A credible answer to this question can be given by only Mr Tata himself. I doubt if he will bother doing it. Well, he doesn’t have to.

But that should not stop us from making some guesses (intelligent or otherwise). This is not the first time Tata has played such an innocent mischief on the Indian media. In March 2003, in an interview to the Financial Times (in the UK) Tata made public his wish to build a Rs 100,000 car, which six years later became the world famous Tata Nano.  Now his retirement plans including the possibility of an expat successor has been handed over on a silver platter to WSJ.

Such a generalisation would be a dangerous habit. But for someone who commands a $71 billion business empire, with 65 per cent of the turnover coming from outside India, it is only a fail-safe approach to trust a reputed foreign media brand to take some sensitive news to the public and more so to investors. I am not naive to believe that Tata was talking to the Indian public when he gave the interview to WSJ. I think he was specifically talking to the investing community worldwide. He was telling investors from New York to Shanghai (and probably Mumbai on the way) that the Tata Group is a truly global company now and is ready to join the league of General Motors (bad example today, yet), Microsofts, Intels and Wal-Marts of the world. The heads of these companies are chosen without looking at their place of birth place, their skin color or gender.

I think evolution of union movement amplifies not only the industrial landscape of a nation but also to some explains the nature of the people who participate in it. As a reporter, I have covered the labour-management issues as a routine.  However I never took sides — which is pretty much what any sensible editor must be happy about. Just write what you see was the brief. But, because you don’t get to write what you “feel” does not mean that you stop feeling and go around like a robot eating and vomiting everything you see/hear.

Here is what I really think about the union-management clashes in India. In very broad terms it sucks. Since it takes both hands to make any sound I would say both sides — labour and management — take the blame for the ugly scenes we see when they clash.

Look at recent history. In September 2008, Lalit Kishore Choudhary, the 47-year-old chief executive officer of Graziano Transmissioni India, died in the hands of some sacked employees. A year later Roy J George, vice-president (human resources) at Pricol, is was beaten to death by some workers. Earlier this month Ajeet Yadav a employee in Ricoh Auto Industries was killed that led to the day long protest by workers on October 20 in Gurgaon.  To me that brought back memories of the July 2005 clash between the Honda workers and the police, that had sent a handful of the workers to the hospital. And the one tragedy that takes the cake is the brutal killing of union leader and former MP Dutta Samant in January 1997. I have even heard of a case in a plant near Chennai when a bunch of workers, unhappy with the canteen food, poured an entire drum of saambar over an HR executives head!

I think its time we said enough is enough.  There has to be a more “humane” and sensible ways to deal with this very old problem. Luckily we do have some examples like in the UK we can take a look at.

There are several unions in the UK like GMB and Unite, just as we have in India (AITUC, BMS or CITU). There is a superbody under which most unions come under called the Trade Union Congress (TUC). Philosophically the TUC is closer to the ruling Labour party. Its chief Brendan Barber admits that much. But no financial link for sure, he says. That makes the TUC and its affiliated bodies pretty much independent of any political agenda. Not a day goes by when I don’t get a mail from the GMB or one such union communicating their perennial fight with some management or a local body somewhere in the country which pretty much tells how busy they are.

When I called some of the union members and staffers before writing this blog, I was told, without a trace of doubt, there has not been a single untoward incident that led to someone getting killed in a clash between management and labour.

But this has not been the case always. Historically the union movements have shown their ugly and darker side in the UK as well. The mid-Seventies and Eighties had been the dark age in the union movement when this country witnessed the famous (coal) miners’ strike. Tory leader and former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher during her heydays had put the militant forces to rest. Violent clashes triggered by labour-management differences is history now. Today the parties on either side of the table debate, argue and negotiate intensely. Industrial action (or lock-out as we understand) is the last card unions play (postal workers strike). Managements for their part don’t jump at their first chance to trim workforce during difficult times. Recessionary periods have shown several intermediary solutions like pay freeze, pay cuts, temporary shut down of plants, re-deployment, voluntary layoff before someone is given a pink slip with a golden handshake. Unions for their part are not docile either. They take their message to the streets quite often, well supervised by the police and without any sign of violence or causing any nuisance to common public.

Yet its not a perfect world in the UK either. Follow this link and you will get a good idea.
http://survey09.ituc-csi.org/survey.php?IDContinent=4&IDCountry=GBR&Lang=EN

In India, the unions have a long laundry list of their demands. Top on this list is the “hire and fire at will” policy some managements are accused of. The grey area is of course the way “temporary” or contract workers are treated. To be fair, managements hire people under this category precisely because they can be dispensed with when they are not needed.
http://survey09.ituc-csi.org/survey.php?IDContinent=3&IDCountry=IND&Lang=EN

The challenges trade unions face in India are not unique. The International Trade Union Confederation in its 2009 Survey points out at fundamental rights violations in 143 countries and that 76 trade unionists were killed due to their actions to defend workers’ rights. A total of 50 serious death threats were recorded across seven countries as well, along with some 100 cases of physical assaults across 25 countries. Columbia continues to be the terror spot for unionists. India is definitely a far better place for those holding up the red flag.

