monday night's blog post and then headed to bed.

At six o'clock on Tuesday morning I was awoken by a loud banging at my door. Emerging into the corridor, dressed in a towel and with my hair in disarray as only my hair can manage, I was faced with the sight of no fewer than six men, headed by a slight but stern looking man in police uniform, who marched over the doorway and into my room. "Passport!" he demanded.

I tried to explain, as I had explained the previous night, that my passport was in Delhi. "No!" he responded, "you have to have!"

At this point my befuddlement started to give way to irritation, and I may have said something unhelpful like "I can't magic it out of thin air". Not the wisest course when faced with a provincial policeman in a bureaucratic country in a situation where clearly you have failed to follow the rules. His response was a curt "get ready to go!" Go where, I foolishly asked. "To police station!" he replied with evident relish, "get dressed, you go now!" I spluttered a bit. He made towards me and for a moment I thought he was going to drag me to the police station in my betowelled state.

At this point I started to be actually quite scared that I was going to be cast into some cell in provincial India and that the people I was working with on the project would have to bail me out. This would not be a positive step in establishing myself in India. I gave him every form of ID I had and he vanished with my driver's licence, leaving me to yell out something feeble and English like "this is disgraceful!" at his retreating back.

Rather shaken, I sat down for a few minutes before deciding that if I was liable to be dragged down the nick at any moment I should probably make myself respectable. In the shower I realised that I could probably access a scanned copy of my passport photo page that is saved on my personal drive at work. That took about 10 minutes, after which I proceeded downstairs with my open laptop held in front of me like a shield decorated with my own mugshot.

By the time I had done so and got myself downstairs, a crowd of about 12 people (I have no idea where they all came from!) was gathered around reception, most of them talking loudly about - so I gathered from the looks I received - me. There were, happily enough, no further threats to throw the book at me, and with the help of one of my Indian colleagues I was able to persuade them to let me go with strict instructions to send through a scanned copy of my visa page as soon as I was back in Delhi (this I did first thing this morning, though this was not enough to stop the local police making several calls on my colleagues who had remained behind in Haryana, who of course were entirely unable to help them).

Well, lesson learned: never leave home without your passport if you are a foreigner in India. On one level I find it hard to be angry with these guys, even though they overreacted so badly. No doubt their forms are examined by their superiors and they will get in deep trouble if there are anomalies. And as I said, there are good reasons why security issues are to be taken particularly seriously in this part of the world.

But on another level, I feel hurt, angry and frustrated. Hurt because it was drummed into me so forcefully that, at a fundamental level, for many Indians I am an outsider who may be tolerated, but not trusted. Angry because the number of people in this world who can wake me up at 6 am and not make me angry can be counted on the fingers of one hand, and because of the harassment suffered by my innocent co-travelers as a result of my carelessness. And frustrated because, for Pete's sake, there are enough real problems in this country that would make far better targets of so much police time and energy than a foreigner - one who is in clearly reputable company and who has been vouched for by upstanding Indian citizens - who has temporarily mislaid his passport.

Still, I survived without incarceration and am safely back in Delhi. Hopefully a little bit wiser and probably a little less naive about the realities of living in India. I guess in the end that is no bad thing.

The two-week wobble

I'm not very good at working from home at the best of times. I am at my best in a busy environment, surrounded by people whose work I respect and connected to them even when I am working on a solo project (this is why, even though I love writing, I've never managed to have a great deal of output on anything that's not being done as part of a team project or that's not required for my work). So even though I'm part of a very small team here, having a desk at the office of our Indian joint venture partner has been really important for me in staying motivated.

Now, due to some last minute glitches, I'm cutting it very fine to get my appointment booked at the Foreigners' Regional Registration Office - this is mandatory within the first 14 days of arriving in India. As a result I decided to work from home today and tomorrow, the better to be able to drop everything and hotfoot it to the FRRO at short notice if required.

Sadly, this coincided with a point with which I am familiar: the two-week wobble. It's that point when you've relocated to a strange place, when you've been there long enough (i.e. longer than the average holiday) to start feeling the absence of friends and family, but not long enough to have established a routine or made any real connections. It's not a nice time - you have to dig deep into your inner resources to avoid being overwhelmed by it. (Holland was an exception - 2 weeks in and I was already well into play rehearsals, and had no time for wobbles!)

So today was not great. I spent the morning fighting a horribly slow net connection and my own lack of energy and desire to pop down the pub with a mate (yes, at 10.30 am). I got a bit bad tempered with my maid, Vineeta, who kept interrupting me every three minutes to ask me what I wanted to do with one thing or another (not that there's much point asking me, since she speaks not a word of English and my Hindi classes don't start until the week after next). I shouted at my laptop (attracting some surprised glances from Vineeta, who already clearly thinks I am insane). I reorganised my email folders in the vain hope that it would speed the computer up. I made three cups of tea and sulked over them.

At lunchtime I decided enough was enough and relocated to a cafe in the Defence Colony market. I was instantly cheered to find that they were playing a chanson album by Wende Snijders, a Dutch singer who I thought was completely obscure outside the Netherlands. I treated myself to a cheese pancake (less healthy than my usual diet here, but I needed comfort food), got a coffee and managed to make the afternoon a whole lot more productive (even though quite a bit of it was spent trying and failing to get hold of the manager of the British High Commission club).

The lesson of today is that, even if I don't really know anyone here yet, there are times when I just need to have other people around me (Vineeta, though an absolute godsend, is not terribly effective as a sanity-maintaining companion). Tomorrow is the dreaded trip to the FRRO (the stories I have heard about Indian bureaucracy give me good reason to be apprehensive) and then I have resolved that I shall use the weekend to explore Delhi. Yes, I still have a hundred things I need to sort out in the flat, but stuff it. The weather has cooled down a lot, so I'm going to be touristy. And ask people stupid questions about historical monuments. And take photos of EVERYTHING.

Monsoon, schmonsoon.

Anyway, wobbles aside, I am fine. And this too will pass, I know.

Love to all back home.

Cx