Page 82 - EducationWorld Feb 2021 Low

Postscript

Middle class triumph commissioned serious and intelligent movie directors in
India (and other countries) to provide cinema which also
informs and educates the public. For mysterious reasons,
HE INDIAN CRICKET TEAM’S 2-1 SERIES WIN Bollywood movie moguls haven’t grasped the reality
against Australia and particularly the January 19 that India’s educated upper middle class audience is as
Ttriumph at Brisbane’s Gabba cricket ground on numerous as the entire populations of Britain and France.
which no visiting team has won a match since 1988, was Despite your correspondent in previous avatars as edi-
indeed a famous victory. Especially after the visiting In- tor of Business India and Businessworld having written
dian team was bowled out for 36 in the first test match in pioneer features on Bollywood’s unnecessarily high-risk
Adelaide, the lowest ever test match score in the history business model, the film industry’s moguls never grasped
of Indian cricket. This amazing turnaround is attributed market segmentation. On the other hand, Netflix’s
to a score and more virtues of the team’s leadership and co-founders Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph, and
grit, determination, fortitude and pride, not to speak of later Jeff Bezos who hopped aboard the global Internet
excellent skills. connectivity wagon in the late 1990s, have been quick
Nevertheless the rise of Indian cricket in the inter- to co-opt the cultivated middle class as subscribers by
national firmament is attributable to a deeper socio- producing high quality, locally directed, realistic, low-cost
economic phenomenon — steady expansion of the middle feature films such as A Suitable Boy, White Tiger, the sto-
class after the process of liberalisation and deregulation ries of Rabindranath Tagore, among others. Such slicing
of the Indian economy began in the 1980s. In the final and dicing of audience markets is beyond the capabilities
analysis, courage, conviction, goal-setting and continu- of Bollywood producers who are destined to ride into the
ous learning and self-correction are essentially middle sunset in the near future.
class virtues. And it should also be borne in mind that
cricket — the most sophisticated game ever invented, ac-
cording to historian Ramachandra Guha — is an expen- Connected indices
sive middle class game. A half-decent cricket bat costs
Rs.5,000 and a leather cricket ball Rs.600. Add a pair of NE OF THE MOST REGULARLY ADVANCED
batting gloves, leg pads, boots and paraphernalia and the arguments in favour of the BJP/NDA govern-
bill of a complete cricket kit mounts up to Rs.25,000. Lit- Oment at the Centre by its fervent supporters is that
tle wonder that Thangarasu Natarajan (29), a village lad compared to the Congress-led UPA-I and UPA-II govern-
who played a stellar role in India’s victory at the Gabba, ments (2004-14), which were neck-deep in corruption, it
had never bowled a genuine cricket ball until age 19. is pristine pure.
The moral of this story of triumph over adversity is However, the Berlin-based Transparency Interna-
that quality, holistic education — integrating co-curricular tional (TI), an independent NGO which measures the
and sports education — is the prerequisite of attaining incidence of public corruption in 180 countries based on
middle class status which in turn is the precondition of the perceptions of experts and business people, says that
success in sports arenas and playing fields of the world. official corruption has increased over the past year. TI’s
Unfortunately there’s little awareness of this connectivity latest Corrupton Perceptions Index (CPI) 2020, pub-
within the neta-babu brotherhood which frames public lished on January 29, shows that with a score of 40/100
policy, or indeed within parents obsessed with academic (0=absolutely clean and 100 absolutely corrupt), India is
swotting. ranked #86, i.e, less corrupt than 94 countries but more
corrupt than 85. In 2019, it was #80, i.e, public officials
Lesson for Bollywood have become more corrupt. Rwanda (#49) South Africa
(69), Argentina (78) and even China (78) are perceived as
less corrupt. The only consolation is that Sri Lanka (94),
ITH HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF industry Indonesia (102), Pakistan (124) and Bangladesh (142) are
professionals and business people obliged to more corrupt.
Wwork from home and schools and higher educa- Transparency International’s CPI should be read
tion institutions shut down for months on end, OTT (de- together with the Word Bank’s Ease of Doing Business In-
fined “as a means of providing television and film content dex. In the latest EoDBI 2020 published in October 2019,
over the Internet at the request and to suit the require- India ranks #63 among 190 countries and has moved up
ments of the individual consumer”) content providers by 14 spots this year. In 2015, India was ranked #130.
such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Videos have completely But before uncorking the champagne, please note that
transformed the movies and television entertainment the EoDBI 2020 survey for India is restricted to Mumbai
industries. For educated middle class Indians fed up with and Delhi where access of businessmen to the courts and
the tedious, ill-scripted blood and thunder, song-n-dance media is relatively easy. In other cities and towns where
formula movies produced by the brain-dead badshahs itchy palm netas and babus are the rule than exception,
of Bollywood and its regional clones, OTT content has the #130 ranking is probably more accurate. Consider
come as huge compensation for the Covid-19 pandemic this: EoDBI 2020 ranks India #136 for starting a business;
which has swept the world and India, and prompted the #154 for registering a property; #115 for paying taxes;
lockdown of industry, business and education institutions #68 for trading across borders and #163 for enforcing
since last March. contracts. On the Human Development Index 2020 of the
The brilliant brain wave of Reed Hastings, promoter United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), India
of Netflix, and Jeff Bezos of Amazon Prime is that they is ranked 131 out of 189 countries. Connect the dots!

82 EDUCATIONWORLD FEBRUARY 2021