It would however be fair to say that the differences are many. Some of these issues might never get resolved. But that does not mean that we start killing each other. That is plain stupid. As generation of leaders fade and new ones emerge, we might continue to deal with the same problems and pass them on to the next generation. As time goes by, there is a good chance that we might learn to respect each others position and evolve as more tolerant and patient human beings. Until we see this evolution happen, I think we will simply prove only one point. Charles Darwin was wrong.

I think one of the best movies that ever came out of Hollywood was the 1968 classic — Stanley Kramer’s “Guess who’s coming for dinner”. It is a popular favourite among movie fans.  It is a movie about love, about good parenting, class differences and above all about racism. In fact it is a movie about colour-blind love to be precise. I have a favourite line in that movie. It’s the scene when the white mother tells her white husband that their white daughter is in love with a black man. And the mother played by Katherine Hepburn thus goes: “It’s not just that our color difference doesn’t matter to her.  It’s that she doesn’t seem to think there is any difference.”

That is the beauty of the golden oldies — the dialogues. They were precise and conveyed serious meaning with no trace of ambiguity. Well this is not a belated movie review. My point is that something more current but related to the issue the movie deals with.

For all practical purposes I am a black man. OK brown to be precise. Hues and shades don’t matter here. The point is I am non-white. I don’t feel inferior about it. Neither do I have a misplaced notion of being an underdog. This is just the surface. The truth a bit deeper and its quite unsettling.

I find that I am constantly reminding myself of my skin colour. I did not have this issue for 37 years in India. But in a country like the UK where the whites out-number other skin colours, I seem to think that I am a minority. Not a victim, but just a numerical minority.

It has been nearly a year since I came to this country. With absolute certainty I can assure you that neither me nor any of my family members have had any experience that suggest that our skin colour is alien in this country. Yet, I constantly judge. Every normal experience I have is evaluated by my notion of racism. I find that before a white takes a seat next to me in a bus or the tube, he or she scans for other vacant seats. When there is no other vacant seat, they unwillingly sit next to me or sometimes prefer to stand. Or so I think.

When me and my visiting Indian friends were made to wait for a bit longer in a Pizza Express outlet before our order is  taken, I refused to tip and mumbled something about the white waitress being a racist. Another day, I found myself in a new neighbourhood not very far from home while trying to catch a bus home. Two buses went by and did not stop despite my hand-signaling.  A black lady who was waiting with me said it was a bigoted neighbourhood and white drivers will not stop when they see the stop has only blacks waiting. I turned around and noticed that it was an all-black crowd at the stop. Well may be the lady was right.

I have met the sweetest white man on the street who took me on a ‘Jack-the-Ripper’ walking tour and the rudest black man in the bus elbowing me for more standing space. I have been cursed by an old white lady for looking at her weird dog for a few seconds longer and have had the most interesting conversation on Christianity with a black cab driver.

I find that racism is not about skin colour. It’s just about people and their stupid prejudices. And more importantly it’s not just about white against black. In can be as much the other way around too.  Extreme cases of race hate is easy to notice and write about. They are obvious and don’t demand a terribly intelligent mind to comprehend its existence. It is the inherent and deep-seated notion about race that worries me more.

Personally I would feel free from this mental baggage when I stop noticing the skin colour. Until then I will consider myself to be racist. It does not matter if doesn’t manifest itself in a prejudicial form.

It’s a small world but its not really the same world. Cross a couple of seas or oceans and things change for good or bad, while you are still on the same planet Earth.

Not very long back, I think it was 2004. I was working in Delhi and I had a very strange experience. It was a Saturday and a bunch of us in the bureau had gone for a lazy late lunch. It was one of those rare Saturday lunches when we decided not to drink any beer. Just food and no booze we decided. We were all in a colleague’s car and trying to park it in the ever crowded Fleet Street in Delhi (Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg) right opposite to Business Standard office. My chief was driving the car and was maneuvering the car to park it with some difficult gear shifts. This dude follows rules to the point of irritation. All indicators were on and he was watching the rear view mirror all the time but still a couple of trigger happy goons managed to bump their bike behind our car. What followed as a typical Delhi-style testosterone fight. Goon number one who was riding the bike wanted to prove a point while my chief was trying to explain why the fault was not his but Goon No.1’s. I was fairly new to Delhi so I decided to correct the situation. Leaving my two colleagues (who were bigger and more street-wise than me anyway) to handle the goons, I ran to the nearest police picket and brought with me two fat cops, one actually carrying a big gun — the one with lots of holes in the nozzle. Then came one more cop and he said we all need to go to the station (IP Estate) to file a complaint. I was happy. See, who said this is jungle raj. It worked like a charm and the bad guys will learn their lesson today.

