Middlemen

Mohan Rawle and politicians like him are trying their best to drag Mumbai back into the middle ages. In the medieval dreamworld they inhabit, people get ahead because of an accident of birth, because they happen to be of some caste, speak some language or live in a neighbourhood of a warlord who is flexing his muscles. The fact is Rawle and company don8217;t know any better. They have probably not heard about the East Asian miracle and how people there who were as poor and ignorant as Indians half a century ago have shot ahead and become a well educated, highly-skilled, disciplined and prosperous workforce. One example. Starting from scratch, South Korean workers built the world8217;s biggest shipyard and better ships than any other country. How did they achieve that? Well, they were lucky not to have Mohan Rawles to mislead them with agitations for job quotas. The South Koreans did it by training hard and working hard.

There is no reason why Indian workers cannot be as good or better than the best in the worldand turn out great ships or great locomotives. But first the Indian worker has to get rid of that burden he is carrying on his back: ignorant politicians. Workers do not need netas who say, 8220;It doesn8217;t matter if you do not know the difference between a lathe and a blow-torch; you deserve this job because your mother-tongue is Marathi; you will get this job if you come to my coaching camp; if you don8217;t get a job I will shut down the Central Railway8217;s Parel Workshop8221;. Workers need politicians who will see that good skills-training centres are established and recruitment for jobs goes strictly according to the rules.

Rawle8217;s methods worked in the past for a few people but most of all for the Shiv Sena. Often the enterprise or project suffered. Those methods will not work now. The world has changed. In an increasingly competitive environment the public or private sector cannot afford to buy peace by employing politicians8217; 8220;boys8221; and lowering efficiency. Has Rawle forgotten what happened to theWharton/Harvard School of Business when Bal Thackeray demanded quotas for 8220;locals8221;? Mumbai lost, Hyderabad won. Apprentices for railway workshops should be recruited strictly on merit. The railways should not let themselves be bullied by politicians and jeopardise efficiency and safety on the railways.