The three of us, along with the two goons where asked to wait a bit. We were introduced to two more cops, one lady and another big Jat cop (am guessing by his size and his accent). Then the lady cop casually dropped the bomb. All us were asked to strip for a medical check up. WHAT? I don’t go topless in my hometown’s Marina beach, leave alone stripping in a police station. This is one of those moments when you get that strange ticklish feel in your sole and certain parts defy gravity and move upwards (you know what!).  That strange churn in the stomach ensued. Eyes start to dilate and normal sounds assume Dolby Surround Sound effect in the head. My poor boss looked at me in shock. Ok, I am going to be taken out of the auto beat and asked to cover chambers for the rest of my life!

Luckily, my other colleague got this brilliant idea. Call the big boss, that is my boss’ boss’ boss. (No names please). He came to the station and spoke to the lady cop and explained to her that all this was not necessary and we don’t want to register a complaint. Suddenly the two goons and all us were shaking hands and putting up a grand show for all to see, how we were almost like childhood friends who failed to recognize each other and all is well. So bye bye.

Phew, close one. On the way back to office, one question was in the top of every one’s mind. Why did I call the cops? Someone even asked it. That is when the big boss said, what I did was the right thing. The only mistake was I forgot it was in Delhi. For small harmless altercations you don’t call the cops. We are not living in the West. This is India, I was told. But isn’t it how big fights start? So why not nip it in the bud by bringing in the cop early? May be, but don’t do that again I was told. Ok, said I. It made sense actually.

Five years later, something eerily similar happened here in London right outside my house. It was Friday evening. My wife, visiting mom-in-law and I were coming home after an evening stroll at around 8 pm.  It was still bright outside and a green Honda was parked outside my apartment building. We walked around the car and it suddenly started to back up, slowly at first. I managed to cross, then my wife and just about when my mom-in-law was about to make it the car accelerated. We had to pull my mom-in-law right on time and avoided what could have been a serious accident. My wife screamed at the driver. It was a lady behind the wheel and she looked Asian. At first she gave a lame apology. My wife and I were shocked and it must have shown on our face. Now that really ticked off the nice cement-footed lady behind the wheel. She went off the handle and said, “I apologised didn’t I? So why are you making faces” she asked.

Hey I have a question, I said. “Does your lame apology make your wrong right? Don’t we have the right to express shock?” asked I. Now this nice lady gets better by the minute. “I did not hit you, did I? Be grateful I did not run my car over you, ok?” Not a nice lady anymore. She asked us to “@*&% #*%”. Back home, still a bit shaken, I decided to call the cops. Control room came on the line right away and the lady at the other end calmly told me, since we were not hit by the car, there is very little they could do. But then she said something that surprised me. “You can register a complaint just in case should you encounter this person again in your apartment complex. I can record the complaint and give you a reference number,” she said. I was happy. That is exactly what I wanted. Being the victim  of this unpleasant event, I wanted to be the first one to record it with the police. That we got to do and we got the reference number as well.

That night I went to sleep with smile on my face. My big boss in Delhi was right. I am now living in the West and even as a working class immigrant, I have rights. A right I am constitutionally entitled to in India but seldom get to exercise. A few hours later India will wake up and celebrate Independence Day for the 63rd year!

For someone whose idea of life outside India for the first thirty six and half years of his existence restricted to occasional corporate junkets with glimpses of airports and star hotels, the last six months in London as a resident has been a completely new experience. This is my short preface to five new and unique experiences I have had and I wish to share now. I assure dear reader, that none of this is profound and you should take this more than a mere scribble in my diary at your own peril.

#1 Tube Face
The indispensable London Underground seems to have one undesirable impact on its users. I am yet to meet a smiling face in the tube. People simply don’t smile when they get 24 meters (average depth of the tube) below the ground. My rotten arrogance surfaces once in a while and I try to break this by smiling at a stranger with a hope of setting a new record in the tube. The best response I have received so far is a nod that lasts no more than a nano-second.

#2 Ear-shattering blow
An average Londoner is a perfect gentleman/lady. There cannot be two opinions about this. Why then do they blow their noses so loudly in public places is something I am yet to understand. Take this literally. When a Londoner blows his nose, he ensures that people five meters on either side hear it. The saving grace is that he/she always, always uses a tissue.

#3 Week-end frenzy
Life during weekends, starting from Friday evening goes on the fifth gear. There is a manic planning that precedes this. What am I going to do this weekend is an essential question that every self-respecting Londoner seems to be asking himself. While the average answer to this is not very creative, it is just another harmless side of the simple-minded Englishman. Get ready to see miniature barbecue stoves on the balconies of garden-less apartments like the ones I live in!

#4 Beer and ale guzzlers
This my favourite. A pint of beer bang in the middle of the day? This is a futile question only a narrow-minded (and hypocritical) Indian like me can ask. I remember being petrified of being caught by my boss every time I had a beer with lunch when I was in Delhi. God knows how many cartons of “Centre Fresh” must have covered my darker side. Here and now is my chance to lead a guiltless life. You will be the odd one if you order your lunch without the beer. Cider for the ladies.

#5 Queue crazy
Actually this my real favourite. It almost seems like my English-speaking friends love to stand in the queue. Something tells me its part of their religion. Why else would there be so many queues all over London. From smallest roadside newstand to the plushest of plush malls have innumerable queues. The queues only seem to grow as the the shops add more tills. Just draw a yellow line with the words “stand behind this line” and you will have a dozen folks ready to fall in line. Memorize this one. It will save your life some day. I once walked up to a newstand which seemed deserted to buy a pack of cigarette. The vendor gave me a cold stare and then I heard a booming hello (not greeting definitely) behind me. A solitary customer apparently was waiting in the “queue”  for the vendor to say “next please.” I almost gave up smoking that day.

(Photo by S Kalyana Ramanathan)

I could see him from my second floor balcony. He was a black man in this early 50s, wearing a thin pullover to suit the mild-warm English summer. Apart from the silver chain around his thick neck that glimmered a bit from the bright sunlight, there was nothing to suggest that the man was endowed with reasonable wealth. His grey tracks that stopped a few inches above his ankles and the worn-out black sneakers suggested this even more.  Yet something about him suggested that he was serious about his dreams.

He was sitting at the park bench opposite to the waterfront (a small man made tributary drawn from the famed Thames) and staring at the brochure he must have picked up from the Royal Quay sales office.

The sales brochure was in all-color printed on high quality art paper alluring any prospective property owner to buy a piece of dream that is built on the East-end Docklands.

He did not seem to be reading this brochure. Rather he was simply staring at the pictures. At one point I could clearly see him stroke with right thumb a particular section of the map that said where he was sitting or where his dream house was located on the map. As he turned the pages more pictures of show apartments stared at him. He wasn’t smiling. He seemed a bit afraid, may be a little nervous to be precise, almost as if his mind was oscillating between reality and possibility.

About 10 minutes later he quietly stood up and made a small semi-circle around the waterfront and measured his steps towards the sales office. What happened after that I do not know. But I would like to believe that he decided to buy a house in the Royal Quay and someday I will bump into him in the elevator and say hello. He may nod back and not give a second thought about the stranger he just met in the elevator. And I will not tell him that he once shared his dream with me and am glad he secured his future and that of his children.

All this is possible. Reports in the media suggest that prices in the UK have now fallen to March 2005 levels. After all every dark cloud has a silver lining to it. And the cup sure is half full. All this if you wish to see it…

UK’s venerable paper The Guardian on April 15, 2009 updated its website with 9 video footages of policing excesses witnessed on April 1, 2009 during the G-20 protest near Bank of England headquarters. The death of an innocent newsagent Ian Tomlinson during the protest triggered a wave of witnesses coming forward to share their own shot of police using excessive force to manage the crowd.

Tomlinson had died of a heart attack at the protest scene and was first believed to be a victim of a situation no one in particular can be blamed. But days later, after the G-20 leaders had gone back home, a video sent to The Guardian by a New York fund manager shot using his mobile phone camera revealed that Tomlinson was actually pushed around by a cop before he collapsed and died on the street. Independent Police Complaints Commission is looking into this matter.

A couple of days back yet another video emerged that showed another cop actually slapping a lady protester before hitting her with his baton. This smart lady now has a PR manager appointed to manage her interviews with the media. And guess who is this publicist who is helping her – it is Max Clifford who handled late Jade Goody’s public relations!

The irony of this situation is that all these video footages have come from private citizens using their not-so-sophisticated mobile cameras. No official video of the police excess is out in the public domain yet. After all the cops were given cameras and even got a vantage point perched up high pedestal shooting the protest scene. I was there at the G-20 protest (as a journalist of course) and am not imagining these things.

Britain’s penchant for placing cameras in public places is now world famous. On the basis of an outdated statistic (as old as 2002), there are at least 4.2 million CCTV cameras in public places in the UK. This means there is one camera for every 14 people in the UK. The walking tour guides tell that on an average, while you are on the streets of London, you are shot by one of these cameras some 300 times a day!

Yet how the cops near Bank of England during the G-20 protest manage not being shot on one of their own cameras is a miracle in itself. Or weren’t there enough CCTV cameras at the protest venue? That is hard to believe given the protest was happening right outside Bank of England headquarters. Personally I cannot think of a more vulnerable spot in all of the UK, every inch of which needs to be watched.